Another thread about sensitivity to smells triggered me to do this one to see if anyone else here has this…
I have Phantosmia. Phantom smells, olfactory hallucinations. There’s a strong odor I smell that no one else does, and no physical reason for it to be there.
Usually it’s cigarette smoke. We even moved years ago to escape what I thought was smoke coming through the air vents of a neighboring apartment. Drove me crazy! I still smelled it in the new house, my car, at work, everywhere. Lately, the last couple months, it’s been gasoline or what reminds me of the smell of exhaust from a 2 cycle engine, like gas powered lawn equipment.
I can still smell other things, but the phantom is constant. I have it nearly all the time. Even outside in what should be fresh air.
Some people have it due to sinus infections, brain rumors, seizures, Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s. As far as i know, mine is associated with chronic migraines I began having in my 30’s. I’ve had the MRI, CT, and other tests.
It’s annoying. Have you ever had this? I think it’s more common than gets reported.
I experience this once in a while. My last prolonged episode of it was when I was weaning myself off antidepressants. It lasted for weeks (unusual for me) and I thought it was permanent, but eventually it did subside.
I really can’t say what it smells like. I’m not sure if that is because it really is unique, or because our language doesn’t have enough vocabulary for smells. The first time I smelled it, it was triggered by pizza, but I wouldn’t say that that is what the smell is.
I have phantom smells. My doctor told me it was a fairly common side effect of menopause. I do have it less as more time passes. One of my most persistent is the smell of gas, as in a gas leak. I also smell food cooking sometimes and no one else smells it, but I’m not convinced; food may be being cooked somewhere! I get that gasoline one sometimes too. Weird.
Last year, I experienced the imaginary smell of cigarette smoke for about a month. It drove me freaking crazy, so much so that I asked about it on this very message board.
My doctor attributed it to a sinus infection and said it would go away on its own, which it did. Then, last month, it came back along with a wicked cold that lasted about three weeks. Thankfully, it’s gone now.
So, in my case at least, it appears to b entirely related to infections.
Wow. Over the past month or so, as our allergy season really got going, I would smell what seemed like cigarette smoke in our house, where no one has smoked for at least ten years, even with the windows closed. Given that my doctor attributes pretty much every symptom of any kind that I have to perimenopause and that I have a history of both migraines and sinus infections, I’ll just assume that it’s something common rather than shelling out for the co-pay.
It’s gotten better over the past week, but I often smell things wrong if my allergies are acting up or I have a stuffy nose. I’ll experience the smell of coffee brewing as the smell of cat pee, for instance.
Ever notice that the phantom smells tend to be noxious rather than pleasant?
I’ve had a couple of olfactory hallucinations, usually prodrome or postdrome migraine.
Once, in college, in the middle of a lecture, I was absolutely sure I smelled smoke, so I raised a hand and asked if anyone else did. No one said yes. There I was thinking I’d imagined the whole thing, but at the next class, two days later, the teacher mentioned that there had been a pile of leaves in a sunken window well next to the basement that had started smoldering and had to be put out with a fire extinguisher a couple of hours after I’d smelled it.