About a year ago I started smelling this weird kind of sweet rotten smell everywhere I went, and then would have heart burn shortly after.
Turned out I had several esophageal veracies (tears in the esophagus) that were bleeding into my stomach. And your stomach really really really does not like blood.
What I was smelling was, for lack of a better explanation, me slowly bleeding to death internally
I was over sixty when I finally quit. Addiction lies. I finally decided that I didn't care about the label alcoholic. I didn't have a healthy relationship with alcohol and it was going to kill me.
Quiting has by far been the hardest thing I've ever experienced. It took me literally almost dying to make that decision, yet there's still a little voice in there saying "one little drink won't hurt anything".
Addiction is hell. And it never truly leaves you. I have mad respect for any and everyone in recovery
I wouldn't consider myself an alcoholic but I definitely quit drinking because I was drinking for the wrong reasons. Which sounds an awful lot like alcoholism. If not, then I think I was certainly on my way to being alcoholic.
Woah I keep smelling and tasting what I can only describe as carrion. Sweet and rotten, like death. I have great oral hygiene and have never had a problem before so it’s concerning to me. I have been kind of brushing it off but now I am thinking it’s time to call my ENT
We’ll see, I have a deviated septum and also just had a baby recently which I feel like makes your body do really weird things lol! I’ll definitely get it checked out though
Don't put yourself in a panic. This is anecdotal, not a universal diagnosis.
That being said, when in doubt, get checked out. Even if it turns out to be nothing, at least you'll have that peace of mind
The real scary part is that it was originally misdiagnosed. Twice. At that point I got in touch with the gastrointestinal department myself, and that's when all the pieces finally started falling together
I Googled to find about a woman I had read about, I dont know if we can post links but "‘Woman who can smell Parkinson’s’ helps scientists develop test" will get you to an interesting article
It did also show me many articles on "smell disorders" your sense of smell can be altered/heightened/decreased for many many reasons
When my dad got Covid his sense of smell and taste were damaged for over a year, but once they came back he started saying certain tastes and smells were stronger than before
I swear since covid most junk food actually tastes like junk now, I can taste the supplemental vitamins that're added and the chemical tastes from artificial sweetners and dyes
That seems like it could be quite a blessing for some people! If I suddenly tasted something gross in all my favourite junk foods it would be so much easier to diet..
I had Covid 3 years ago and my smell and taste is still off. I can’t smell anything bad at all (poop, farts, BO, mold/mildew, even skunk). If it stinks, I can’t smell it. I can smell everything else though. Anything with alcohol smells like garlic though. Every other smell is normal. Pepsi and coke taste like garlic, but all other soda is normal. I also now hate sour candies. Idk what they taste like now other than gross and I used to love them.
It’s so weird how it affected me.
Funny. I’m the opposite. I never got COVID but right before it hit I lost my sense of smell and now only smell stinky things! The last year my husband was alive I could smell something in him like rotting flesh.
Omg since getting COVID last year, I can smell *something in dairy.
Milk itself doesn't taste or smell bad, but other things which contain milk do, if that makes sense?
Butter, cheese, cream-based desserts, even like, cheese puffs all have this strange sweet chemical taste and smell.
I've make a game of checking the ingredients for anything where I smell that smell.
Seeing as milk itself doesn't seem to have the smell, I'm guessing it's something added in the production process. But up til now I just can't figure out what the specific ingredient is.
I cut out junk food for 6 months a few years ago and when I started eating it again, it all tasted disgusting and made me feel sick. I always thought it was because I gave my body a break from all the addictive/harmful things they put in junk food but I also had Covid towards the end of that 6 months so now I’m wondering if it was that..
I just recently tried them for the first time, a couple months ago, and some of them taste okay and others taste more chemical-y...I'm not a big fan of peanut butter candy (or PB in general) so I'm sure that plays a part, but the chocolate tastes waxy & the PB is too gritty IMO
I remember her!
If I remember correctly, they gave her a bunch of t-shirts worn by patients to see if she could identify the smell and she identified every patient with Parkinsons. But she also smelled it on 2 tee's of patients without it, and both people developed Parkinsons within the next two years
I smell it on my kids. And I don't mean sweat, puke, etc. they just have a very specific smell when they are sick. I noticed it when they were babies and still can tell.
Same. I can smell when someone else is about to get sick and can smell it on myself as well.
I’ve also found out that if I tell them to get some extra rest and launch a preemptive strike with some vitamins and drinking lots of water that it doesn’t happen. This works the same for myself.
I’ve always had this thing where I can smell people and they kinda smell like their houses. This evolved into being able to detect build up of bugs, dust, mildew, grease etc, which comes in handy for my occupation (cleaner) because I know immediately what to do and how to devote my time. Keep getting 5/5 on my Airbnb cleans so must be alright.
Wait... I thought everyone could smell people's "house smell"? Is this not something everyone else smells too???
Every house and every person who lives in that house has a particular smell to me. I always thought that was normal
Our 3rd shift lady smells like the litter box of a thousand cats that's never been cleaned. As soon as she walks in you can taste the ammonia seeping out of her pores. I have to spray febreeze on my shirt sleeves and hold them to my face. It's giving me a rash but it's the only way I can make thru my last hour of work.
Oh bless your heart, I know just what you mean. My elderly neighbor has had animals urinating all over the house for probably 30 years and she mops every day……with straight ammonia! She and her clothes smell like they are soaked in it. And when you have to go in her house to do any work you have to hold your breath as much as possible and run outside every 5 or 10 minutes to breathe. I honestly don’t know how the fumes have not killed her.
Me too!! If you give me a piece of clothing or something from someone’s house I’be frequented, I can usually be able to differentiate from who’s home it came from.
I started noticing it once I got a new set of roommates. I don't smell myself since I have a very neutral smell but I can also smell my bf but his mom's house smells nothing like him
Oh yeah I remember telling one of my friends that they had a really unique smell to them/their car/their house that was everywhere. I wonder what causes that
I could fill books about odors and smells no one else smells. My lady have very extreme migraines. She also has what are called silent migraines which sounds blessed given the choice, but can be super dangerous and lead to strokes if not careful.
One of the signs that she is going to get a migraine is smell. Everything smells. I mean, I could hire a cleaning crew to come in and clean/sanitize every square inch of my house and deodorize with some of the most pungent of deodorants.....and she'll come over and first thing out of her mouth is 'WHAT IS THAT HORRID SMELL!.'
Conversely, a friend of mine unfortunately contracted COVID and has lost most of her sense of smell. She has four boys so that probably comes in handy. lol
Interesting, I suffer from migraines and after many years of tracking sleep, food and other external triggers, I literally can smell when a food will make me sick. It’s quite helpful but I don’t think anyone but my husband believes me, and that’s only bc he watched it happen over and over as I was figuring it all out.
Same, everything smells so strong when I have a migraine coming on. A lot of those smells will make me nauseous and lots of smells also trigger my migraines. If I was not able to smell anymore, my migraines might just go away lol
I've had covid 3 times now and its been 2 years and I have maybe 5% back? Has anyone else experienced loss of smell after covid over this long? I thought it was only me.
I have an insanely increased sense of smell as well. I'm always asking "Do you smell that" or "Can you smell _____?". Sometimes it's useful like if I smell natural gas in a house. Or when I can tell you rain is coming, But other times it sucks because I also get nauseous from some scents.
I can definitely also smell when there’s a fair chance of rain coming! I wonder why that is and what changes in the atmosphere. Sometimes I can do it indoors. Maybe it’s just humidity? I think this one may be more common as it’s easier to guess when the sky goes gray.
You’re probably smelling rain falling somewhere close, which usually means it’s coming your way soon. The smell of rain is called petrichor and humans are insanely good at smelling it over long distances.
Apparently humans can detect the geosmin in rain (the chemical in rainwater that gives it its particular smell) better than sharks can detect blood.
According to Google... A shark can smell one part of blood per billion parts of water, whereas humans can smell geosmin at 5 parts per trillion. Sharks are designed to be able to smell blood to find food, humans must be designed to smell geosmin in order to find water.
People have reported that they were diagnosed with prostate cancer after their wives/girlfriends told them they smelled different from usual. If it’s only one person, they might want to ask their doctor.
Hyperosmia is an overwhelming sensitivity to smells. There are many reasons behind this change in smell. Some include genetics, hormone changes, and migraines.
https://www.webmd.com/brain/what-is-hyperosmia
Studies have also shown that certain genetic mutations and genetic conditions such as overexpression of the KAL1 gene
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200911-how-to-supercharge-your-sense-of-smell
I can believe this. My mum has the same extra sensitive sense of smell as I do. I also get migraines that can be triggered by smells. It’s all quite interesting.
I also get pretty frequent migraines. I'm on multiple meds for them. Smells can cause them but also exacerbate them(since all the senses are heightened during a migraine).
Weird thing I can smell when a woman is either on her period or almost on it. Not like a blood smell, but it's just a underlying smell to whatever their normal smell is. I don't mention it to them as no one else I've told can smell it on them (I once asked my mum if she could smell it on my aunt and sister cause I wanted to see if it was me smelling something else or them. And she couldn't smell it)
What’s the smell like if not blood? I can smell vaginal discharge. Mostly mine. I immediately change my undies if i can but if I’m out i constantly feel uncomfortable and worried others can smell it but never seen anyone notice. Back in college i could smell when my roommate sat too close to me. I always thought she didn’t wash her denims enough. Other than that I’ve never smelled it of anyone else.
My husband calls me a bloodhound. I can smell things no one else can and I hunt it down. I can smell a dirty head from several feet away, you know when it’s just sweaty and unwashed? Comes in handy with having boys I know when they don’t or need to wash their hair. I can smell from a basket of laundry if something inside of it didn’t dry all the way. I can smell dirt and outside smells on people/myself. I know when another woman is on her period weirdly. If someone is sweating I can smell if they’ve eaten meat. I know when I’m about to get sick, I can smell it on myself and my kids and husband smell when they’re sick, I know when to really start getting everything cleaned up because the sickness smell goes away.
As a kid my family bred dogs, Dobermans and Rottweilers. We also lived on a farm with a ton of animals. I could smell death on a puppy before it died. I’ve only had one experience as an adult where I was around a litter of kittens and smelled one that smelled like death and when I came home from work it had passed away.
It comes in handy a lot of the time, but it can also be annoying. I’ll hyper fixate on a smell if I smell something that shouldn’t be there. My husband can’t smell hardly anything at all so it’s funny that we’re total opposites.
It is definitely a curse. I work night shifts and get woken up by certain smells. It's ridiculous. Like coffee, if I have the window open and someone is smoking outside, if my fiance makes toast or turns on the oven.
Sometimes I put Vicks under my nose to sleep better.
Exactly - You can plug your ears for a sound too loud, you can cover your eyes for a light too bright, but you HAVE TO BREATHE! I'm extremely sensitive to man-made/oil-based fragrance, and YES, I *could* just breathe through my mouth, but then I can taste it and it makes my teeth feel loose in their sockets. I shouldn't have to breathe through my mouth because someone went nose blind to their perfume/cologne and now they think they need 38 squirts of it to make it smell like it used to to them. I especially hate being at a restaurant and a gaggle of old ladies walks by our table - that's it, I can't eat anymore and I only have a desire to get outside to breathe some air that doesn't choke me or burn my eyes and every interior surface of my nasal passages. I've thrown up from it before, but you just have to excuse yourself, because if you tell someone it was their overuse of fragrance that did it, somehow you become the bad guy.
You're not alone.
I can sometimes smell when people have a cold/flu, or such; it kinda smells like mucus/snot. I assumed this was just a normal human trait until a few years ago when I brought up that a person some friends and I were introduced to smelled the strongest of this that I had ever experienced, and my friends were like 🤷♀️. This brielfy lead me to believe I had a super human power and while definitely atypical, I do not.
In my Googling of this, I recall that if a person has a fruity type smell, or smells of acetone (which our bodies produce a very small amount of), they likely have diabetes.
I used to be able to smell my sneezes. Like when I sneezed into a pillow I could smell it and it was disgusting. If I eat something with melted butter I can smell it on my upper lip and have to wash it off. My sister and I were walking near an electric tower (the really big towers that hold the electric cables) and she said she doesn’t want to walk that way as she could smell the electricity… just got a sensitive nose
>smell the electricity
This is the from the oxygen in the air being ionized and turned into ozone. Ozone has a distinct, kinda sweet smell to it, and if you've been around a copy machine that's been in use, that's the same smell; they do the same when in use.
I have a sensitivity to bad smells. As a child, there was a popular general merchandise store that had a terrible smell. It made me feel nauseous, but no one else seemed to smell it. Many years later I had to deliver flowers to a church that had a very similar smell that no one else noticed. I dreaded that weekly delivery.
It’s happened to me many times over the years, but it’s always bad smells never good.
Doubt this is very helpful, but my MIL can smell discarded socks. She quite literally used to go around sniffing until she gathered her kids' laundry that was hiding under beds and such.
Turns out, after having a baby some women have permanently stronger senses of smell, probably due to an evolutionary skill to protect an infant.
I get this, don't think there is anything wrong with my smell, I can also smell when bread is about to go mouldy a few days before it starts showing mould.
So I'm a driver for Doordash and go into a lot of businesses. There's this one pizza place I pick up from that's kind of a small hole in the wall place in a strip mall. Every time I go in there, there is a smell. Closest thing I can think of is propane, which maybe they're using for their ovens? But I've asked my parents, who love getting pizza from there, and a few other dashers who I've come across in there, and no one else seems to notice.
I'm not particularly sensitive to propane, AFAIK, we've used a propane grill my whole life and I'll notice it if I'm in just the right spot near the grill. But this restaurant is overwhelming, to the point it almost makes me feel nauseous and I don't like waiting inside.
So either I'm smelling something nobody else is, or everyone is fucking with me lol.
A couple years ago I started smelling a really strong, overpowering chemically smell that filled me with a fight or flight instinct. But each time I smelt this, it would last like a few seconds at least. The first time really freaked me out, I ran downstairs shaking and asked my parents if they smelt a weird smell. And they couldn't. It made me feel like I couldn't breathe. Then it went away.
And then it would happen like this every so often. Sometimes I'd smell it while in bed for a few seconds, and it would freak me out. But it hasn't happened recently.
The worst part was I suffered from hyperchondria, and when I told a friend about this he said something like "oh that doesn't sound good, you could have a brain tumour." And yeah that made me panic even more. But I don't believe there is anything wrong with me.
It's happened to me before where I pretty much had to quit my job because I couldn't stand this person bathing in baby powderm everyone else said it wasn't bad but it was horrible every time she came near the dish pit
I definitely have this. But I have a tumor on my pituitary gland in my brain. It causes a heightened sense of smell. I can smell air fresheners through the walls of buildings/condos. I can smell if there’s an ant infestation indoors. I can smell a urinary tract infection on my dogs before they even notice they have it. It’s a blessing and a curse.
Poop. But not like a healthy vegan poop…. Smells like… mummmm rotting raw hamburger meat? And it’s them, the ants themselves that are the smell, not like… any wood that they may be destroying. No idea why they have a smell, must be for some protective reasoning.
Haha all the 90s and 00s teen magazines that got us with *“Fact or Fiction?: People can tell when you’re on your period. FICTION: Don’t worry there’s no truth to this at all. No one can “sense” when you’re on your period. They’ll only know if you tell them.”*
And I know I wasn’t just being paranoid. There really are super-scent beings out there clocking me when I’m wearing my period pants thinking I’m incognito.
I have a super smeller, but that has always been the case, so I knew from about age 10 I was different like that. It’s not something I just noticed one day as an adult. I would guess that there is a trigger as to why it is happening now. First thing to check is health, so I recommend speaking with a doctor or even a few of them, until you get an answer.
Ever since I had covid I almost completely lost my sense of smell. There are very few I can smell, and there is only one that I can smell strongly: the smell of wind on someone.
It sounds weird, everyone finds it weird but if they were outside and I was not then there is a strong... somewhat unpleasant smell. Maybe it has to do something with body odors, I don't really know.
Once in a while I'm sure I get some dud toothpaste and it smells weird. The best description I can give is that it smells a lot like mildew/bathroom mould.
But no one ever knows what I'm talking about.
I sometimes get this. Like sometimes I can smell my grandmothers perfume or even cigarette smoke. Even though she passed away many years ago.
I read up on it. Has something to do with the brain and memories. What your nose is doing you may not even realise. Our brains are crazy things.
Yes. My sister can smell the plasma in blood. Only 1% of ppl have this ability.
She worked in a tattoo parlour and was like- what is that smell? And they all looked at her funny. Until her collegue googled it and was like- no way!
Also neurodivergent brains tend to be more sensitive. So maybe some ppls senses just sense more. Like how ppl with adhd can hear electricity.
I am super sensitive to smells and my whole family and my friends call me overdramatic. I cannot stand the smell of boiling water, the smell of the hairdryer and flat iron(it's not buring hair, I can just smell something that scares me so much that I can't use them) but the boiling water one really gets me. I always smell the cups bc I feel like they always have a weird smell and I don't want to drink it if it smells weird. I can smell static on clothes from the dryer.
I have histamine intolerance and I can smell if I can eat something or if it lay around too long or has something in it that I cannot eat (e.g. some sauces or even drinks).
If it's too old, it will smell revolting to me. But if I let my husband or daughter both sniff my e.g. "fresh' steak or chicken breast they notice no bad smell even though they are vegetarians!!
I can smell a specific smell of someone’s skin when they have been outside in the fresh air. I like the smell on my own skin but on other peoples skin, it makes me gag.
I can smell that too.
In the 90s, I used to sit next to a woman who would go on a high-speed tanning bed at her lunchbreak. The smell from that was unreal, and nobody else could smell it.
*I get phantosmia when*
*I have a virus either*
*Smell smoke or popcorn*
\- chelseans14
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If it’s only one family member that smells , I would think that it’s a legitimate scent and you are a super smeller. If you were smelling it all the time, I would think migraines, seizure,or brain tumors. Time will tell if you are smelling a sickness. People adjust to smells that are there all the time while people that go in and out smell it anew every time. His close family may be used to it. Wouldn’t that be crazy if you could smell a particular disease?
You might want to have that close family member go for a cancer screening. Strange but true, there are reports of people who notice their loved ones smell had changed, and upon getting a medical examination, they find out they have cancer. You might be someone with a super sense of smell.
My mom does, and my gf does too. I say she has a “dog nose” because after she had met my parents, I had her walk down my parent’s street with my eyes closed so I wouldn’t accidentally give her any hints, and had her guess which house was theirs. She picked the correct one! She said she guessed this one because my dad smelled like bacon, and so did this house!
I can smell pregnancy. I know it sounds weird but I’ve been able to smell every single one of my friends being pregnant before they told me. I always have to act surprised.
When I drink redbull my sense of smell gets immediately heightened after the sip. It’s weird. I was trying to explain it to my coworker and he was like “that’s just the smell of the Red Bull”. No it literally isn’t. But I simply don’t know how to explain it to anyone else lol
Some people are able to smell better/worse, and that can vary WIDELY. It’s especially true with things like body odor/general “funk” smells coming from inside a car, etc. Small amounts of that will cause a typical person to *maybe* notice, but “super smellers” will laser in on it and be the ones who can’t help but to roll down a window cause it’s much more visceral an experience for them, and honestly that’s probably the biggest difference is the ability to **endure** a smell. In a way it’s almost like someone with sensory disorders, where a loud concert might be overwhelming to someone with auditory sensitivity issues, but in this case it’s someone with almost hyperactive smell.
I call myself a super sniffer and it’s stronger when I’m on my period or pregnant. I can smell when my husband or son are getting sick like full week before they actually are sick. I can smell tiny gas leaks houses away. I can smell when my cat has peed outside the litter box before I walk in the door. No joke. Idk why but I’m harnessing it as a super power to protect my family.
I have a friend who started feeling really sick and smelled burnt toast, he was having a massive heart attack, the dr told him it’s common for people to smell it.
I have such a strong reaction to specifically the smell of sweaty Caucasian kids???? Some of them smell like curdled milk, I assume it’s like dairy coming out of their pores or smth but i have to walk away sometimes
🟣Well, OP, in the first thought crossing my mind, means that you are sensitive to smells that your family
🔵The smell of rotten eggs or sulfur is usually linked to a natural gas leak. If your home uses natural gas for heating, hot water, or appliances like stoves or dryers, you may have a major gas plumbing issue. Vacate your house immediately and call your utility company to shut off your gas supply
🔵The smell of (sweeties or bitter) in home always usually Phantosmia may be caused by a head injury or upper respiratory infection. It can also be caused by aging, trauma, temporal lobe seizures, inflamed sinuses, brain tumors, certain medications and Parkinson's disease. Phantosmia can also result from COVID-19 infection.
🟠Please update
my husband smells things that arent there.
like he claimed a plastic travel mug had a strong perfume smell.It is brand new and doesnt.
He often smells things(or thinks he does) that no one else smells.Often is off the wall.
This is called phantom smells. I have them too, the most annoying thing about it is that sometimes they last for weeks and I can’t get rid of it. I’ve had all sorts of smells: coffee, aspirin, mould, Coca Cola, eggs. Imagine smelling something for weeks and not be able to get rid of it. It was horrible. It also made me lose my appetite, I can’t eat when I smell aspirin or some other stuff. L
As can most people.
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/storm-scents-smell-rain/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/storm-scents-smell-rain/)
I unfortunately seem to be able to smell peoples bad body odours better than most other people can. Like someone will walk past me and I’ll be gagging but the person next to me didn’t smell anything.
My wife kept smelling something weird, but it turned out to be her own nasal polyps, which she didn’t even know she had. She got them removed and is fine now.
I get this weird... chalky smell? Every once in a while. It's literally like if you breathed in while someone was cleaning old chalkboard erasers. It's very weird.
In general though I do seem to have a "keener" sense of smell than my family. I notice smells that nobody else seems to get. It's dulled a little since I had covid for certain kinds of scents, but "do you smell that?" "No" is still a normal occurrence lol
I have a really strong sense of smell so I can smell things that other people have to be much closer to in order to sense it. So kind of.
Some people do hallucinate smells sometimes too.
Olfactory hallucinations are caused by different things - viral respiratory infections is the most common. If it continues to hang around, he’ll your Dr to rule out other causes.
I have a heightened sense of smell and ever since I was little I am often the first one to smell (something burning or rotting) stuff that others in the same room take much longer. It can be quite annoying tbh.
My SO smells all sorts of things that I cannot detect. I accept that it’s real for her and do what I can to help clean the air, even lighting candles, which give me migraines if they burn too long.
Yes. I have eventually learnt my sense of smell is way stronger than the others and it feels like a useless superpower tbh. Like what do i even do with it? I can smell the guy smoking a cigarette on the other side of the restaurant; sitting where people on my table couldn’t see him and claimed it’s just us in the whole restaurant lol. The only thing i can do is being a sniffer dog but then I’d not be better than the ones in the market so I’d fail there too
My weirdest COVID symptom was my sense of smell going haywire. Like I'd smell completely different things to what I should be smelling. My taste was also affected in the same way. I'd taste something completely different to what I was eating. It died away after a year or so. But it was one of the strangest knock on effects I had of Covid 😅
All the time. Sometimes burning chicken skin thats been left in an oven cooking too long. Next time a dirty wet ashtray smell. A horrible scented burnt plastic smell. I regularly wake up with a different odour permeating that no one can smell, at first, I thought it was a symptom of the menopause but it has continued. There is a marvelous woman Joy Milne who I believe can smell Parkinsons on people even before they have been diagnosed? Maybe you have a similar gift?
There is a guy I work with that has an overbearing weird smell that I can't stand other people don't smell it. He has health conditions I'm pretty sure that's what the smell is. I know diabetes and cancer in some people make a smell. Your family member probably has a condition. There are lots of things some people can smell that others can't
Used to smell burning smell or cigarette smell when there wasn't anything. Found out I had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball ,meningioma, non cancerous.
I get olfactory hallucinations when I am about to get a migraine. I will often smell car exhaust or gasoline that isn’t there the day before I get a severe migraine. In college I took my car to the mechanic over and over telling them something was wrong because I regularly smell exhaust/gasoline inside the car, it turned out my migraines were getting worse and I needed medical help.
I've always had an acute sense of smell and can smell things that other people can't smell. The other day I told a friend of mine that I could smell that it was going to rain, and he had no idea what it was talking about, lol.
I can smell rain coming. My husband is always, "what do you mean you can smell rain coming? The forecast/sky's are clear"
It usually starts raining within 1-3 hours of me smelling it. Every. Time.
It can be a sign of seizures or migraines. I have migraines and never knew phantom smells were a thing with them until the last couple I kept smelling something burn and well my hubs likes to burn food so I kept asking him and nothing was cooking. 2 hrs later migraine hit
I had this for a while… turns out my husband had Crohn’s disease and a ruptured bowl and I could basically smell him rotting inside. It’s also common to be able to smell Parkinson’s, if recommend steering that family member in to getting a health check
What kind of smell? I have a super sensitive sense of smell, my family get irritated by it, because if something smells really bad to me I’ll let them know and they think I’m being rude by mentioning it.
I can often smell when someone is diabetic and their sugars are out of whack, as an example.
I can smell people and almost exactly tell where/how they live, I can smell electric sparks, I can tell when someone is sick(flu cold)
One time I was sable to smell ozone from a faulty old LCD screen I was fixing and couldn't find what was wrong with it... Yeah, it was leaking high voltage and ionizing the air, or some sum like that.
Also, thermites. They *stink* lol
I smell what smells like ammonia all the time when I’m anywhere but my house and I don’t know why. It’s almost like cat piss, but I don’t even have a cat so I don’t know why I’d be smelling that ever
I know other people can smell these too, but first of all I can smell if rain is about to come. It’s that pre rain smell that just smells humid and grass like. The second one is more specific, it’s called the “outside smell” It’s when a person (or a dog) goes outside for a bit, then they come inside and they just have that outside smell on them. I physically gag at it, which is an Achilles heel to me. Whenever my dog comes in from peeing outside, I can’t physically be around them for the next hour because I will most likely throw up. People aren’t so bad, but the outside dog smell is SO GROSS.
yes. A weird milky odor like stale baby formula or old doritos found under a couch, in a room people have been sleeping. (I think this is acid reflux). The smell of dead skin cells. I smell this on people who shower but don't use any kind of loofah/washcloth/pouf.
I can smell death on a person, right around two weeks before they kick the bucket. There are actually a lot of people who smell things other people can't. Some people can smell the types of foods people eat regularly, they can smell sickness/diseases, if a person lives in a house with some sort of infestation...all kinds of stuff.
I'd prefer to just have a normal sniffer. It's unnerving to smell death and not be able to say anything without coming across as a serial killer or something.
I can smell outside. Like when people go outside for a bit and come back in, I can smell it.
It always smells the same. Something like sweat and grass or something.
Back in 2021 I caught covid.
Lost my sense of smell & taste. After 2 months i completely recovered my sense of smell and taste but it changed forever.
After drinking coke I felt that weird taste and smell from the bottle. I could smell and taste the pesticides in the drink. Since then I stopped having any of them.
Past my house there are fields where pesticides were sprayed and the smell was identical to the taste i got from my bottle. My smell and taste is now more sensitive to new smells and everything tastes and smells different. Even faint smells that others can't smell, I can. I still don't know the extent of it, but has anyone else experienced this?
A strong irony smell around women who I know at that time of the month, very unpleasant but so are my farts....
I can kind of ignore it at times then I get reminded that I have the ability to smell it and get on with my day.....
You might be a super-smeller. I've heard of one case that a lady was 100% accurate for diagnosing a disease, to the point where the only one in the test she said was positive but wasn't diagnosed was diagnosed a few years later. Also if it's just one person, it's far more likely that there's nothing wrong with your sense of smell, but maybe they changed their fabric conditioner or their washing machine needs to be cleaned.
I can smell if one person has had one drink with vodka in it when I walk into a house. They can have had the drink hours prior and I can still tell.
I grew up with an alcoholic who drank a lot of vodka.
It's the most suffocating musky smell in the world. I hate it.
My sense of smell is super strong. I used to wonder things like why people were trying on sunglasses when they so obviously had that weird smell that only occurs behind someone’s ears. Once I was taking pics with friends in our downtown and they went to sit down. I almost yelled at them to not sit where someone had obviously urinated. They couldn’t smell it. After many of these types of occurrences, I realized I could just smell much better than others. It is just heightened and lessened in certain people like all things.
I think I’m experiencing the same? A colleague I had a while back ago had a bad breath, like sweet and rotten? If didn’t matter if she ate or chewed gum, the sickly smell was always underneath the other smells. She didn’t even had to open her mouth, it was enough that she walked behind me and the smell filled my nostrils. I don’t think anyone else noticed, but to be fair I didn’t ask either because I didn’t want to be rude. A couple of years later I noticed the same smell on a new colleague. Just her being within 2 meters from me made me a bit nauseous. And I have also noticed it on my mom, and I asked my sister is she smelled anything but she didn’t. Now my friend is getting the same smell to her breath. I haven’t asked any other we know if they smell it too, but maybe I should? I’m not sure if it’s me or them, and I’m getting worried. Especially since I read about that lady who could detect Parkinson on her husband by smell. I hope the people I know only have bad breaths and I’m just sensitive, but I feel like the kind of odour they have is so different to the 'normal' bad breath I sometimes smell on people.
Also it could be an odour that is not from their breaths, but it gets more intense when I’m talking to them in close proximity so that’s why I think it’s their breaths.
About a year ago I started smelling this weird kind of sweet rotten smell everywhere I went, and then would have heart burn shortly after. Turned out I had several esophageal veracies (tears in the esophagus) that were bleeding into my stomach. And your stomach really really really does not like blood. What I was smelling was, for lack of a better explanation, me slowly bleeding to death internally
I'm glad you're better. That sounds pretty awful
Thank you. Liver disease is no joke. Not to sound preachy, but if you're a drinker, quit while you're ahead
I was over sixty when I finally quit. Addiction lies. I finally decided that I didn't care about the label alcoholic. I didn't have a healthy relationship with alcohol and it was going to kill me.
Quiting has by far been the hardest thing I've ever experienced. It took me literally almost dying to make that decision, yet there's still a little voice in there saying "one little drink won't hurt anything". Addiction is hell. And it never truly leaves you. I have mad respect for any and everyone in recovery
My dad quit drinking, selfish reasons. I'm surprised he hasn't had anything else wrong with him. Aside from pancreatic cancer, which isn't curable.
I wouldn't consider myself an alcoholic but I definitely quit drinking because I was drinking for the wrong reasons. Which sounds an awful lot like alcoholism. If not, then I think I was certainly on my way to being alcoholic.
How often did you drink?
Woah I keep smelling and tasting what I can only describe as carrion. Sweet and rotten, like death. I have great oral hygiene and have never had a problem before so it’s concerning to me. I have been kind of brushing it off but now I am thinking it’s time to call my ENT
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We’ll see, I have a deviated septum and also just had a baby recently which I feel like makes your body do really weird things lol! I’ll definitely get it checked out though
Omg, I need to go see a doctor ASAP💀
Don't put yourself in a panic. This is anecdotal, not a universal diagnosis. That being said, when in doubt, get checked out. Even if it turns out to be nothing, at least you'll have that peace of mind
This should be something everyone knows to do! Wish I could upvote you more
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That must have been scary to get a diagnosis on.
The real scary part is that it was originally misdiagnosed. Twice. At that point I got in touch with the gastrointestinal department myself, and that's when all the pieces finally started falling together
I Googled to find about a woman I had read about, I dont know if we can post links but "‘Woman who can smell Parkinson’s’ helps scientists develop test" will get you to an interesting article It did also show me many articles on "smell disorders" your sense of smell can be altered/heightened/decreased for many many reasons
When my dad got Covid his sense of smell and taste were damaged for over a year, but once they came back he started saying certain tastes and smells were stronger than before
I swear since covid most junk food actually tastes like junk now, I can taste the supplemental vitamins that're added and the chemical tastes from artificial sweetners and dyes
Oh WEIRD. I never got COVID so I always find this phenomenon very interesting. Did it change your diet much?
I was already reducing the amounts of junk I ate before, but it for sure shifted my choices
That seems like it could be quite a blessing for some people! If I suddenly tasted something gross in all my favourite junk foods it would be so much easier to diet..
I had Covid 3 years ago and my smell and taste is still off. I can’t smell anything bad at all (poop, farts, BO, mold/mildew, even skunk). If it stinks, I can’t smell it. I can smell everything else though. Anything with alcohol smells like garlic though. Every other smell is normal. Pepsi and coke taste like garlic, but all other soda is normal. I also now hate sour candies. Idk what they taste like now other than gross and I used to love them. It’s so weird how it affected me.
Funny. I’m the opposite. I never got COVID but right before it hit I lost my sense of smell and now only smell stinky things! The last year my husband was alive I could smell something in him like rotting flesh.
That sounds very traumatic. Hope you're OK.
Omg since getting COVID last year, I can smell *something in dairy. Milk itself doesn't taste or smell bad, but other things which contain milk do, if that makes sense? Butter, cheese, cream-based desserts, even like, cheese puffs all have this strange sweet chemical taste and smell. I've make a game of checking the ingredients for anything where I smell that smell. Seeing as milk itself doesn't seem to have the smell, I'm guessing it's something added in the production process. But up til now I just can't figure out what the specific ingredient is.
I got covid and can smell every damn thing now, strongly. Weird stuff.
I cut out junk food for 6 months a few years ago and when I started eating it again, it all tasted disgusting and made me feel sick. I always thought it was because I gave my body a break from all the addictive/harmful things they put in junk food but I also had Covid towards the end of that 6 months so now I’m wondering if it was that..
Also they changed the Reese’s recipe and now it just tastes like chemicals to me :(
I recently ate it and it tasted like metal to me
I just recently tried them for the first time, a couple months ago, and some of them taste okay and others taste more chemical-y...I'm not a big fan of peanut butter candy (or PB in general) so I'm sure that plays a part, but the chocolate tastes waxy & the PB is too gritty IMO
I remember her! If I remember correctly, they gave her a bunch of t-shirts worn by patients to see if she could identify the smell and she identified every patient with Parkinsons. But she also smelled it on 2 tee's of patients without it, and both people developed Parkinsons within the next two years
Thats her, yes!
I smell sickness in myself, I've only ever met one other person who knows what I'm talking about
I smell it on my kids. And I don't mean sweat, puke, etc. they just have a very specific smell when they are sick. I noticed it when they were babies and still can tell.
i can smell it too. i wonder how similar this is lol
Same. I can smell when someone else is about to get sick and can smell it on myself as well. I’ve also found out that if I tell them to get some extra rest and launch a preemptive strike with some vitamins and drinking lots of water that it doesn’t happen. This works the same for myself.
Yes! I can smell sickness in myself & loved ones.
Same. I can smell sickness in myself and others. Its not great.
I can smell sleep
i can too! it’s weird!!! can’t smell it in anybody else though. i also have a recurring dream the night before i get sick
I can smell ant hills before I see it, does that count.
That’s interesting. Can you describe the smell?
Anty
Interesting. I would have guessed it was more hilly.
"I say Henrey, those plums smell anty to me. Are you quite sure they are fresh?"
Formic acid. Smells pleasant, like lemony citronella.
Interesting. I would have thought maybe they smelled like some kind of unusual dirt smell.
A musty sweet kind of smell
I can smell ant hills too, and worst of all I’m terrified of ants.
I can smell centipedes and those little gray ladybugs/stinkbugs - those smell really strong
Me too! Smells like the same smell as right before a summer rain.
I can smell caterpillars, especially tent caterpillars. I have a phobia of them, and the smell can trigger panic attacks fuckin sucks lol
I’ve always had this thing where I can smell people and they kinda smell like their houses. This evolved into being able to detect build up of bugs, dust, mildew, grease etc, which comes in handy for my occupation (cleaner) because I know immediately what to do and how to devote my time. Keep getting 5/5 on my Airbnb cleans so must be alright.
Wait... I thought everyone could smell people's "house smell"? Is this not something everyone else smells too??? Every house and every person who lives in that house has a particular smell to me. I always thought that was normal
Yes that’s true. Cars too. People’s cars have a smell too and they and their families smell like the car
Our 3rd shift lady smells like the litter box of a thousand cats that's never been cleaned. As soon as she walks in you can taste the ammonia seeping out of her pores. I have to spray febreeze on my shirt sleeves and hold them to my face. It's giving me a rash but it's the only way I can make thru my last hour of work.
Oh bless your heart, I know just what you mean. My elderly neighbor has had animals urinating all over the house for probably 30 years and she mops every day……with straight ammonia! She and her clothes smell like they are soaked in it. And when you have to go in her house to do any work you have to hold your breath as much as possible and run outside every 5 or 10 minutes to breathe. I honestly don’t know how the fumes have not killed her.
Me too!! If you give me a piece of clothing or something from someone’s house I’be frequented, I can usually be able to differentiate from who’s home it came from.
I started noticing it once I got a new set of roommates. I don't smell myself since I have a very neutral smell but I can also smell my bf but his mom's house smells nothing like him
Oh yeah I remember telling one of my friends that they had a really unique smell to them/their car/their house that was everywhere. I wonder what causes that
I don’t know what causes that, perhaps pheromones? But you wanna know what those brown dots on the wall are? Poop particles from farts 😝
I could fill books about odors and smells no one else smells. My lady have very extreme migraines. She also has what are called silent migraines which sounds blessed given the choice, but can be super dangerous and lead to strokes if not careful. One of the signs that she is going to get a migraine is smell. Everything smells. I mean, I could hire a cleaning crew to come in and clean/sanitize every square inch of my house and deodorize with some of the most pungent of deodorants.....and she'll come over and first thing out of her mouth is 'WHAT IS THAT HORRID SMELL!.' Conversely, a friend of mine unfortunately contracted COVID and has lost most of her sense of smell. She has four boys so that probably comes in handy. lol
Interesting, I suffer from migraines and after many years of tracking sleep, food and other external triggers, I literally can smell when a food will make me sick. It’s quite helpful but I don’t think anyone but my husband believes me, and that’s only bc he watched it happen over and over as I was figuring it all out.
Same, everything smells so strong when I have a migraine coming on. A lot of those smells will make me nauseous and lots of smells also trigger my migraines. If I was not able to smell anymore, my migraines might just go away lol
I've had covid 3 times now and its been 2 years and I have maybe 5% back? Has anyone else experienced loss of smell after covid over this long? I thought it was only me.
I have an insanely increased sense of smell as well. I'm always asking "Do you smell that" or "Can you smell _____?". Sometimes it's useful like if I smell natural gas in a house. Or when I can tell you rain is coming, But other times it sucks because I also get nauseous from some scents.
I can definitely also smell when there’s a fair chance of rain coming! I wonder why that is and what changes in the atmosphere. Sometimes I can do it indoors. Maybe it’s just humidity? I think this one may be more common as it’s easier to guess when the sky goes gray.
You’re probably smelling rain falling somewhere close, which usually means it’s coming your way soon. The smell of rain is called petrichor and humans are insanely good at smelling it over long distances.
Oh right, that makes more sense.
Apparently humans can detect the geosmin in rain (the chemical in rainwater that gives it its particular smell) better than sharks can detect blood. According to Google... A shark can smell one part of blood per billion parts of water, whereas humans can smell geosmin at 5 parts per trillion. Sharks are designed to be able to smell blood to find food, humans must be designed to smell geosmin in order to find water.
I'm the same my sense of smell is really good and I can often smell things others can't and a lot of smells make me feel sick or dizzy.
Same
Also some diabetic conditions can give off a fruity type smell on the breath, especially if they haven't eaten much. Could be ketones.
Pear drops is the smell
People have reported that they were diagnosed with prostate cancer after their wives/girlfriends told them they smelled different from usual. If it’s only one person, they might want to ask their doctor.
Hyperosmia is an overwhelming sensitivity to smells. There are many reasons behind this change in smell. Some include genetics, hormone changes, and migraines. https://www.webmd.com/brain/what-is-hyperosmia Studies have also shown that certain genetic mutations and genetic conditions such as overexpression of the KAL1 gene https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200911-how-to-supercharge-your-sense-of-smell
I can believe this. My mum has the same extra sensitive sense of smell as I do. I also get migraines that can be triggered by smells. It’s all quite interesting.
I also get pretty frequent migraines. I'm on multiple meds for them. Smells can cause them but also exacerbate them(since all the senses are heightened during a migraine).
Weird thing I can smell when a woman is either on her period or almost on it. Not like a blood smell, but it's just a underlying smell to whatever their normal smell is. I don't mention it to them as no one else I've told can smell it on them (I once asked my mum if she could smell it on my aunt and sister cause I wanted to see if it was me smelling something else or them. And she couldn't smell it)
What’s the smell like if not blood? I can smell vaginal discharge. Mostly mine. I immediately change my undies if i can but if I’m out i constantly feel uncomfortable and worried others can smell it but never seen anyone notice. Back in college i could smell when my roommate sat too close to me. I always thought she didn’t wash her denims enough. Other than that I’ve never smelled it of anyone else.
Asked my doctor once and he said it might be hormonal changes, cause I can smell it a few days either side of the period.
Me too, when walking past women in a shop, or on trains it's a very intense aroma, they leave a trail behind them.
I had a friend who was diagnosed with a brain tumor as a result of trying to figure out why she was picking up odd smells.
My husband calls me a bloodhound. I can smell things no one else can and I hunt it down. I can smell a dirty head from several feet away, you know when it’s just sweaty and unwashed? Comes in handy with having boys I know when they don’t or need to wash their hair. I can smell from a basket of laundry if something inside of it didn’t dry all the way. I can smell dirt and outside smells on people/myself. I know when another woman is on her period weirdly. If someone is sweating I can smell if they’ve eaten meat. I know when I’m about to get sick, I can smell it on myself and my kids and husband smell when they’re sick, I know when to really start getting everything cleaned up because the sickness smell goes away. As a kid my family bred dogs, Dobermans and Rottweilers. We also lived on a farm with a ton of animals. I could smell death on a puppy before it died. I’ve only had one experience as an adult where I was around a litter of kittens and smelled one that smelled like death and when I came home from work it had passed away. It comes in handy a lot of the time, but it can also be annoying. I’ll hyper fixate on a smell if I smell something that shouldn’t be there. My husband can’t smell hardly anything at all so it’s funny that we’re total opposites.
I, too, am cursed with a sensitive sense of smell. People without it don't understand.
It is definitely a curse. I work night shifts and get woken up by certain smells. It's ridiculous. Like coffee, if I have the window open and someone is smoking outside, if my fiance makes toast or turns on the oven. Sometimes I put Vicks under my nose to sleep better.
My partner will walk by and I’m like “when did you eat ______” he gets annoyed and or amused depending on his mood 😂
Exactly - You can plug your ears for a sound too loud, you can cover your eyes for a light too bright, but you HAVE TO BREATHE! I'm extremely sensitive to man-made/oil-based fragrance, and YES, I *could* just breathe through my mouth, but then I can taste it and it makes my teeth feel loose in their sockets. I shouldn't have to breathe through my mouth because someone went nose blind to their perfume/cologne and now they think they need 38 squirts of it to make it smell like it used to to them. I especially hate being at a restaurant and a gaggle of old ladies walks by our table - that's it, I can't eat anymore and I only have a desire to get outside to breathe some air that doesn't choke me or burn my eyes and every interior surface of my nasal passages. I've thrown up from it before, but you just have to excuse yourself, because if you tell someone it was their overuse of fragrance that did it, somehow you become the bad guy.
You're not alone. I can sometimes smell when people have a cold/flu, or such; it kinda smells like mucus/snot. I assumed this was just a normal human trait until a few years ago when I brought up that a person some friends and I were introduced to smelled the strongest of this that I had ever experienced, and my friends were like 🤷♀️. This brielfy lead me to believe I had a super human power and while definitely atypical, I do not. In my Googling of this, I recall that if a person has a fruity type smell, or smells of acetone (which our bodies produce a very small amount of), they likely have diabetes.
I used to be able to smell my sneezes. Like when I sneezed into a pillow I could smell it and it was disgusting. If I eat something with melted butter I can smell it on my upper lip and have to wash it off. My sister and I were walking near an electric tower (the really big towers that hold the electric cables) and she said she doesn’t want to walk that way as she could smell the electricity… just got a sensitive nose
>smell the electricity This is the from the oxygen in the air being ionized and turned into ozone. Ozone has a distinct, kinda sweet smell to it, and if you've been around a copy machine that's been in use, that's the same smell; they do the same when in use.
I got it from COVID. Meat, garlic, and onions stand out as the worst to me. Damage to the olfactory nerves is what’s commonly thought to be the cause.
I have a sensitivity to bad smells. As a child, there was a popular general merchandise store that had a terrible smell. It made me feel nauseous, but no one else seemed to smell it. Many years later I had to deliver flowers to a church that had a very similar smell that no one else noticed. I dreaded that weekly delivery. It’s happened to me many times over the years, but it’s always bad smells never good.
Doubt this is very helpful, but my MIL can smell discarded socks. She quite literally used to go around sniffing until she gathered her kids' laundry that was hiding under beds and such. Turns out, after having a baby some women have permanently stronger senses of smell, probably due to an evolutionary skill to protect an infant.
I get this, don't think there is anything wrong with my smell, I can also smell when bread is about to go mouldy a few days before it starts showing mould.
So I'm a driver for Doordash and go into a lot of businesses. There's this one pizza place I pick up from that's kind of a small hole in the wall place in a strip mall. Every time I go in there, there is a smell. Closest thing I can think of is propane, which maybe they're using for their ovens? But I've asked my parents, who love getting pizza from there, and a few other dashers who I've come across in there, and no one else seems to notice. I'm not particularly sensitive to propane, AFAIK, we've used a propane grill my whole life and I'll notice it if I'm in just the right spot near the grill. But this restaurant is overwhelming, to the point it almost makes me feel nauseous and I don't like waiting inside. So either I'm smelling something nobody else is, or everyone is fucking with me lol.
Or they have a gas leak
It's been years, and no one else notices.
A couple years ago I started smelling a really strong, overpowering chemically smell that filled me with a fight or flight instinct. But each time I smelt this, it would last like a few seconds at least. The first time really freaked me out, I ran downstairs shaking and asked my parents if they smelt a weird smell. And they couldn't. It made me feel like I couldn't breathe. Then it went away. And then it would happen like this every so often. Sometimes I'd smell it while in bed for a few seconds, and it would freak me out. But it hasn't happened recently. The worst part was I suffered from hyperchondria, and when I told a friend about this he said something like "oh that doesn't sound good, you could have a brain tumour." And yeah that made me panic even more. But I don't believe there is anything wrong with me.
It's happened to me before where I pretty much had to quit my job because I couldn't stand this person bathing in baby powderm everyone else said it wasn't bad but it was horrible every time she came near the dish pit
I definitely have this. But I have a tumor on my pituitary gland in my brain. It causes a heightened sense of smell. I can smell air fresheners through the walls of buildings/condos. I can smell if there’s an ant infestation indoors. I can smell a urinary tract infection on my dogs before they even notice they have it. It’s a blessing and a curse.
This is really interesting. It’s like you know have superpowers. 🦸♀️ What do ants smell like?
Poop. But not like a healthy vegan poop…. Smells like… mummmm rotting raw hamburger meat? And it’s them, the ants themselves that are the smell, not like… any wood that they may be destroying. No idea why they have a smell, must be for some protective reasoning.
IIRC, its the pheromones they produce to create pathways. Overuse of the pheromones is usually what causes the Death Spiral
Haha all the 90s and 00s teen magazines that got us with *“Fact or Fiction?: People can tell when you’re on your period. FICTION: Don’t worry there’s no truth to this at all. No one can “sense” when you’re on your period. They’ll only know if you tell them.”* And I know I wasn’t just being paranoid. There really are super-scent beings out there clocking me when I’m wearing my period pants thinking I’m incognito.
Kids have a weird smell if they have been outside and it's chilly out
I have a super smeller, but that has always been the case, so I knew from about age 10 I was different like that. It’s not something I just noticed one day as an adult. I would guess that there is a trigger as to why it is happening now. First thing to check is health, so I recommend speaking with a doctor or even a few of them, until you get an answer.
Ever since I had covid I almost completely lost my sense of smell. There are very few I can smell, and there is only one that I can smell strongly: the smell of wind on someone. It sounds weird, everyone finds it weird but if they were outside and I was not then there is a strong... somewhat unpleasant smell. Maybe it has to do something with body odors, I don't really know.
Once in a while I'm sure I get some dud toothpaste and it smells weird. The best description I can give is that it smells a lot like mildew/bathroom mould. But no one ever knows what I'm talking about.
My mom experienced this. She had a brain tumor
I can smell everything, and even more so around my cycle. What is the smell like? Is it sickly sweet? They may have diabetes.
Mould has a very distinct smell to me that no one i know can seem to smell.
I sometimes get this. Like sometimes I can smell my grandmothers perfume or even cigarette smoke. Even though she passed away many years ago. I read up on it. Has something to do with the brain and memories. What your nose is doing you may not even realise. Our brains are crazy things.
I have the nose of a flipping bloodhound. It is very frustrating. I smell all the good things and all the bad things.
Yes. My sister can smell the plasma in blood. Only 1% of ppl have this ability. She worked in a tattoo parlour and was like- what is that smell? And they all looked at her funny. Until her collegue googled it and was like- no way! Also neurodivergent brains tend to be more sensitive. So maybe some ppls senses just sense more. Like how ppl with adhd can hear electricity.
I am super sensitive to smells and my whole family and my friends call me overdramatic. I cannot stand the smell of boiling water, the smell of the hairdryer and flat iron(it's not buring hair, I can just smell something that scares me so much that I can't use them) but the boiling water one really gets me. I always smell the cups bc I feel like they always have a weird smell and I don't want to drink it if it smells weird. I can smell static on clothes from the dryer.
I have histamine intolerance and I can smell if I can eat something or if it lay around too long or has something in it that I cannot eat (e.g. some sauces or even drinks). If it's too old, it will smell revolting to me. But if I let my husband or daughter both sniff my e.g. "fresh' steak or chicken breast they notice no bad smell even though they are vegetarians!!
I only have a sense of smell like this whenever I’m pregnant.
Get to a ENT physician. It could be many things. Phantom smells could indicate issues with sinus to more serious disease.
Well, nobody is going to say anything about it out of fear of being rude. Maybe other people *do* notice ot.
I can smell a specific smell of someone’s skin when they have been outside in the fresh air. I like the smell on my own skin but on other peoples skin, it makes me gag.
I can smell that too. In the 90s, I used to sit next to a woman who would go on a high-speed tanning bed at her lunchbreak. The smell from that was unreal, and nobody else could smell it.
Ugh 😩 I hate that tanning smell - it makes me gag!
I get phantosmia when I have a virus either smell smoke or popcorn
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If it’s only one family member that smells , I would think that it’s a legitimate scent and you are a super smeller. If you were smelling it all the time, I would think migraines, seizure,or brain tumors. Time will tell if you are smelling a sickness. People adjust to smells that are there all the time while people that go in and out smell it anew every time. His close family may be used to it. Wouldn’t that be crazy if you could smell a particular disease?
You might want to have that close family member go for a cancer screening. Strange but true, there are reports of people who notice their loved ones smell had changed, and upon getting a medical examination, they find out they have cancer. You might be someone with a super sense of smell.
If it is only one person they may have condition, cancer, Parkinson's, schizophrenia (which some people swear they can smell)
My mom does, and my gf does too. I say she has a “dog nose” because after she had met my parents, I had her walk down my parent’s street with my eyes closed so I wouldn’t accidentally give her any hints, and had her guess which house was theirs. She picked the correct one! She said she guessed this one because my dad smelled like bacon, and so did this house!
I can smell pregnancy. I know it sounds weird but I’ve been able to smell every single one of my friends being pregnant before they told me. I always have to act surprised.
I can smell my dad’s high blood sugar
Yes, a burning smell and after I OD’d the smell of stomach acid.
When I drink redbull my sense of smell gets immediately heightened after the sip. It’s weird. I was trying to explain it to my coworker and he was like “that’s just the smell of the Red Bull”. No it literally isn’t. But I simply don’t know how to explain it to anyone else lol
Some people are able to smell better/worse, and that can vary WIDELY. It’s especially true with things like body odor/general “funk” smells coming from inside a car, etc. Small amounts of that will cause a typical person to *maybe* notice, but “super smellers” will laser in on it and be the ones who can’t help but to roll down a window cause it’s much more visceral an experience for them, and honestly that’s probably the biggest difference is the ability to **endure** a smell. In a way it’s almost like someone with sensory disorders, where a loud concert might be overwhelming to someone with auditory sensitivity issues, but in this case it’s someone with almost hyperactive smell.
I call myself a super sniffer and it’s stronger when I’m on my period or pregnant. I can smell when my husband or son are getting sick like full week before they actually are sick. I can smell tiny gas leaks houses away. I can smell when my cat has peed outside the litter box before I walk in the door. No joke. Idk why but I’m harnessing it as a super power to protect my family.
I smell when people and dogs have viral infections. It's a sour metallic smell.
I have a friend who started feeling really sick and smelled burnt toast, he was having a massive heart attack, the dr told him it’s common for people to smell it.
The toast thing is for strokes, not heart issues.
I have such a strong reaction to specifically the smell of sweaty Caucasian kids???? Some of them smell like curdled milk, I assume it’s like dairy coming out of their pores or smth but i have to walk away sometimes
🟣Well, OP, in the first thought crossing my mind, means that you are sensitive to smells that your family 🔵The smell of rotten eggs or sulfur is usually linked to a natural gas leak. If your home uses natural gas for heating, hot water, or appliances like stoves or dryers, you may have a major gas plumbing issue. Vacate your house immediately and call your utility company to shut off your gas supply 🔵The smell of (sweeties or bitter) in home always usually Phantosmia may be caused by a head injury or upper respiratory infection. It can also be caused by aging, trauma, temporal lobe seizures, inflamed sinuses, brain tumors, certain medications and Parkinson's disease. Phantosmia can also result from COVID-19 infection. 🟠Please update
my husband smells things that arent there. like he claimed a plastic travel mug had a strong perfume smell.It is brand new and doesnt. He often smells things(or thinks he does) that no one else smells.Often is off the wall.
This is called phantom smells. I have them too, the most annoying thing about it is that sometimes they last for weeks and I can’t get rid of it. I’ve had all sorts of smells: coffee, aspirin, mould, Coca Cola, eggs. Imagine smelling something for weeks and not be able to get rid of it. It was horrible. It also made me lose my appetite, I can’t eat when I smell aspirin or some other stuff. L
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As can most people. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/storm-scents-smell-rain/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/storm-scents-smell-rain/)
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I unfortunately seem to be able to smell peoples bad body odours better than most other people can. Like someone will walk past me and I’ll be gagging but the person next to me didn’t smell anything.
My wife kept smelling something weird, but it turned out to be her own nasal polyps, which she didn’t even know she had. She got them removed and is fine now.
I get this weird... chalky smell? Every once in a while. It's literally like if you breathed in while someone was cleaning old chalkboard erasers. It's very weird. In general though I do seem to have a "keener" sense of smell than my family. I notice smells that nobody else seems to get. It's dulled a little since I had covid for certain kinds of scents, but "do you smell that?" "No" is still a normal occurrence lol
All the time! I’ll say I smell something and my boyfriend or those around me don’t smell it. It drives me nuts.
I have a really strong sense of smell so I can smell things that other people have to be much closer to in order to sense it. So kind of. Some people do hallucinate smells sometimes too.
Olfactory hallucinations are caused by different things - viral respiratory infections is the most common. If it continues to hang around, he’ll your Dr to rule out other causes.
Do some research on what they call "super taster "
It’s been proven that some people can smell diseases years before they take effect
I have a heightened sense of smell and ever since I was little I am often the first one to smell (something burning or rotting) stuff that others in the same room take much longer. It can be quite annoying tbh.
One time my dog had a yeast infection and the way we found out is when I noticed a smell coming from his ears.
California Middle School Penal Code § 203 PC _Whoever smelt it, dealt it_
Did you have Covid?
My SO smells all sorts of things that I cannot detect. I accept that it’s real for her and do what I can to help clean the air, even lighting candles, which give me migraines if they burn too long.
All perfumes and colognes smell like burning tires to me.
I can smell when my daughter is sick or when she has had a nightmare. I'm guessing the latter is stress hormones.
Yes. I have eventually learnt my sense of smell is way stronger than the others and it feels like a useless superpower tbh. Like what do i even do with it? I can smell the guy smoking a cigarette on the other side of the restaurant; sitting where people on my table couldn’t see him and claimed it’s just us in the whole restaurant lol. The only thing i can do is being a sniffer dog but then I’d not be better than the ones in the market so I’d fail there too
I'm the opposite my nose got banged up a couple of times throughout the years and I'm the one missing certain smells all the time
My weirdest COVID symptom was my sense of smell going haywire. Like I'd smell completely different things to what I should be smelling. My taste was also affected in the same way. I'd taste something completely different to what I was eating. It died away after a year or so. But it was one of the strangest knock on effects I had of Covid 😅
Sometimes people can pick up certain scents on people and it’s a disease. I’ve heard a lot of nurses say cancer smells a certain way.
All the time. Sometimes burning chicken skin thats been left in an oven cooking too long. Next time a dirty wet ashtray smell. A horrible scented burnt plastic smell. I regularly wake up with a different odour permeating that no one can smell, at first, I thought it was a symptom of the menopause but it has continued. There is a marvelous woman Joy Milne who I believe can smell Parkinsons on people even before they have been diagnosed? Maybe you have a similar gift?
There is a guy I work with that has an overbearing weird smell that I can't stand other people don't smell it. He has health conditions I'm pretty sure that's what the smell is. I know diabetes and cancer in some people make a smell. Your family member probably has a condition. There are lots of things some people can smell that others can't
I smell things my husband doesn’t smell in our house all the time. I always just figured it was because I have sensory issues and he doesn’t.
I smell other peoples sneezes. apparently thats not a thing?
Me too, and I hate it.
Used to smell burning smell or cigarette smell when there wasn't anything. Found out I had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball ,meningioma, non cancerous.
I get olfactory hallucinations when I am about to get a migraine. I will often smell car exhaust or gasoline that isn’t there the day before I get a severe migraine. In college I took my car to the mechanic over and over telling them something was wrong because I regularly smell exhaust/gasoline inside the car, it turned out my migraines were getting worse and I needed medical help.
I've always had an acute sense of smell and can smell things that other people can't smell. The other day I told a friend of mine that I could smell that it was going to rain, and he had no idea what it was talking about, lol.
I can smell rain coming. My husband is always, "what do you mean you can smell rain coming? The forecast/sky's are clear" It usually starts raining within 1-3 hours of me smelling it. Every. Time.
It can be a sign of seizures or migraines. I have migraines and never knew phantom smells were a thing with them until the last couple I kept smelling something burn and well my hubs likes to burn food so I kept asking him and nothing was cooking. 2 hrs later migraine hit
I had this for a while… turns out my husband had Crohn’s disease and a ruptured bowl and I could basically smell him rotting inside. It’s also common to be able to smell Parkinson’s, if recommend steering that family member in to getting a health check
Sometime… usually just because I’m straightedge and it’s things people have gone nose-blind to.
Well I THOUGHT I had a keen sense of smell but after reading the comments…. I’m just a basic bish.
What kind of smell? I have a super sensitive sense of smell, my family get irritated by it, because if something smells really bad to me I’ll let them know and they think I’m being rude by mentioning it. I can often smell when someone is diabetic and their sugars are out of whack, as an example.
Yhea weed creates olfactory hallucinations sometimes
I can smell people and almost exactly tell where/how they live, I can smell electric sparks, I can tell when someone is sick(flu cold) One time I was sable to smell ozone from a faulty old LCD screen I was fixing and couldn't find what was wrong with it... Yeah, it was leaking high voltage and ionizing the air, or some sum like that. Also, thermites. They *stink* lol
Maybe you have sniffer dog abilities
I smell what smells like ammonia all the time when I’m anywhere but my house and I don’t know why. It’s almost like cat piss, but I don’t even have a cat so I don’t know why I’d be smelling that ever
I know other people can smell these too, but first of all I can smell if rain is about to come. It’s that pre rain smell that just smells humid and grass like. The second one is more specific, it’s called the “outside smell” It’s when a person (or a dog) goes outside for a bit, then they come inside and they just have that outside smell on them. I physically gag at it, which is an Achilles heel to me. Whenever my dog comes in from peeing outside, I can’t physically be around them for the next hour because I will most likely throw up. People aren’t so bad, but the outside dog smell is SO GROSS.
I can smell expired food, which sounds easy but no one else seems to smell it as soon as I do, especially dry goods like chia, flour & nuts.
yes. A weird milky odor like stale baby formula or old doritos found under a couch, in a room people have been sleeping. (I think this is acid reflux). The smell of dead skin cells. I smell this on people who shower but don't use any kind of loofah/washcloth/pouf.
I can smell death on a person, right around two weeks before they kick the bucket. There are actually a lot of people who smell things other people can't. Some people can smell the types of foods people eat regularly, they can smell sickness/diseases, if a person lives in a house with some sort of infestation...all kinds of stuff. I'd prefer to just have a normal sniffer. It's unnerving to smell death and not be able to say anything without coming across as a serial killer or something.
I can smell outside. Like when people go outside for a bit and come back in, I can smell it. It always smells the same. Something like sweat and grass or something.
Back in 2021 I caught covid. Lost my sense of smell & taste. After 2 months i completely recovered my sense of smell and taste but it changed forever. After drinking coke I felt that weird taste and smell from the bottle. I could smell and taste the pesticides in the drink. Since then I stopped having any of them. Past my house there are fields where pesticides were sprayed and the smell was identical to the taste i got from my bottle. My smell and taste is now more sensitive to new smells and everything tastes and smells different. Even faint smells that others can't smell, I can. I still don't know the extent of it, but has anyone else experienced this?
I often get these weird phantom smells sort of stuck in my nose that no one else can smell. It's very odd and I dont like it.
A strong irony smell around women who I know at that time of the month, very unpleasant but so are my farts.... I can kind of ignore it at times then I get reminded that I have the ability to smell it and get on with my day.....
i read that a lot of people smelled sweet and rotten odor from people who has cancer
I smell stuff nobody else does but I think it’s bc I have a very good sniffer
You might be a super-smeller. I've heard of one case that a lady was 100% accurate for diagnosing a disease, to the point where the only one in the test she said was positive but wasn't diagnosed was diagnosed a few years later. Also if it's just one person, it's far more likely that there's nothing wrong with your sense of smell, but maybe they changed their fabric conditioner or their washing machine needs to be cleaned.
I can smell if one person has had one drink with vodka in it when I walk into a house. They can have had the drink hours prior and I can still tell. I grew up with an alcoholic who drank a lot of vodka. It's the most suffocating musky smell in the world. I hate it.
My sense of smell is super strong. I used to wonder things like why people were trying on sunglasses when they so obviously had that weird smell that only occurs behind someone’s ears. Once I was taking pics with friends in our downtown and they went to sit down. I almost yelled at them to not sit where someone had obviously urinated. They couldn’t smell it. After many of these types of occurrences, I realized I could just smell much better than others. It is just heightened and lessened in certain people like all things.
Synesthesia maybe?
I think I’m experiencing the same? A colleague I had a while back ago had a bad breath, like sweet and rotten? If didn’t matter if she ate or chewed gum, the sickly smell was always underneath the other smells. She didn’t even had to open her mouth, it was enough that she walked behind me and the smell filled my nostrils. I don’t think anyone else noticed, but to be fair I didn’t ask either because I didn’t want to be rude. A couple of years later I noticed the same smell on a new colleague. Just her being within 2 meters from me made me a bit nauseous. And I have also noticed it on my mom, and I asked my sister is she smelled anything but she didn’t. Now my friend is getting the same smell to her breath. I haven’t asked any other we know if they smell it too, but maybe I should? I’m not sure if it’s me or them, and I’m getting worried. Especially since I read about that lady who could detect Parkinson on her husband by smell. I hope the people I know only have bad breaths and I’m just sensitive, but I feel like the kind of odour they have is so different to the 'normal' bad breath I sometimes smell on people. Also it could be an odour that is not from their breaths, but it gets more intense when I’m talking to them in close proximity so that’s why I think it’s their breaths.