Certain Breathing through Nose causes bad taste and smell

I have an issue where if I breathe a certain way it messes up my taste and smell. It even happens when laughing a certain way or yelling, or sneezing, or just blowing my nose. And for me it seems that the left nostril is the culpret. I can 90% of the time fix it by bending over and putting my head between my legs and grab behind my heels or ankles and put pressure to my head/nose and it will fix it, but I am tired of dealing with it. I used to smoke and it made the ciggeretts unbearable to taste. And even foods and smells that usually taste good or smell good to you, taste and smell bad.
Any help or ideas on what this is will be greatly appreciated.

[Adele51]

I keep smelling tobacco and no-one in the same room as me can smell it (apart from the odd occasion).  I thought it was coming from our log fire but I smell it away from home and in my bedroom.  The funny thing is that my deceased Father of 8 years smoked a pipe and the stale smell is very similar to that.

Has anyone got an explanation?

A.

[helpmenoww]

i have the same thing.
its a horrible smell and i cannot even taste food.
it usually happens when i blow my nose.

[Katkatkatkat4]

Alright well, I think I know what’s troubling you and I know where you can find a cure. I suffered from the same symptoms for five years before I found someone who could help me.
You have what my doctor calls cyclic smell distortions.  People with this condition smell unpleasant odors that seem to switch on and switch off throughout the day.  These bad odors might smell rotten or burned and they tend to occur only in one nostril.  In my case, the unpleasant smells started when I sniffed, blew my nose, sneezed or laughed. However they can also manifest for no obvious reason. This disorder progresses over time, but you will probably NOT notice that unpleasant odor directly after you wake up (at least at first).

When these smells first appeared,  I got temporary relief by pinching on my nose and holding my breath. A salt water rinse also helped to suppress my symptoms. Eventually though, all my coping strategies stopped working.

Cyclic smell distortions do not happen in your nose. You actually have a sensory seizure disorder, which is caused by a slight chemical imbalance in your brain. Unlike motor seizures, sensory seizures are partial seizures and they don’t manifest in a loss of motor control. Instead they affect how people perceive sounds or images, or in your case, smells. Your seizures are activated when you stimulate the nerves in your nose by laughing or talking.

If this condition goes untreated it will often get worse and worse, until the smell is unremitting.  so it’s really serious.  It is also extremely rare and there’s only one doctor I’m certain will recognize it since he was the one who identified it.  He’s  found a means to control this disorder. You can take medication for this and get it completely under control. You’ll get rid of that smell completely.  But because you have something so rare you really have to contact him. He’s a specialist named Doctor Henkin and he’s the head of The Taste and Smell Clinic in Washington DC.

I strongly urge you go to this website:

www.tasteandsmell.com

and either email or call him. It might cost you a plane trip but because this is so rare, the clinic covered a lot of my expenses so they could study this disorder.

Here’s an article from the taste and smell clinic about your condition:

http://www.tasteandsmell.com/aug07.htm

I hope this helps and I sure hope you get this email. I remember searching on the web just like you. I found NOTHING.  It really got me down. But during those searches I also ran into a lot of people who had the same symptoms and they didn’t know what to do either. So now that I know, I’m trying to post stuff around the web so other people might read this and get some help. Anyway.. Please email me if you have any questions: ***@****

good luck
-Katherine

[luke0380]

Hi Katherine , do you have an email addres.  i have exactly the same symptons but would love to talk to someone about it!

I love in the UK, hope you can get in touch , my email address is luke.***@****