Aa
Hyperosmia
I'm pretty sure my husband has hyperosmia. His entire life (not a traumatic event), he has had an extreme sense of smell. He can tell ingredients of perfumes foods pretty much anything. One day at a work lunch at noon I had a rum and diet soda with lunch. It is very rare (maybe once a year if at all) that this happens. I didn't see him until I got home that night after 11 PM. He could smell the rum on my breath when I gave him a kiss that night. I had had lunch with the drink, later I had a snack ate dinner, drank water and soda in the time period since I had the drink at lunch. He doesn't like to go into the city, since he smells the urine in the street. If i need to give further examples I will happily do so.
His heightened sense of smell is affecting his life. He would much rather be normal. He works in sales, and if a client has halatosis or bad body odor he really suffers. We live near the interstate, and depending on teh direction of the wind he gets sick sometimes from the smell of the asphalt/tires/cars on the freeway. I have tried and I can't smell anything- I've asked friends if they could smell anything, and no one has said yes yet. He always just thought it was something he had to live with.
His sense of smell is driving me crazy. If we are talking he will ask me to go brush my teeth or use listerine. I do not have exceptionally bad breath, I am normal- I checked with my dentist.
He asked me if there was any way to lessen his sense of smell, and I thought cauterization of his nose might be an option. I also saw online that Topamax could be used as well. I haven't been able to find very much information about it- apparently Hyperosmia is not very common.
Are there any treatments?
If so, what type of doctor would be able to help? ENT? Neurology? I have no idea.
Thank you for any help/suggestions you can give.
christyvt
His heightened sense of smell is affecting his life. He would much rather be normal. He works in sales, and if a client has halatosis or bad body odor he really suffers. We live near the interstate, and depending on teh direction of the wind he gets sick sometimes from the smell of the asphalt/tires/cars on the freeway. I have tried and I can't smell anything- I've asked friends if they could smell anything, and no one has said yes yet. He always just thought it was something he had to live with.
His sense of smell is driving me crazy. If we are talking he will ask me to go brush my teeth or use listerine. I do not have exceptionally bad breath, I am normal- I checked with my dentist.
He asked me if there was any way to lessen his sense of smell, and I thought cauterization of his nose might be an option. I also saw online that Topamax could be used as well. I haven't been able to find very much information about it- apparently Hyperosmia is not very common.
Are there any treatments?
If so, what type of doctor would be able to help? ENT? Neurology? I have no idea.
Thank you for any help/suggestions you can give.
christyvt
I have this too, get a box of coffee bags. They look like tea bags but they are coffee. I buy mine at walmart its folgers in a box. Put the coffee bag to your nose and breath it for about 3 mins...coffee cleans the palate. Works for me everytime. Good luck
I have this too, get a box of coffee bags. They look like tea bags but they are coffee. I buy mine at walmart its folgers in a box. Put the coffee bag to your nose and breath it for about 3 mins...coffee cleans the palate. Works for me everytime. Good luck
As with everyone else here, I have hyperosmia. If you can tolerate the rubber, then I recommend respirators that protect against paint fumes (available at Lowe's) can block volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) from perfume or "fragrance" as the term stinkers prefer you use. Of course, once you are 'fumed, the migraine and pain is instantaneous, so it is best to use the respirator as a prophylactic when you know you are going to be 'fumed by known stinkers.
I saw someone was recommending a dopamine antagonist, which is a treatment for schizophrenia and can cause side effect similar to Parkinson's disease. This is again the ignorant medical community's idea of putting a lid on what largely is affecting women...instead of seeing this as a clue to investigate. For instance, what other disease are prominent in women and are there links to these diseases and hyperosmia?
If you think about women in early pregnancy, many of these women purport hyperosmia leading to nausea and vomiting - why doesn't the medical community say these women are "making this up?" We know in early pregnancy TSH levels, as well as many other hormones are rapidly rising, which could help explain symptoms.
When you try to explain your odor threshold to a stinker, then it is like trying to describe a 3-D world to a 2-D creature who cannot perceive depth - stinkers refuse to believe what they cannot smell just like doubting Thomas in the bible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO1y-Tm8dSI
It is difficult to have patience with stinkers, but just remember that we now have a treatment for restless leg syndrome, which the medical community also thought was "made up" until suffering patients started making connections. The medical community cannot admit ignorance, so it will be labeled a "mad and hysterical" disorder until (1) more men come forward with the disorder or (2) a treatment is accidentally found because no one is particularly interested in treating a "female" disease unless it involves making more babies.
I saw someone was recommending a dopamine antagonist, which is a treatment for schizophrenia and can cause side effect similar to Parkinson's disease. This is again the ignorant medical community's idea of putting a lid on what largely is affecting women...instead of seeing this as a clue to investigate. For instance, what other disease are prominent in women and are there links to these diseases and hyperosmia?
If you think about women in early pregnancy, many of these women purport hyperosmia leading to nausea and vomiting - why doesn't the medical community say these women are "making this up?" We know in early pregnancy TSH levels, as well as many other hormones are rapidly rising, which could help explain symptoms.
When you try to explain your odor threshold to a stinker, then it is like trying to describe a 3-D world to a 2-D creature who cannot perceive depth - stinkers refuse to believe what they cannot smell just like doubting Thomas in the bible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO1y-Tm8dSI
It is difficult to have patience with stinkers, but just remember that we now have a treatment for restless leg syndrome, which the medical community also thought was "made up" until suffering patients started making connections. The medical community cannot admit ignorance, so it will be labeled a "mad and hysterical" disorder until (1) more men come forward with the disorder or (2) a treatment is accidentally found because no one is particularly interested in treating a "female" disease unless it involves making more babies.
Wow, I feel like I hit the jackpot of fellow sufferers...have only met one other person before that had extreme sensitivity to smells! She had a diagnosis of MCS (Multiple Chemical Syndrome), extreme chemical sensitivity to all sorts of plastics, carpets, fragrances, petro products, etc. Made me feel lucky to have the simpler symptoms that I have.
I started having problems the summer of 1995 after I suffered a strange red swollen infection in both my feet after crawling around in a plowed field for a day, getting dirt inside my shoes that I didn't bother to remove as it just kept getting in. I believe that I suffered a reaction to chemicals in that soil (pesticides, etc.) that day.
About a week later, after being on meds, my feet healed, I was sitting in a small meeting of about 20 people where one lady had seemed to have poured the entire perfume bottle on herself, along with an entire spray can of insect repellant. She said she had been weeding all day (thus the repellant) and didn't have time to shower (thus the overdose of perfume). I found the combined odors extremely overpowering and felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my nose, smashing it up into my sinuses! I spent 3 days very sick at home after that 1 hour of exposure.
I had just recuperated from this attack on my senses when I attended another larger meeting in a sizeable room, where I could smell so many fragrances and could identify from which direction each of them came from. I got very dizzy and light headed and felt like I was going to collapse. I wobbled up from my chair and could barely stumble out of the meeting room to the bathroom in the back of the building. I stayed in that room until the meeting was over and I could ride home with my spouse. Again, I was super ill for days afterwards.
Every time I was around a crowd of scented people, the same thing happened. I finally asked my allergist about the possibility of being allergic to perfumes and whether or not there were any injections I could take to lessen the severity of the symptoms, as I couldn't afford to be ill all the time. He informed me that perfumes have HUNDREDS of ingredients and that it would be impossible to formulate an allergy injection for perfume. The only and best solution? AVOIDANCE.
Avoidance? That meant reading EVERY LABEL on any product I was looking at to buy to make sure that "fragrance" was not in the ingredients. I could not stand the slightest smell ON me, so every product in the house was "fragrance-free." It also meant everyone else in the household had to be fragrance-free as well, so all the items they used had to be free of the offending fragrances and colognes. I became an avid hunter of fragrance-free products for all of us, whether in K-Mart or in health food stores. And, I discovered that, even if the front of the product says "unscented," don't always believe it! Some unscented items will still have a fragrance in the ingredients' label !!!
Some of the products that I found that I could handle are: ALL Free & Clear Laundry detergent, Dove sensitive-skin fragrance-free hand soap, Seventh Generation liquid dish soap, Aveeno skin lotion & Aveeno shaving cream, Puffs unscented tissues, Sure fragrance-free deodorant. So far, the only shampoos and conditioners and hair sprays free of fragrances I have located have been found in Health Food Stores.
I use vinegar in the bleach cup holder of the washer as a sanitizer, as I can't handle bleach. Vinegar is great for a lot of cleaning jobs, as well as baking soda.
Thankfully, my family took to wearing fragrance-free products all the time quite nicely. If any of them were in a crowd of scented people, they would take off their coats and jackets and hang them up in the garage to air out before coming inside.
I also have a few food allergies, and I can tell if someone is eating peanut butter in the other room (gag-some smell!), or cooking eggs (nauseating!) I can smell the nasty peanut butter in cookies or brownies, so won't touch them. If I am ill, cooking eggs has just got to be the nastiest smell in the world (eurp!!!).
Certain stores are toxic to me; I won't even enter the frilly, scented candled places, they are too strong, and I can smell them long before I get to their doors. I avoid walking through or next to perfume displays, often walking in a long round-about way throughout a store. I can't handle going down the detergent aisles, I have to hold my breath, cover my nose and dash down to grab the fragrance-free detergent. (Why can't they have them at the beginning of the aisle!!??)
I don't even go into stores during X-Mas time, there are so many offending odors, plus an increased number of scented people, I can't stand it. I try to shop in grocery stores during slow times so I am not likely to meet a lot of stinky people. And churches and bars? Forget it! People going out on the town seem to pour bottles of every scented product on themselves that they can. And Smoke? Allergic to that too...Nothing worse than fragrances trying to cover up cigarette smell... choke, gag!!!
If I ride with others, I nag them to death about not "tail-gating" the vehicle in front of us, as I don't like the fumes from their exhaust. I especially demand that, at a stop light, we stop and stay a ways away from the car in front of us. And I can't handle riding in a vehicle without air conditioning, as the heat from the car, heat from the road and the engines just gag me. I insist on using my pickup when my cousin and I go anywhere, even though he states his gas mileage is better, since his air conditioning doesn't work. ("Just open your window" he says. HA! No way...)
I have learned to speak up for myself in public....if I don't, who will? One time I was having lunch with my brother, and a very heavily scented waitress came to our table. I told her I couldn't have her wait on me, she was too stinky (big slip of tongue, meant to say perfumey)). Wow, did she fly off the handle, took offense thinking I didn't want a Latino serving me, which was far from the case. lol
Actually, by avoiding fragrances (and smokers), I have less sinus infections and less bronchitis and less pneumonias now, which makes my doctors happy. One doctor tried testing me for asthma because I told him I had troubles breathing around fragrances, but that turned out to be a negative diagnosis. My blood pressure goes up when I am "attacked" by fragrances. My doctor couldn't believe that I could sense high blood pressure, until one day, when I appeared at his office I was accosted by scented candles and scented plug-ins in the check-in office. Once I signed in, I had to step out into the hall way for "air". No one could persuade me to go back inside, so my doctor came out and checked my blood pressure....it was super high, along with my being dizzy, light-headed and sick to my stomach. Doc became a believer that day. O, and he also made sure there were no more smelly products in the future in the office! Loved that man...wish he were still my physician!
One good thing about being extra sensitive....I prevented a fire in our home. I was sleeping, and all of a sudden sat straight up. "I smell something scorchy!" I yelled. My husband and I walked all the way through the house until we got to the other side and he finally could smell it too. Turned out to be a charger was going bad and could have ignited at any minute. That charger was 60 feet away when I smelled it, and it was super nasty strong to me.
I liked reading all the posts here. I am going to ask my doctor about some of the suggestions about nasal cauterizations, etc. Thanks, guys for sharing!
Pat
I started having problems the summer of 1995 after I suffered a strange red swollen infection in both my feet after crawling around in a plowed field for a day, getting dirt inside my shoes that I didn't bother to remove as it just kept getting in. I believe that I suffered a reaction to chemicals in that soil (pesticides, etc.) that day.
About a week later, after being on meds, my feet healed, I was sitting in a small meeting of about 20 people where one lady had seemed to have poured the entire perfume bottle on herself, along with an entire spray can of insect repellant. She said she had been weeding all day (thus the repellant) and didn't have time to shower (thus the overdose of perfume). I found the combined odors extremely overpowering and felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my nose, smashing it up into my sinuses! I spent 3 days very sick at home after that 1 hour of exposure.
I had just recuperated from this attack on my senses when I attended another larger meeting in a sizeable room, where I could smell so many fragrances and could identify from which direction each of them came from. I got very dizzy and light headed and felt like I was going to collapse. I wobbled up from my chair and could barely stumble out of the meeting room to the bathroom in the back of the building. I stayed in that room until the meeting was over and I could ride home with my spouse. Again, I was super ill for days afterwards.
Every time I was around a crowd of scented people, the same thing happened. I finally asked my allergist about the possibility of being allergic to perfumes and whether or not there were any injections I could take to lessen the severity of the symptoms, as I couldn't afford to be ill all the time. He informed me that perfumes have HUNDREDS of ingredients and that it would be impossible to formulate an allergy injection for perfume. The only and best solution? AVOIDANCE.
Avoidance? That meant reading EVERY LABEL on any product I was looking at to buy to make sure that "fragrance" was not in the ingredients. I could not stand the slightest smell ON me, so every product in the house was "fragrance-free." It also meant everyone else in the household had to be fragrance-free as well, so all the items they used had to be free of the offending fragrances and colognes. I became an avid hunter of fragrance-free products for all of us, whether in K-Mart or in health food stores. And, I discovered that, even if the front of the product says "unscented," don't always believe it! Some unscented items will still have a fragrance in the ingredients' label !!!
Some of the products that I found that I could handle are: ALL Free & Clear Laundry detergent, Dove sensitive-skin fragrance-free hand soap, Seventh Generation liquid dish soap, Aveeno skin lotion & Aveeno shaving cream, Puffs unscented tissues, Sure fragrance-free deodorant. So far, the only shampoos and conditioners and hair sprays free of fragrances I have located have been found in Health Food Stores.
I use vinegar in the bleach cup holder of the washer as a sanitizer, as I can't handle bleach. Vinegar is great for a lot of cleaning jobs, as well as baking soda.
Thankfully, my family took to wearing fragrance-free products all the time quite nicely. If any of them were in a crowd of scented people, they would take off their coats and jackets and hang them up in the garage to air out before coming inside.
I also have a few food allergies, and I can tell if someone is eating peanut butter in the other room (gag-some smell!), or cooking eggs (nauseating!) I can smell the nasty peanut butter in cookies or brownies, so won't touch them. If I am ill, cooking eggs has just got to be the nastiest smell in the world (eurp!!!).
Certain stores are toxic to me; I won't even enter the frilly, scented candled places, they are too strong, and I can smell them long before I get to their doors. I avoid walking through or next to perfume displays, often walking in a long round-about way throughout a store. I can't handle going down the detergent aisles, I have to hold my breath, cover my nose and dash down to grab the fragrance-free detergent. (Why can't they have them at the beginning of the aisle!!??)
I don't even go into stores during X-Mas time, there are so many offending odors, plus an increased number of scented people, I can't stand it. I try to shop in grocery stores during slow times so I am not likely to meet a lot of stinky people. And churches and bars? Forget it! People going out on the town seem to pour bottles of every scented product on themselves that they can. And Smoke? Allergic to that too...Nothing worse than fragrances trying to cover up cigarette smell... choke, gag!!!
If I ride with others, I nag them to death about not "tail-gating" the vehicle in front of us, as I don't like the fumes from their exhaust. I especially demand that, at a stop light, we stop and stay a ways away from the car in front of us. And I can't handle riding in a vehicle without air conditioning, as the heat from the car, heat from the road and the engines just gag me. I insist on using my pickup when my cousin and I go anywhere, even though he states his gas mileage is better, since his air conditioning doesn't work. ("Just open your window" he says. HA! No way...)
I have learned to speak up for myself in public....if I don't, who will? One time I was having lunch with my brother, and a very heavily scented waitress came to our table. I told her I couldn't have her wait on me, she was too stinky (big slip of tongue, meant to say perfumey)). Wow, did she fly off the handle, took offense thinking I didn't want a Latino serving me, which was far from the case. lol
Actually, by avoiding fragrances (and smokers), I have less sinus infections and less bronchitis and less pneumonias now, which makes my doctors happy. One doctor tried testing me for asthma because I told him I had troubles breathing around fragrances, but that turned out to be a negative diagnosis. My blood pressure goes up when I am "attacked" by fragrances. My doctor couldn't believe that I could sense high blood pressure, until one day, when I appeared at his office I was accosted by scented candles and scented plug-ins in the check-in office. Once I signed in, I had to step out into the hall way for "air". No one could persuade me to go back inside, so my doctor came out and checked my blood pressure....it was super high, along with my being dizzy, light-headed and sick to my stomach. Doc became a believer that day. O, and he also made sure there were no more smelly products in the future in the office! Loved that man...wish he were still my physician!
One good thing about being extra sensitive....I prevented a fire in our home. I was sleeping, and all of a sudden sat straight up. "I smell something scorchy!" I yelled. My husband and I walked all the way through the house until we got to the other side and he finally could smell it too. Turned out to be a charger was going bad and could have ignited at any minute. That charger was 60 feet away when I smelled it, and it was super nasty strong to me.
I liked reading all the posts here. I am going to ask my doctor about some of the suggestions about nasal cauterizations, etc. Thanks, guys for sharing!
Pat
I too, have yperosmia and it was all triggered by a smell in a taxi cab.....caused a 10/10 headache, a 2 day hospital stay and every test and medication under the sun....with no definitive answers. In reading this blog, I saw a comment about a clinic in LaCrosse Wisconsin that can help. Does anyone know the name of the clinic? M
Thanks.....its good to know I'm not crazy! Good luck to all of you!
CharD
Thanks.....its good to know I'm not crazy! Good luck to all of you!
CharD
I am sorry to hear the various levels of suffering and hope someday there will be a medical solution for us. I too have hyperosmia. I realized at the age of six that I was different in this sense. It was Thanksgiving, my family ( eight members) and I were watching TV in our living room after the dinner celebration. I notified my family that I smelled something burning. No one else smelled something burning. We continued watching TV. After a little while, I persisted that I was smelling something burning. One of my brothers was sent to check the kitchen and found nothing. I persisted. Another brother was sent to check the furnace in the basement. Again, nothing. No one paid attention to me after that. About 20 minutes later one of my brothers happened to look out the bay windows and yelled the house across the street and one house over was on fire. A person parished in the fire.
I also suffered from migraines. They started when I was thirteen. The migraines were without aura and were accompanied with constant vomiting. I had four key triggers with one being exposed to strong odors for a period of time.
My acute sense of smell has forced me to make many modifacations over the course of years. I am in my early 50's now and try to protect myself the best I can. I use fragrance free face and body soaps (aveeno), fragrance free face and body lotions and fragrance free laundry detergent and fabric softer. I use a steam to clean my floors, swifter dry dust clothes, vinegar and water to clean surfaces. I only use two scented cleaning products because I have not found an alternative but ensure the area is well ventilated.
It took years for my husband to understand the severity of my issue. I found aveeno carried a line for men that was fragrance free. It is called aveeno active naturals. I found fragrance free shave gel, after shave lotion and face wash. This has helped me tremendously on this front and my husband actually likes the product.
We have dogs. We use fragrance free dog shampoo and conditioner.
When we invite guests to our home, we kindly ask that they not wear fragrances such as cologne, perfume or scented lotions as I am allergic to fragrances.
I am the cook in my family. So far, I can tolerate most food odors but I do frequently open the kitchen window when I cook no matter what the weather is outside. I just adjust the opening accordingly. Also, I generally wear t- shirts to cook dinner because I get food odor transfer so I can change out t-shirts easily and at a lower cost than dry cleaning. I just have more laundry.
I have learned to remove myself from an environment with "strong" odors as quickly as possible before I get too exposed and I reach " the point of no return" where I get ill. If people do not understand and look at me funny, so be it. It is a matter of survival.
I have had to quickly remove myself from elevators, taxi's, dr's offices, restaurants, etc.
I also suffer from a variety of allergies which at times are scary for me as my breathing becomes constricted, I feel dizzy and faint amongst other symptoms. I have two different inhalers.
Bottom line, I have found a routine that works with my specific triggers. I understand that I may have to adjust my routine as I come across new triggers. I have learned to take a stand for myself as most people do not understand my situation and how "strong" odors can make me ill to the point of being non functional.
Until the medical community can truly help us, know that you are not alone and continue to fight for a healthy living situation.
I also suffered from migraines. They started when I was thirteen. The migraines were without aura and were accompanied with constant vomiting. I had four key triggers with one being exposed to strong odors for a period of time.
My acute sense of smell has forced me to make many modifacations over the course of years. I am in my early 50's now and try to protect myself the best I can. I use fragrance free face and body soaps (aveeno), fragrance free face and body lotions and fragrance free laundry detergent and fabric softer. I use a steam to clean my floors, swifter dry dust clothes, vinegar and water to clean surfaces. I only use two scented cleaning products because I have not found an alternative but ensure the area is well ventilated.
It took years for my husband to understand the severity of my issue. I found aveeno carried a line for men that was fragrance free. It is called aveeno active naturals. I found fragrance free shave gel, after shave lotion and face wash. This has helped me tremendously on this front and my husband actually likes the product.
We have dogs. We use fragrance free dog shampoo and conditioner.
When we invite guests to our home, we kindly ask that they not wear fragrances such as cologne, perfume or scented lotions as I am allergic to fragrances.
I am the cook in my family. So far, I can tolerate most food odors but I do frequently open the kitchen window when I cook no matter what the weather is outside. I just adjust the opening accordingly. Also, I generally wear t- shirts to cook dinner because I get food odor transfer so I can change out t-shirts easily and at a lower cost than dry cleaning. I just have more laundry.
I have learned to remove myself from an environment with "strong" odors as quickly as possible before I get too exposed and I reach " the point of no return" where I get ill. If people do not understand and look at me funny, so be it. It is a matter of survival.
I have had to quickly remove myself from elevators, taxi's, dr's offices, restaurants, etc.
I also suffer from a variety of allergies which at times are scary for me as my breathing becomes constricted, I feel dizzy and faint amongst other symptoms. I have two different inhalers.
Bottom line, I have found a routine that works with my specific triggers. I understand that I may have to adjust my routine as I come across new triggers. I have learned to take a stand for myself as most people do not understand my situation and how "strong" odors can make me ill to the point of being non functional.
Until the medical community can truly help us, know that you are not alone and continue to fight for a healthy living situation.
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