Hypersensitivity to Smell - 8 years after pregnancy

[cjwheat]

For over 8 years now my wife has been having hypersensitivity to smell.  She smells things that I cannot and it really bothers her.  It all started when she was pregnant with our first child, prior to that everything was normal.  We know that pregnancy can cause temporary hypersensitivity; and it is not as bad as when she had morning sickness, but it the problem did not completely go away after our son was born.  It can be very frustrating for her at times as you can imagine.  Does anyone know anything about this?  Any help would be appreciated.  My searches have only yielded answers that say that it is always temporary but 8 years is hardly what I would call temporary.

[SlyOneTwo]

I too am hypernosed.  I can smell many things and often get gags.   Elevators with people are my bane.  In my office I can smell cigarette smoke off and on all day and the building management denies it.  They think I am crazy.  I can smell smokers in cars ahead of me on the road.  It was much worse when I was pregnant.

[Kyleemomof2]

I too have re-developed a hypersensitivity to smells.  At first the thought that I was pregnant again did cross my mind, but that is not the case, and yet the symptoms seem very similar to what I felt during pregnancy. Certain smells, like car exhaust cause nausea every time, and last night, while attempting to make banana bread, I got the dry heaves so bad, my husband had to come in and take over.  It is frustrting and annoying.  Daily something sets me off, this morning it was the smell of coffee grounds as I was making coffee.  I just wonder if there is anything I can do besides running away from the smell!

[vic1223]

Hi...I see your post is from 2 months ago, but maybe your still there.  Your wife is not alone.  I too am extremely hypersensitive to smell ever since I was pregnant with my son (12 years ago!), and it bothers the heck out of me!  It's very hard to go to the mall--I can smell everyone as they walk by as if I had my nose right up to them!  I also work as a correctional officer, and I'm sure you could imagine the awful smells there!  I even had a deviated septum and enlarged turbinates and was stuffy most of the time, but I could still smell every scent as though my face was right in it.  Anyway, 2 weeks ago I had surgery to repair my septum and reduce my turbinates so I could breathe through my nose again, and since then I haven't been able to smell much.  Loss of smell can be a rare complication of surgery, however, when the sense of smell returns (and it usually does), it's improved.  After the last 12 years, I can say I wouldn't mind losing my sense of smell--probably because I couldn't bear for it to become even more acute than it was.  Sorry I can't offer any answers, but there's gotta be something to this...it can't just be your wife and I that suffer from this.