Smelly things that arent there

[mrsstats]

I have been smelling either an odor like vinegar or cigars on and off for several months. I am starting to get concerned that there is something wrong with me. Has anyone had this happen to them. TIA

 

[denisenh]

sometimes i smell cigarette smoke inside my house and no one here smokes. we have owned our house for nearly 2 decades, so its not leftovers. it is awful. P U

 

[themilesfamily]

I had that happen to me a few years back -- smelling the smell of smoke all the time.

I did some Google research, (i.e. may be reliable, maybe not), but it seemed to happen to people who had some illness or allergy that affected the sinuses. And, in fact, I had just gotten over a cough/cold/bronchitis-type thing that lasted for a month.

It eventually went away.

 

[BEloveDisney]

I used to smell puke everywhere. Never got an explanation, but it went away. I agree with a previous poster, I think it has something to do with sinus infections or other infections.

 

[AKL_Megs]

It could also mean seizures, as that is a warning sign, although I doubt this is the case.

 

[happily single]

Not to start a big debate, but anytime I do any renovations to my house, even moving furniture around the smell of cigar/pipe smoke was very strong. My house was totally rehabbed 8 years ago and none of my neighbors smoke pipes/cigars. I've smelled it, kids smelled it, babysitters and friends have all smelled it at least once. Well, about a year ago the babysitter ordered pizza and the delivery women said "OMG, this is ....house. I used to sit on the front steps and talk while he smoked his pipe"

YUP, that and other reasons...we're moving in several weeks

 

[NikkiLovesWDW!]

The same thing happens to me but it's almost like a campfire smell. Most of the time, it happens when I'm laying in bed. The first few times it happened, I would take another big whiff to see what I was smelling but couldn't smell it again. It was only a quick sensation. It took a few times to realize, it was something internal. I haven't smelled it in a while but it's been on and off for probably 2 years now....

 

[Imzadi]

The fact that you are smelling vinegar may mean your internal ph balance or acids are off in the body. Or something like that.

I've read that people sometimes smell rotten eggs (sulfur) when there are no eggs. That was linked to chemical imbalance in the body.

Have you tried Googling for the symptoms? After I developed a wicked strong addiction to Altoid mints, had cravings & was CHEWING through a full tin every day & a half, and feeling mentally fuzzier and fuzzier, I Googled and found it is a symptom of Pica, the need to chew non-nutritive items like chalk, toothpaste, ice, mints, which is a symptom of severe anemia. I also learned I had 11 other symptoms of anemia.

I got the anemia handled and the Altoid cravings went away in a day and a half. I have 3 leftover tins stocked up, that I haven't had any cravings to dip into them.

 

[AlleyKat]

I have been smelling either an odor like vinegar or cigars on and off for several months. I am starting to get concerned that there is something wrong with me. Has anyone had this happen to them. TIA

Do you always smell these just while at home?


I'm thinking along the lines of a paranormal explaination.

 

[mrsstats]

I smell them at work, at home, in the store, in the car. Doesn't matter where I am. It is driving me nuts. I did google - came up with brain tumor, strokes, seizures. Will bring it up to dr on next visit

 

[snarlingcoyote]

I have 4 cats and two dogs. Of these, 2 cats and one dog have potty training issues on occasion. One cat likes to pee under my computer desk. I think I've managed to train this out of him, though. One cat likes to pee on my clothes. One dog occasionally can't hold it if she's locked inside for more than 5 hours. She always has a clean puppy pad to use - well away from her "burrow" (She was rescued from a high kill shelter. For whatever reason, kennels have a bad association for her, but she made her own little burrow out of a space under a coffee table.) Once in a while though, a little spray goes off the pad.

So anyway, I smell pet urine on a pretty frequent basis. I'm obsessive about cleaning it off everything. Baking soda, vinegar, peroxide, and pet enzyme live in big bottles in my house!

If I smell something early on the day, the smell just STAYS in my nose the rest of the day. I just can't keep from smelling it!

It's totally psychosomatic, and I KNOW it's in my head, but I'm obsessively sniffing all day long!

On a "sinus" related front though, right before I'm about to get a cold, I occasionally smell really STRONG laundry detergent perfume, in my nose.

 

[beatlesblonde]

It's funny that this thread was started. In the past couple of days I've caught the smell of liquid fabric softener while near our bed. I find it funny and odd because I haven't done laundry in over a week and I don't use liquid fabric softener.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Have you ever had your air ducts cleaned? There used to be a phantom smell in our house that my husband always smelled but after cleaning our duct work, he says it disappeared.

During all 4 of my pregnancies--our refrigerator smelled like something died. But only to me. I would get sick going into it and over time...the sight of it would make me sick. Hubby would scrub it too to bottom and it would smell like something died got bathed in bleach.

This last pregnancy I thought I would beat it to the punch. Sanitized that thing like crazy. Nope! Once the morning sickness started--gag. Hubby replaced the fridge as he got tired of having to deal with me insisting there was something stinky when their wasn't.

My sinuses do go berserk while pregnant and sense of smell is whacky.

Oh--and this didn't happen with anybody else's fridge..even those needing cleaning.

 

[HOGFAN]

I do have a seizure disorder. On several occasions I have had a funny odor in my nose, almost like a body odor. Ive asked coworkers, family members if I stink, they answer 'no'. Within a day or two I have a seizure. Of course Ive had seizures without the odor too. It would stand to reason tho that some chemical imbalance could be in play.

 

[LuvOrlando]

These are called smell hallucinations. I have been getting them since I was a teen. I didn't realize they were hallucinations until about 2 years ago when it happened to happen when I was in a room with my entire family. For me it's a very distinct smell, it smells like an electrical fire. I kept asking my Dh and kids to help me find the fire in our house but they simply couldn't smell anything. I went to the Dr and the neurologist told me they are probably a weird form of migraine in my case. I have noticed that using nasal sprays for allergies can make this much worse. I don't know if this happens to other people on inhaled nasal sprays but my Flonase made it really bad for me. I have been repeatedly checked for seizure disorder but they never got an image at the exact moment i smelled the smoke so the Dr said they can't exactly rule out the seizures but since it's my only symptom he's more inclined to accept them as a form of migraine.

I had a friend who had a ball of tissue stuck in her sinus that caused a foul smell, but in that case other people could smell it when she breathed on them. Do you have someone else you can ask? I know it sounds gross but if there is something in your sinus like an infection another person would pick it up.

if the smell is truly only in your head as with anything sense related I think it's unwise to diagnose yourself. While smell hallucinations can obviously be nothing serious, they are far from a typical symptom of migraine. They are way more often associated with seizures or mental illness so you really do need to be checked before you make assumptions about what is causing the smells. Plainly put, there is nothing average about smelling stuff that other people can't detect. Don't panic but certainly don't ignore it either. I know when I realized I was the only person able to smell the smoke I was in a Neurologists office that week. Better safe than sorry.

 

[FergieTCat]

I was skimming through the book "Remembering Smell". It's about a woman who damaged her smell receptors by using Zicam. Her first symptom was smelling a phantom bad odor. Apparently, it was her brain's way of compensating for not being able to detect real smells. Then she lost her sense of smell altogether. I stopped reading the book so I don't know if she regains it.

 

[ChrizJen]

I have the issue with phantom smoke "smell".
It comes and goes, but I've had it for several years now.
I'm (obviously) not really "smelling" smoke, because no one else can smell it when I do. My doctor said that it's most likely my body's reaction to something else that I'm allergic to. So the sensors in my lungs and sinuses are having a reaction similar to those that happen when I'm breathing in second-hand smoke.

I really thought I was going crazy for a while until I talked to my doctor about it.

 

[pilesoflaundry]

I smell them at work, at home, in the store, in the car. Doesn't matter where I am. It is driving me nuts. I did google - came up with brain tumor, strokes, seizures. Will bring it up to dr on next visit

If you are smelling it everywhere, it's you not the place you are at. Could be a sinus thing.

I smell cigarettes from time to time but only at home. No one has ever been allowed to smoke here since I moved in. I have no idea about previous tenants. I joke with my husband it's dead family members coming to visit.

 

[lovemylife]

I had that for a few weeks last year. Thought I was going nuts. My DH couldn't smell anything at all, thought I was losing it. My doctor said it was a sinus infection. It was really wierd though.

 

[dicar123]

I had a similar problem, but I actually found the source! Near the stairs in the family room, I kept smelling a maple syrup type smell. I was checking the carpet, scrubbing walls, you name it! My family thought I was nuts.

Then it disappeared. Several weeks later, that same area had a "something is dead" smell. Turned out a mouse had had babies in the wall. When we found the nest, the babies were tiny and dead. I don't know for sure that the sweet smell was newly birthed mice, but if I ever smell it again, dh is going to have some work to do!