I've been super sensitive to odors ever since I can remember, at least most of the time. Years and years before my MS diagnosis.

I remember one day being so upset I cried because I could smell something "hot". Neither my first husband nor my two kids could smell anything. I was frantically going around the house looking for sources. This went on for maybe an hour? and I MADE my husband go to the cellar to check. When he came back, he said a sheet of styrofoam had tipped off the wall and was leaning against a light bulb and melting.

Another time I could smell gasoline and nobody else could. Finally someone realized he'd pushed the lawn mower out of the way in the garage and sure enough, he'd brushed his pant leg against the gas can. Pee-yew.

Once in a great while I have an olfactory hallucination, but that's another story. And it is rare.

The most frustrating thing to me is that people think I'm fussy (well, maybe I am) because whatever it is doesn't smell THAT bad. Well, it does to me!!! And it isn't an obsessive-compulsive thing when I don't like people sitting in my recliner...it's that they tend to leave smells behind: smoke, car exhaust, cleaners, whatever.

And once I get a bad smell in my nose, it stays there all day, even if I don't actually touch the offending object. It's as if the odor glues itself to the inside of my nose or something. Aaargh.

I could go on and on. I usually do.

me too! I can smell hot! you freak out in your head thinking that wires are burning or something got left on the stove.

I HATE perfume! why oh dear God why do women bathe in the stuff before they go out into public? i mean COME ON! I almost choked to death trying to eat my lunch yesterday cause the drunken old lady behind me would rather bathe in perfume than get in the shower! you could smell the BO and the bottle of cheap stuff she used.

Fumes on the highway! Traveling behind a truck that is coughing out black fumes and stinky smells like garbage trucks or cars with bad emissions makes me dizzy, and woozy. I ask DH to pull over! let them go by. I cant breathe!

Im glad im not alone in this. its awful. DH started cooking an egg yesterday, I came wandering out and said "do you smell something hot?" he said "duh, im cooking!" /blush.

Ditto! I could smell something burning from my office a little while ago. Once I mentioned it others said they could smell something too. It has been driving me crazy. and it has also been making me sneeze and cough. I made my chair call and report it. It turns out there is a fire at a church about three blocks from here. Hopefully it is just a grass fire. It smells like burning leaves to me. I also can not stand the smell of strong cleaning products. They make me sick.

I've always had a sensitive sense of smell but it seems to have gotten worse since MS. I can smell "hot", too, and have to find the source or I'll worry myself to death! What's really annoying is that sometimes there isn't a "source" other than my sense of smell going into overdrive. Being the only girl in a house full of boys for so long my nose is used to just about any kind of smell you can think of!

Me too me too!!! I have alway had a super smeller detecter type nose. I wouold walk in some peeps houses and tell them they had a gas leak.. I've had furnace guys tell me I'm nuts, but in checking it out with soap, sure enough, there was a leak.

I can also smell heat and burning.

I have an extremely strong sense of smell. Really strong! I am esp. sensitive to bad smells and, unfortunately, those smells are coming from my boyfriend and it is threatening our relationship. He smokes which makes him smell disgusting to normal people and for me, sick to my stomach. He drinks and I can smell the booze coming out his pores. I've given up on putting my face on or near his because then my skin reeks!! He has the runs every am which is beyond gross and he only showers when feels like it and his used socks are stiff with bo! I've brought it up time and time again that he needs to take better care of his hygiene and has to really step up his game because I am so sensitive but because he can't smell much of anything, he doesn't keep up on it.

I would send him packing if he wasn't such a wonderful, caring, loving person who I am compatible with in many ways.

Any advice?

Spray him with refresh!!!

When I was doing dissection, the smell of the lab and the specimens put me off. The instructor suggested putting a dab of vicks vapo rub or an essential oil on the skin just below the nose. It worked. It might work for you as well with something that you do enjoy the smell of. After a short time, that is all that you smell .

With love, Erika

Wow, I have this too! I can smell water boiling down in the kitchen when I'm upstairs. I can smell it if a smoker was in an elevator and then got off before I get on. Hate it when someone hugs me and leaves cologne smell on me, although I think men's cologne is worse.

I am also hypersensitive to smells. It's frustrating because I will comment about a smell and my husband will say "what are you talking about?" And it always turns out there is a source for whatever it is I'm smelling!

And yes, cologne overall is the absolute worst! Why do men even wear it? Perfumes and chemicals also make me sneeze. Sometimes I wish I had no sense of smell.