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.