Any one else have scent sensitivity?

[thinkingagain]

How do you deal with it @ work
While shopping etc ?

[Emile]

1. My sense of smell is weak. Probably weak from working in a chemical plant for years.

[MaryMagdaline]

2. Scented candles cause my throat to constrict

My other sensitivities are much milder. I just sneeze and then the irritation seems to dissipate.

[Mossfern]

4. Oh! I forgot about that.

Yankee Candle displays would send me scurrying.
I just get intense headaches.

[thinkingagain]

16. Yes they use to not bother me

Now yes
Most Fruit smells ok
Like lemon,

[Bettie]

20. I have a similar issue

though citrus scents are fine, florals make me feel like I can't breathe.

[Polybius]

30. My sister was like that when we lived together

I like my candles, and she hates them. Yeah, we clashed a lot lol.

[Mossfern]

3. I do

Those women in department stores who want you to sample a scent make me crazy!

Actually I take it as a super power rather than an affliction.
I try to remove myself from any overpowering smell.

I will be the first person to note that "something's burning."
Perfumes and colognes give me horrible headaches.

Fortunately I'm retired, but it wasn't an issue (thankfully) at work.
I will walk out of any store that smells of chemical fragrance.

[thinkingagain]

12. Yes, heighten sense for things like smoke or something is fine

But it’s the perfumes and air fresheners stuff that are triggering things like burning eyes, throat, closing raw feeling headaches that kind of stuff.

[Rebl2]

13. Certain perfumes

cause me to cough violently. Remember going to a Avon open house one time long ago and I started coughing so violently I had to leave.

[Mossfern]

19. Yes

It's a blessing and a curse.

I often can tell if people are sick by the odor they subtly emit - and then know to keep my distance.
Strong manufactured scents make my head feel like it's splitting open.

Funny though, pure essential oils don't affect me that way at all.

[Faux pas]

5. I have fibromyalgia

and scent sensitivity is one of the special things that come with it. I just line my nose with vicks and that pretty much prevents any unexpected scents from surprising me. Good luck thinkingagain

[thinkingagain]

11. Yes I use the Vicks

At work sometimes it helps others not so much.
I did not know fiber myalgia came with sent sensitivity. Good to know because I think I have that.

[Faux pas]

26. Here's some info for you

https://creakyjoints.org/about-arthritis/fibromyalgia/fibromyalgia-overview/fibromyalgia-tender-points/

[thinkingagain]

34. Thanks for sharing that

My doctor actually wrote it down one time for me, but it’s no longer on my history of problems along with A multitude of other things

[haele]

22. I used Vicks also. Learned about that when I started working the shipyards decades ago.

The menthol will reduce the "nose tickle" sensation, headache, and eye watering for the most part. Sometimes lavender oil will help along with the Vicks if it's really bad. Sometimes it makes it worse, depending on how much and what type of alcohol is used in the distillation.
I hate strong cologne (too much alcohol), especially the musky ones or ones that don't balance the citrus and petroleum based sweet floral scents so it smells like detergent.
Masking is the only other option. But that doesn't protect the eyes from watering near someone who bathed in cologne to mask the fact they pulled an all night pub crawl and only spent 15 minutes at home to change clothes, comb their hair, and spray themselves them with cologne to mask the smell of booze and sweat.

Haele

[Faux pas]

25. It's hard when you can't

get away from the smells. Wood smoke is the one that really sets me off, I used to love that smell. I also made sure my nose was extra vicksed during the high covid threat.

[OnionPatch]

27. Same here. And migraines as well.

My daughter, who lives with me, works at Bath and Body Works. We have many a conflict over smelly things in our household. I can sometimes handle mild, natural scents like cedar or pine, and only a little of it. Anything too perfume-y brings on an immediate headache.

[Lonestarblue]

6. Wearing a mask around people who overuse scent helps.

I try to buy products, like laundry detergent, that have no scent. I can’t be in a closed room with lilies without getting a headache.

[thinkingagain]

17. I only buy unscented laundry soaps

And dryer sheets
No fabric softeners.

Dish soap personal soap no scent or fruit
Lemon apple etc

I was wonder if masking helped
Does it have to be a special kind
For smell vs germs

[Mossfern]

21. OMG - Lilies!

They stink up the entire house.
My husband was so proud of the bouquet he got me for my birthday, but they were mostly Stargazer lilies.
I couldn't hurt his feelings so I "forgot" to add water to the vase.

[Jrsygrl96]

7. Yes!

I smell things no one else can smell! It is a curse, but it did once save our lives when I smelled smoke that no one else did and our ski house was on fire.

Funny story - when I was in college a friend lived in an apartment on the third floor. Almost immediately I asked her if she lived near a laundromat. She said, “Only you could smell the laundry room 4 flights down! Years later she called to tell me she was pregnant and apologized for mocking my sense of smell!

There is really nothing that can be done. Sorry!

[Blaukraut]

8. Yes!

It drives my husband crazy. He says I have the sense of smell of a hound 🤣

[womanofthehills]

9. After I was poisoned with Malathion by a city worker

Using the wrong pesticide 3 days in a row for mosquito spraying by trucks in my neighborhood,I got Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and severe smell sensitivity. My whole neighborhood got sick. The smell of broccoli cooking on the stove would close my throat - let along perfume. I could not even put gas in the car because of the smell. Then I became very allergic to most food. I moved to the country for clean air am about 80% improved.

Have you been exposed to any chemicals, pesticides, mold, gas, propane etc?

Check out the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity forums all over the web and on Facebook. Hightened smell is one of the main symptoms - many get food sensitivities too.

My heightened smell is way reduced but I still have it. When you smell something strongly - leave or walk away fast as your body might start reacting in various ways.

Masking can help - buffered vitamin C or anything buffered like Tri Salts or AlkaSeltzer Gold. Also fruit helps. My PhD Allergy Dr said, when you react, your body turns acidic and you need to buffer it right away. Many have had to quit their jobs. Leave the area if you can, explain to co workers your perfume sensitivity.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hoffman-program/resources/chemicals-in-your-life/what-is-mcstilt/

[thinkingagain]

10. Interesting on the vita c

Yeah, I talked to our HR person and she did twice send an email asking people to refrain from wearing perfumes and colones, etc. but many are not doing that I work in area. I can’t be moved. I don’t have any doors. It keeps increasingly worse, I work with books that come through as new and lately now several of the books the print is starting to get to me even a year ago that I didn’t notice. Shopping avoid the perfumes area and laundry soaps
But it’s the people and Their perfumes that trigger it.
Someone suggested a mask and I’m trying to figure out if that would be helpful.

[no_hypocrisy]

14. I teach a boy who has it.

He covers his nose when I speak to him, despite my fresh breath.

I use peppermint dips with him.

[flamingdem]

15. How about an air purifier on your desk?

They come in all different sized. You can have a portable one around your neck!

[thinkingagain]

18. Been thinking about an air purifier

The small neck one does not help

Mostly where I work people are just walking by and it will trigger it

Sometimes I go in a room where they have been and can smell the one huge trigger

[MagickMuffin]

23. I lost my sense of smell back in 2004

It is gradually coming back but only certain smells and a lot of it is of a metallic smell. Not very pleasant but I am grateful that my sense is gradually coming back.


Before I lost my sense of smell I couldn’t be around people who wear perfume. Especially the ones who tended to overdo it. And HooBoy going to a church service can be a nightmare, all those mixed perfume smells trying to mingle into one glorious
olfactory scent.

[canetoad]

24. I sure do

My eyes are shot, I'm nearly deaf and my hands don't work well but I can smell a dead kangaroo in the bush from a kilometre away. Always been the same; as a kid I needed to get out of the way of my mother's famous tempers. A heightened flight response driven purely by the lizard brain. It stayed with me.

I sort of fell into the correct profession by needing to leave home to escape her. I trained as a chef and it worked very well - I made enough money to do a fine arts degree in my late 20s which was translated to computer design.

I rarely ever needed to taste a sauce - the smell was accurate enough. Working in a big establishment, I could smell if a roast was done from a couple of floors away. I was extremely sensitive to food that wasn't fresh.

Today, I can smell the fish department in the supermarket, even the faintest hint of ammonia from the fridges if it looks perfectly clean. It can be unpleasant if it's too bad. I just move on to a different part of the shop.

There are drawbacks but in general, the benefits are greater.

[Tadpole Raisin]

28. Ye are not alone! Strong perfumes, smoke, and plenty of things

That aren’t scents. Funny but after I had a concussion smoke didn’t bother me as much. I still don’t like it but don’t get the intense HAs I used to.

I’ve read that some sensitivities can be histamine responses (and redheads can have that problem more than others) and they will try allergy meds.

Others want to avoid the drugs and will take Antronex (check on Amazon) and swear by it. It helped me but I’m not around the stuff that bothered me anymore so I don’t take it now.

If it is bad avoidance is difficult and people just don’t get it.

[thinkingagain]

35. I might have to try this

May be a little bit expensive though.

[Polybius]

29. One of my coworkers has it bad

Last edited Sat Nov 23, 2024, 11:12 PM - Edit history (1)

He can't take any kind of unnatural scents. Management had to accommodate him and remove all of the Glade air fresheners, even the one in the bathroom. He even gets off the day after we do our monthly extermination fogging for insects. The extermination crew comes in at night, but the next day he has to be off. I can barely smell anything 8 hours later, but he can.

I'm friends with him, and while I miss the Glade's (especially in the men's room lol), I understand. The rest of my coworkers don't, however. They make fun of him behind his back, calling him a whiney baby.

[Arthur_Frain]

31. Suffer

Everybody stinks, from cologne, to garlic breath.

When I can I fight back with gas. Home made French onion soup is a good load up for that.

[Laffy Kat]

32. I do, although it's not terrible.

Most all perfumes/colognes bother me. At worse I will get a headache/nausea. Fortunately, the clinic where I work is supposedly scent-free. That doesn't stop the patients from wearing them, but it's tolerable.

[rsdsharp]

33. I used to have a problem walking through perfume departments in department stores.

Why the put them right inside the front door is beyond me.

[JanMichael]

36. Nope nose broken too badly

I can smell most things but I'm certainly not sensitive