I experienced hyperosmia when I was pregnant and also recently while recovering from radiation therapy. The real drawback was that everything (even food and perfume that I normally love) smelled ghastly. The only fragrance that I could/can still tolerate wearing is Eau d'Hermes.
There’s clearly a link between this anecdote and your research on anesthesia, which I find fascinating. The very notion of an induced state of hyperesthesia is provocative… and highly alluring. Of course, certain psychedelics under certain circumstances are known to do this, which for me raises the same question: why are the knobs of our senses turned to such a low setting in our normal, everyday life?
I have noticed that when I have a migraine, I smell certain aromachemicals very intensely. Not sure why. Tends to make the perfume seem very skewed towards these aroma chemicals.
I can't say I've suffered hypersomia. But I'm a Long Covid-patient and about trice a year, I smell everything differently for a couple of weeks. And for a lover of perfume and smell, those times are very strange! And not so nice. But until now, it reversed, fortunately.
I am a long covid person myself and though I am almost back to normal (just took me 5 years), I still remember how my sense of smell disappeared and then the first smell returned was a (usual drugstore) shampoo that strongly smelled as benzene. I thought I was going crazy. And then I had a month of really weird smells.
I experienced hyperosmia when I was pregnant too, and while most of the time it was dreadful, I do remember standing in the fruit and veg section of a grocery store and thinking it was heaven - it was like a disney land of smells. Unfortunately, this was before I got into perfumes, so I could not experiment with that.
What do you think made it past the blood/brain barrier? Did the drug break down and interact with something else? I lost all sense of smell for about four months once - couldn't smell food burning and couldn't taste it once it was. But I still grimly smelled my perfumes and ordered samples, and one day, on a country walk, I briefly smelled my latest sample - Guerlain Rose Barbare. It was orgasmic. (ex)Husband was unappreciative of the moment. :-( When people lost their sense of smell with Covid, I understood why perseverance with trying to smell things might actually work.
'I had temporarily become a dog' - - that's a wonderful expression of a feeling I experienced while writing the memoir of my late wife's black lesbian Labrador.
I experience the olfactory issue you describe on a regular basis. A large number of scented things - perfume and functionals - started smelling "wrong" about 10 years ago (I'm a mid-50s aged woman.) I get 2 categories of smell - one is a hyper woody odor that's very unpleasant; the other is more sewer-y. Actually, if you took the nastiest accord from the worst masculine you have ever smelled, then turned it up by a bajillion, that's about what it is.
Almost all of my neighbors' laundry (the scent gets piped out and carries) and the vast majority of perfumes that are released smell like this to me. It rarely happens with vintage (maybe never, though animalics can sometimes really ratchet up and get pretty rank), and rarely with new perfumes with higher doses of expensive materials (I can smell most Chanel Exclusifs for instance) or naturals (likewise with Jeffrey Dame, Andy Tauer, et al.)
A perfume can "turn" on me at any time (doesn't have to be first sniff - it can be after wearing it once or twice) but once it does, it never reverts back to smelling like it should. In fact, I recently went on a perfume expedition with my niece. We went to 2 shops, sniffed probably 60 perfumes, and to my surprise, I had no adverse reaction at any time.
I ordered some samples of the perfumes I wanted to try, and 2 of the 10 samples turned on me the minute they hit my skin.
I learned the term "parosmia" during the pandemic and that's what I've been calling it since then.
Is it something else that's happening?
I also experienced the other heightening of sensory input issues that you describe (as well as the body not communicating properly and feeling disjointed when trying to walk) on a very regular basis when I would have ME/CFS flare ups. ME/CFS started around the same time as the parosmia, come to think of it. I no longer have ME/CFS flares - they have stopped. But the olfactory issues persist.
I’ve been hyperosmic all my life, but I’m lucky that nice things just smell really nice. But even slightly bad smells are sickening. Any perfume with a “leather” note smells like overwhelming toxic waste. The towel problem is real; I had to buy a clothes washer that boils our towels for 5 hours to keep the stink away. They are scratchy, but they smell clean. Glad you’ve bounced back to normal.
Out of curiosity, how do you know it wasn’t an olfactory hallucination? After covid I had plenty- strongly smelling skunk / cigarette smoke where there couldn’t have been any…
Interesting- though I would have liked to have you blindfolded during the manipulations to be sure ;) I had (what certainly seemed to be) hyperosmia when pregnant- common- the supermarket was unbearable as the scent of rotting produce on a massive scale was smothering.
I hesitate to share this because it is so anecdotal and I have no scientific explanation, but I used to be extremely sensitive to smell, such that normal drugstore shampoo and detergent fragrances would give me a headache. So we had hypoallergenic everything and no perfume in the house.
Then I got COVID and lost my sense of smell. Twice. And then I found myself unable to get enough perfume. I HAD to smell something, almost like a compulsion. I would stick my face in the espresso grounds at random times just to check.
I have been pregnant three times and, while it did alter my sensitivity to smell, it was nothing like the aftermath of COVID. I love my growing perfume collection, though, and consider it a positive side effect.
I experienced hyperosmia when I was pregnant and also recently while recovering from radiation therapy. The real drawback was that everything (even food and perfume that I normally love) smelled ghastly. The only fragrance that I could/can still tolerate wearing is Eau d'Hermes.
Weird!
I guess I should invest in a pair of monogrammed slippers!
:-D
There’s clearly a link between this anecdote and your research on anesthesia, which I find fascinating. The very notion of an induced state of hyperesthesia is provocative… and highly alluring. Of course, certain psychedelics under certain circumstances are known to do this, which for me raises the same question: why are the knobs of our senses turned to such a low setting in our normal, everyday life?
I have noticed that when I have a migraine, I smell certain aromachemicals very intensely. Not sure why. Tends to make the perfume seem very skewed towards these aroma chemicals.
That's quite a story, Luca.
I hope you've recovered completely.
I can't say I've suffered hypersomia. But I'm a Long Covid-patient and about trice a year, I smell everything differently for a couple of weeks. And for a lover of perfume and smell, those times are very strange! And not so nice. But until now, it reversed, fortunately.
I am a long covid person myself and though I am almost back to normal (just took me 5 years), I still remember how my sense of smell disappeared and then the first smell returned was a (usual drugstore) shampoo that strongly smelled as benzene. I thought I was going crazy. And then I had a month of really weird smells.
I experienced hyperosmia when I was pregnant too, and while most of the time it was dreadful, I do remember standing in the fruit and veg section of a grocery store and thinking it was heaven - it was like a disney land of smells. Unfortunately, this was before I got into perfumes, so I could not experiment with that.
What do you think made it past the blood/brain barrier? Did the drug break down and interact with something else? I lost all sense of smell for about four months once - couldn't smell food burning and couldn't taste it once it was. But I still grimly smelled my perfumes and ordered samples, and one day, on a country walk, I briefly smelled my latest sample - Guerlain Rose Barbare. It was orgasmic. (ex)Husband was unappreciative of the moment. :-( When people lost their sense of smell with Covid, I understood why perseverance with trying to smell things might actually work.
'I had temporarily become a dog' - - that's a wonderful expression of a feeling I experienced while writing the memoir of my late wife's black lesbian Labrador.
Very interesting. I notice that when I fast for over 24 hours or more my sense of smell seems more sensitive. Especially in regard to food.
I experience the olfactory issue you describe on a regular basis. A large number of scented things - perfume and functionals - started smelling "wrong" about 10 years ago (I'm a mid-50s aged woman.) I get 2 categories of smell - one is a hyper woody odor that's very unpleasant; the other is more sewer-y. Actually, if you took the nastiest accord from the worst masculine you have ever smelled, then turned it up by a bajillion, that's about what it is.
Almost all of my neighbors' laundry (the scent gets piped out and carries) and the vast majority of perfumes that are released smell like this to me. It rarely happens with vintage (maybe never, though animalics can sometimes really ratchet up and get pretty rank), and rarely with new perfumes with higher doses of expensive materials (I can smell most Chanel Exclusifs for instance) or naturals (likewise with Jeffrey Dame, Andy Tauer, et al.)
A perfume can "turn" on me at any time (doesn't have to be first sniff - it can be after wearing it once or twice) but once it does, it never reverts back to smelling like it should. In fact, I recently went on a perfume expedition with my niece. We went to 2 shops, sniffed probably 60 perfumes, and to my surprise, I had no adverse reaction at any time.
I ordered some samples of the perfumes I wanted to try, and 2 of the 10 samples turned on me the minute they hit my skin.
I learned the term "parosmia" during the pandemic and that's what I've been calling it since then.
Is it something else that's happening?
I also experienced the other heightening of sensory input issues that you describe (as well as the body not communicating properly and feeling disjointed when trying to walk) on a very regular basis when I would have ME/CFS flare ups. ME/CFS started around the same time as the parosmia, come to think of it. I no longer have ME/CFS flares - they have stopped. But the olfactory issues persist.
Any ideas on this would be greatly appreciated.
ME/CFS and Longcovid are very comparable. Post exertional malaise may be similar to the flares you describe.
Yes, I call it a flare, others may call it PEM. It's no longer a concern for me (no PEM or other symptoms for almost 2 years.)
Did your olfactory issues begin when you contracted COVID?
Yes.
I’ve been hyperosmic all my life, but I’m lucky that nice things just smell really nice. But even slightly bad smells are sickening. Any perfume with a “leather” note smells like overwhelming toxic waste. The towel problem is real; I had to buy a clothes washer that boils our towels for 5 hours to keep the stink away. They are scratchy, but they smell clean. Glad you’ve bounced back to normal.
Out of curiosity, how do you know it wasn’t an olfactory hallucination? After covid I had plenty- strongly smelling skunk / cigarette smoke where there couldn’t have been any…
This was definitely not a parosmia: it instantly went away when I removed the towels, etc.
Interesting- though I would have liked to have you blindfolded during the manipulations to be sure ;) I had (what certainly seemed to be) hyperosmia when pregnant- common- the supermarket was unbearable as the scent of rotting produce on a massive scale was smothering.
Reviewer #2, is that you?
Maybe. I’ll be requesting 27 more citations and a complete reorganization by tomorrow.
Fair
I hesitate to share this because it is so anecdotal and I have no scientific explanation, but I used to be extremely sensitive to smell, such that normal drugstore shampoo and detergent fragrances would give me a headache. So we had hypoallergenic everything and no perfume in the house.
Then I got COVID and lost my sense of smell. Twice. And then I found myself unable to get enough perfume. I HAD to smell something, almost like a compulsion. I would stick my face in the espresso grounds at random times just to check.
I have been pregnant three times and, while it did alter my sensitivity to smell, it was nothing like the aftermath of COVID. I love my growing perfume collection, though, and consider it a positive side effect.