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Bad Smell in Nose
Every so often, usually after a sneeze or a sniff, I get a foul smell in my nose that only I can smell. It's hard to describe. It's a combination of many bad smells put together. It makes me not want to eat, because it's not even worth eating anything for the enjoyment of food. (It would probably be good for someone trying to lose weight). :-) I tried to pinpoint the cause, but I haven't been successful. It's usually gone after a night's sleep. A nap doesn't always do the trick. Note that this is a smell that only I can smell. My wife tells me that she cannot smell anything in my breath. I've seen other posts where folks say that their mucous has an odor, but this is not the case with my condition. It's not associated with any infection, such as a cold viurs. Does anyone have this condition or something similar?
you guys most likely have a polyp and on top of that you don't drink enough water. I just finished Medical School and i myself have a nasal polyp. its very hard to see but all the mucus just is lodged behind it.. and imagine how gross it is. honestly polyps in the nose do not have any correlation with cancer and if you get them removed most likely it will grow back. if its a really bad polyp ruining your breathing or causing you this taste i say do it . i think insurance covers it. I had severe congestion and trouble breathing my whole life. everyone i know always tells me how i breathe so loudly.. it took me forever to figure out that it was because i pretty much breathe thru only 1 nostril with ease
I am a 50 year old woman who has just had the onset of this horrible smell. After reading most of these posts, I discovered it is coming from my left nostril. It just came on 2 nights ago for no reason that I can tell.
I became visually impaired (blind in left eye and low vision in right eye) about 11 years ago. I am a type 1 diabetic, have glaucoma, hypothyroidism and nasal allergies. When I became visually impaired, I noticed that as time went on I became more sensitive to smell and sound. My husband is a smoker - outside only - and sometimes I can barely stand the smell that follows him in when he comes back in the house. He has to wash his hands thoroughly after each cigarette or I just about barf. I, too, get fixated on the overpowering smells as they come up.
This smell that is occurring now is sort of a poop - fishy - yeasty smell. It is horrible! And as the day has gone on today, it has only gotten worse.
I was thinking about my father who had what sounds like the same problem. When I was a teenager, back in the early 1980's, he would ask if my mother and I could smell something rotten or nasty. We didn't smell anything. Eventually he went to the doctor and was told he had a sinus infection. Eventually he began to have this really terrible sort of dry cough that would start just out of the blue. After suffering with this for many years, and the sinus infections coming and going, he was tested and was told that he was having mini strokes and that is what was causing the trigger for the coughing. But after more testing he was told that they couldn't quite figure out if the cough triggered the mini seizures or vice versa.
I have never smoked, drank alcohol or done drugs. I do take eye drops for glaucoma, and recently have been put on 2 news one, though they all do basically the same job in your eyes. I do suffer from gastric reflux and take medication for that, but I have been on those meds for years now.
I live in a dry, windy, dusty climate and was diagnosed with Valley Fever and pneumonia back in 2010. I was thinking this might all be a bout of either of those things cropping up again - but after reading all of your posts, I am now wondering if it might be something else.
I have started using colloidal silver nasal spray - a natural antibiotic - and will see if this helps before I go to my doctor. I don't do well on antibiotics due to them causing yeast infections (common for type 1 diabetic women), and also that runs in the family. All I know is that this smell is horrible and makes me a little nauseous right after I blow my nose. Funny thing though, I have not sneezed at all today and I am actually blowing my nose less than usual. I keep boxes of Puffs in every room of my home - literally - due to the smount of nose blowing I usually do. So far, this smell has not affected my sense of taste and I have tasted all of my food normally for the last 2 days. I will update if anything new comes up. Hope all of you are doing well and have found some answers!
I became visually impaired (blind in left eye and low vision in right eye) about 11 years ago. I am a type 1 diabetic, have glaucoma, hypothyroidism and nasal allergies. When I became visually impaired, I noticed that as time went on I became more sensitive to smell and sound. My husband is a smoker - outside only - and sometimes I can barely stand the smell that follows him in when he comes back in the house. He has to wash his hands thoroughly after each cigarette or I just about barf. I, too, get fixated on the overpowering smells as they come up.
This smell that is occurring now is sort of a poop - fishy - yeasty smell. It is horrible! And as the day has gone on today, it has only gotten worse.
I was thinking about my father who had what sounds like the same problem. When I was a teenager, back in the early 1980's, he would ask if my mother and I could smell something rotten or nasty. We didn't smell anything. Eventually he went to the doctor and was told he had a sinus infection. Eventually he began to have this really terrible sort of dry cough that would start just out of the blue. After suffering with this for many years, and the sinus infections coming and going, he was tested and was told that he was having mini strokes and that is what was causing the trigger for the coughing. But after more testing he was told that they couldn't quite figure out if the cough triggered the mini seizures or vice versa.
I have never smoked, drank alcohol or done drugs. I do take eye drops for glaucoma, and recently have been put on 2 news one, though they all do basically the same job in your eyes. I do suffer from gastric reflux and take medication for that, but I have been on those meds for years now.
I live in a dry, windy, dusty climate and was diagnosed with Valley Fever and pneumonia back in 2010. I was thinking this might all be a bout of either of those things cropping up again - but after reading all of your posts, I am now wondering if it might be something else.
I have started using colloidal silver nasal spray - a natural antibiotic - and will see if this helps before I go to my doctor. I don't do well on antibiotics due to them causing yeast infections (common for type 1 diabetic women), and also that runs in the family. All I know is that this smell is horrible and makes me a little nauseous right after I blow my nose. Funny thing though, I have not sneezed at all today and I am actually blowing my nose less than usual. I keep boxes of Puffs in every room of my home - literally - due to the smount of nose blowing I usually do. So far, this smell has not affected my sense of taste and I have tasted all of my food normally for the last 2 days. I will update if anything new comes up. Hope all of you are doing well and have found some answers!
Incidentally, this is the first day I felt a foul smell in my nose. I could only relate it to a small accident happened two days back. The car boot door fell down due to heavy find, while I was loading luggage. I had a very small cut, without bleeding. For 30 mins, I had a slight trauma. After an hour I took TT. Today I felt the bad odor in my nose for 3 to 4 times. One of my colleague said that it could be that one of my sinus areas got disturbed and that could be reason. Anyways he has suggested to me to take Homeo Arnica and I should be fine.
I should also add that over the last couple of years my Smell has also triggered headaches on a few occasions. Do not know if this is psychological or not.
Hi,
It's been 7 years since your first post. I pray to God that you have found some relief from your symptoms and for what I have come to call "The Smell".
I, sadly, have not. I know that doctors in the US at least try to diagnose this problem and you do have a lot of skilled ENT specialists in your country. I know that we over here in Europe we do not, there is simply not enough research or knowledge about this condition. I know at least one over there who has this phenomena (phantosmia / neural smell disorders) as a research project. Cannot remember his name right now, this doctor has his own clinic in the US. When you think of it it as a quite serious medical condition, or disability actually.
Kind of ironic that when you first posted this was around the time it started for me. Thought I was the only one for a long time and that also drove me crazy.
Remember it quite vividly how it all started in my kitchen on a sunny day. it's like my life took a turn on this day: it is before or after "The Smell". In the beginning I thought it was a "taste" (called it The Taste for a while) and one of the first things I did was actually to completely rinse my nostrils and sinuses with saline solution. To this day, this is actually the best temporary relief. nothing else helps.
My family doctor and then the first ENT I met all recommended me basically the same treatment: anti-biotics and different nasal sprays. Standard diagnosis has always been sinus infection (sinutisis). They seem to ignore the fact that I have had sinuitisis over the years as well from time to time and I know very well that my symptoms exist regardless of any sinus infections. They are not related. I know how a sinus infection feels and this is not it. A sinus smell is also VERY different and other people can often actually smell it too (bacteria)
Nothing has helped so far. I've done a endoscopy of my stomach (as they thought it was a Taste first) and been examined by a rhinoscope in the nostrils. I have taken pills against acid indigestion, even though I told the doctors that I did not have any symptoms or pain from the stomach at all! and last but not least when I was about to give up I demanded an MRI scan of my brain as I knew very well that a tumour could not be ruled out at that stage. Over the years I have always had the feeling that no one took the symptoms seriously.
Anyway the MRI scan did not show anything either, this was in 2011. Guess I have actually come to accept my condition. Which is sad in a way. I know that the last resort i surgery and complete or partial removal of the olfactory bulb = loss of smell. It has always been my firm belief that this is neurological disorder and not related to the nose and / or sinuses!
I also believe this smell is completely neurological (a smell distortion or hallucination) because it is A. very hard to describe and B. when other people try to describe similar symptoms it just seems to be anything that has a foul smell. SO doctors and other people try and "pin point" a smell that does not in fact exist as in mucus/bacteria etc, and so they focus on the wrong thing!. It is just a perception of a smell.
I would say that it is like a mixture of gasoline/something burnt, chemical and and a bit metallic.
It's been 7 years since your first post. I pray to God that you have found some relief from your symptoms and for what I have come to call "The Smell".
I, sadly, have not. I know that doctors in the US at least try to diagnose this problem and you do have a lot of skilled ENT specialists in your country. I know that we over here in Europe we do not, there is simply not enough research or knowledge about this condition. I know at least one over there who has this phenomena (phantosmia / neural smell disorders) as a research project. Cannot remember his name right now, this doctor has his own clinic in the US. When you think of it it as a quite serious medical condition, or disability actually.
Kind of ironic that when you first posted this was around the time it started for me. Thought I was the only one for a long time and that also drove me crazy.
Remember it quite vividly how it all started in my kitchen on a sunny day. it's like my life took a turn on this day: it is before or after "The Smell". In the beginning I thought it was a "taste" (called it The Taste for a while) and one of the first things I did was actually to completely rinse my nostrils and sinuses with saline solution. To this day, this is actually the best temporary relief. nothing else helps.
My family doctor and then the first ENT I met all recommended me basically the same treatment: anti-biotics and different nasal sprays. Standard diagnosis has always been sinus infection (sinutisis). They seem to ignore the fact that I have had sinuitisis over the years as well from time to time and I know very well that my symptoms exist regardless of any sinus infections. They are not related. I know how a sinus infection feels and this is not it. A sinus smell is also VERY different and other people can often actually smell it too (bacteria)
Nothing has helped so far. I've done a endoscopy of my stomach (as they thought it was a Taste first) and been examined by a rhinoscope in the nostrils. I have taken pills against acid indigestion, even though I told the doctors that I did not have any symptoms or pain from the stomach at all! and last but not least when I was about to give up I demanded an MRI scan of my brain as I knew very well that a tumour could not be ruled out at that stage. Over the years I have always had the feeling that no one took the symptoms seriously.
Anyway the MRI scan did not show anything either, this was in 2011. Guess I have actually come to accept my condition. Which is sad in a way. I know that the last resort i surgery and complete or partial removal of the olfactory bulb = loss of smell. It has always been my firm belief that this is neurological disorder and not related to the nose and / or sinuses!
I also believe this smell is completely neurological (a smell distortion or hallucination) because it is A. very hard to describe and B. when other people try to describe similar symptoms it just seems to be anything that has a foul smell. SO doctors and other people try and "pin point" a smell that does not in fact exist as in mucus/bacteria etc, and so they focus on the wrong thing!. It is just a perception of a smell.
I would say that it is like a mixture of gasoline/something burnt, chemical and and a bit metallic.
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