Strange sense of smell

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the fact that I've discontinued all alcohol intake for some time but a few days ago I had a strange sense that I'm smelling something. It's not any kind of definable odor or aroma nor is it unpleasant. It just seems that I'm getting something.

Now, this could be all in my mind or it could be what is known as "phantosmia". If I'm not mistaken, some people who suffer from anosmia also have this condition where they seem to smell scents that aren't actually there. Although unless I'm mistaken, those "smells" are usually very unpleasant if not repugnant. Again, it's hard to say what's going on here and in fact it only lasted a few days but it was interesting to note.

I've run out of my prescription of Nasonex and haven't used it for about a week so I imagine it would be an opportune time for me to call my ENT and get my prescription refilled. Maybe it will help!

Allergy Shots helped during the dry winter

Well, southern California has finally ended the driest winter in recent memory and my sinuses held up fairly well. I was figuring that with all the dry Santa Ana winds we had this year and very little rain, my sinuses and allergies would be at their worst but they actually held up.

I think the allergy shots are helping with reaction to allergens but I am somewhat disappointed that they have had no affect on my anosmia. I'm in a maintenance phase on the environmental part of my shots (dust mites, dander, etc) but am still working up with the grass and pollen shots.

I've also totally stopped drinking, mostly due to just getting lazy and happy sitting around watching tv but also because it really was having an effect on my sinuses. I tried stopping before to see if it would help my anosmia which it didn't but I can honestly say that my sinuses are much less congested in the morning. Who knows, maybe somewhere down the road my sense of smell will return. I still wake up every morning and get out of the shower thinking I might smell some coffee but it hasn't happened yet.

What's your favorite food?

If you can't really "taste" anything. What's your favorite food? I've found that there are some foods that I enjoy more now than before my anosmia. Some not so good for me!


Being involved in bodybuilding and fitness for about 25 years, my diet was always important. I always ate fairly bland food (turkey burgers, tuna, chicken breast) so I was surprised when I became anosmic that it actually bugged me that I couldn't taste anything. I mean, turkey burgers and skinless chicken breasts aren't the most exciting flavors. So now that texture and taste (sweet, sour, salty etc) are what I crave, I've found that my healthy eating isn't so healty anymore. I need to pick things up and try to get back on track.

I'll post on some food that I used to love but can't bear in my next post bBut for now, here's some favorites:

Celery
Potato chips (especially the super salty/vinegar type)
Almonds
Cheddar cheese (can't figure this one out, probably just the texture)
A GOOD hamburger
Seltzer water/club soda
Hot peppers
Granny Smith Apples
Olives
Hot Dogs
Pickled Herring
Sardines

I ate most all of these prior to being anosmic but they are favorites right now.

Still Anosmia but some food is good

I've recently been taking a look at the types of foods that I enjoy now more than I used to since I've been suffering from anosmia. Nope..still can't smell anything.

For about 3 months I've noticed that it's definitely texture that appeals more than anything else. Crunch is good. I've always loved nuts, carrots, chips and anything crunchy but I have been eating celery like it's going out of style.

And even though I can't taste it, I always dip the celery in either hummus or sometimes peanut butter. With the peanut butter it's definitely the salty taste that is appealing to me and with the hummus I usually get the spicy type so I get some kind of heat/burn.

For a while, any type of pasta was disgusting to me. There was something about the texture that was completely unappealing. But lately, as long as I put some hot red pepper flakes on it, any type of pasta or italian dish is good.

And even though they're crunchy, apples have very little appeal. I still eat them and usually the sour Granny Smith type but it's not sour enough to make it something really enjoyable. Bananas that I used to love are now pretty much out of my mind. Again, it's something about the texture.

And that's what it's coming down to: Texture and the basic flavors of salty, sweet, sour, etc.

First liquor, now cigars

Well, the new year has brought no relief from my "condition". Not that I was expecting to wake up on January 1 and be able to smell the coffee or anything. My little experiment with not drinking brought no change but someone said something to me over the holidays that kind of made me think.

As I think I've mentioned, I love cigars. Up until this all started I loved the taste and aroma of a GOOD cigar. But even though I haven't been able to taste one in over a year, I've continued to smoke them. Sometimes one a week, sometimes 3 but I also go on binges where I'll smoke one every night.

My brother in law mentioned how irritating smoke is to sinuses, which of course I knew, but I never figured I'd give them up and see if there's a change in my "condition". I'd go days without smoking one and never noticed any change so I figured they didn't have anything to do with it.

But if I look back to when this started back in the fall of 2005, I was pretty much smoking them non stop. Is there a connection? Is the cigar smoke causing inflammation? Will it take weeks of not smoking them to see any improvement? I'll give it a try. Hopefully it will help.

So much for laying off booze

Well, we're into full holiday mode: Christmas, Hanukkah and New Years celebrations. My little experiment with abstaining from alcohol lasted about 10 days with no effect whatsoever. In all fairness, it might not have been enough time but I honestly didn't feel any different in regards to olfaction.

So now that it's the holiday season and people have been cooking everywhere, it's a little depressing to say the least when you can't smell anything from hanukkah latkes to roast beef. So screw it, I'm going to drink if I want. Hell, even when I could smell, drinking always dulled it.

I'm now wondering if the cigars I smoke have an effect on all of this so I think after this is all over, I'll try laying off of those and see how it goes. I guess I'm still hoping that there is ONE THING I can do that will change all of this.

In the meantime, have a great holiday season. May 2007 bring full olfaction back to those who don't have it!!

Alcohol's effect on my sense of smell

For a few years prior to losing my olfaction, I noticed that anytime I drank alcohol there would be an immediate effect on my sense of smell (and therefore, my sense of taste). Sometimes it was dramatic, other times not so much. But it always annoyed me that if I wanted a cocktail before dinner or a glass of wine with dinner, there would be the subsequent reaction and it became impossible to do both at once.

I've never been a big wine drinker but as my palate matured over the years I did enjoy good wine with food. Frustratingly, it got to the point where I'd enjoy one or the other. And even if I did opt for wine or a pre-dinner cocktail, it wasn't long before I couldn't taste that either! Imagine enjoying a great cabernet and by the second glass you can barely taste it.

As I've just passed my one year anniversary of being anosmic (woo-hoo!), something got me thinking about all of this: Could the fact that have at least one and usually more drinks almost every night be contributing to at least some of my anosmia?

I recently did some searching online and found that one of the effects of alcohol can be inflammation of nasal/sinus passages. As I always noticed an effect and since I've become quite the martini drinker, I thought I'd stop drinking and see if it has even the slightest effect on my sense of smell.

So, as of Monday November 27 I'm laying off alcohol. I would hope that any benefit would happen almost immediately, i.e. within days. As of the 28'th I've noticed no benefit but we shall see.

Congenital anosmics

So I found a nice anosmic forum where I put a few posts and introduced myself. I soon found out that most of the folks on there are "congenital" anosmics. That is, they have been without the ability to smell anything since birth.

When I mentioned in one of my posts that I cannot taste anything, I was "corrected" in that I can indeed "taste". I just do not get any "flavor". I mentioned how, yes, I can in fact taste and that I understand that the taste buds only taste sweet, salty, sour etc. But whether you call it flavor or taste, all food is the same, tasteless/flavorless. A pizza has the same taste as oatmeal, that is NONE!

A few people replied (all who were congenitally anosmic it seems) that they all can in fact taste things. One gentleman suggested I try rolling food around my mouth, over and under my tonge etc so that my taste buds can get the true taste of the food.

The image of this to me is, well, not pretty.

Look, as any anosmic knows, the taste we get from food comes from the aromas that are dispersed through chewing. This is obvious. But it seems to me, and not wanting to be disrespectful to anyone who's had this miserable condition all their life, that if you were NEVER able to smell, you don't know what true taste is.

I would challenge anyone who is congenitally anosmic to take 3 sticks of chewing gum: 1 flavored spearmint, one peppermint and one wintergreen and tell me which are which. I don't think it would happen.

For someone who once knew what a glass of grapefruit juice tastes like, I find it hard to believe that someone who has never smelled, actually knows what it really tastes like.

I can't smell food, so I can't taste food

It's hard to explain to people why I cannot taste anything that I eat. When I tell them it's because I can't smell anything they cannot grasp why that affects my sense of taste. I usually leave it at, "You know how food is tasteless when you have a cold?" That usually drives the message home that your sense of taste is really derived from you ability to smell. As you chew food or drink liquid, it's actually the aroma from this that is getting to your brain.

They get confused though when I tell them that yes, I can "taste" salt, sweet, sour etc. Or that if I eat a hot pepper, yes, I do feel the burning sensation. But for instance, if I were to eat a piece of cake, I could taste/feel the sweetness of the sugar on the vanilla frosting but I am unable to actually taste the vanilla itself. Or if I eat a sour apple, I can feel the sourness but cannot actually taste the apple. It can be frustrating and I usually don't even say anything when someone says, "Wow that was a great meal, how was yours?" I usually just say it was really good.

Nasonex, Flonase - Allergies!

I actually have found humor in my problems with allergies, sinus polyps and anosmia. You'd be hard pressed to find something amusing about not being able to taste a cup of coffee in the morning or to smell a pizza but during my never ending attempt to restore my sinuses to some workable condition, I've tried some amazing stuff.

After my sinus surgery to remove the polyps, my ENT advised that I do a twice daily treatment of Nasonex, Flonase or some similar corticosteroid. As my insurance offers better coverage on the Nasonex, that is what I've been on.

Now, Nasonex, like all the others, is a metered spray that you blast into your nostrils. The hope in my case is that this will decrease inflammation and also keep future polyps from growing. You simply spray the Nasonex into your nose.

However, after having no effect for months, it was suggested that I need to get this spray way up high in my sinuses. Since gravity is in play, the spray will not get high up in the sinus cavity while you're standing.

So what to do?

One morning, just after I had gotten out of the shower. I took the Nasonex for my morning ritual. This time however, immediately after spraying the Nasonex into my nose, I plopped down on the bed on my back with my head inverted and hanging over the edge of the bed. The goal of course was to allow as much of the Nasonex to reach my sinus cavity as possible.

The effect however was different: As I lay there with my head hanging off the bed, naked as the day I was born but certainly not as cuddly or cute, my wife walked into the bedroom.

If she thought I'd had a heart attack and collapsed in this position or that I was performing some strange sexual ritual she did not let on but stopped in her tracks for a moment.

Noticing her standing in the doorway to my side but not wanting to turn my head for fear the Nasonex wouldn't reach its target I simply offered, "Good morning!" To which this beautiful woman I've lived with for over 22 years replied, "Honey? What....are you doing?"

Before I could even offer my scientific explanation, she simply rolled her eyes, turned around and said, "Coffee's on"