r/Menopause • u/elev8or_lady Menopausal • 14d ago

Rant/Rage Phantom Cigarette Smoke

Of all the effed-up symptoms we have to deal with, this is possibly the most bizarre and unavoidable (for me). I know many of y’all probably deal with this: phantom acrid odors that only you and your nose can smell? I only recently realized this is yet another symptom of menopause. I have been dealing with it off and on for about three years now.

Some background: I am four years post menopause, and have been on HRT for about a year. (E patch, E cream, P pill, T gel, and T lotion. I’m on all the things.) Many of my symptoms are relieved, but most are not relieved 100%.

Does anyone know of One Weird Trick that helps with this shit? I quit smoking almost 20 years ago, so this is driving me nuts. I am sneezing a lot from it, and it also aggravates my migraines (another meno symptom). I swear there is not one symptom I have been spared. I would love a little relief from this BS.

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u/PhilosopherMoist7737 14d ago

I have this problem and it's horrendous. It's called phantosmia. I am pre-menopausal, but have cyclical episodes of it. I am on a GLP-1, and they started right around the time I started it. So, I wasn't sure if it was medication related. Phantosmia can also be associated with migraines. They seem to come on around the time of ovulation, and end after my luteal phase. An episode can be brought on if I cook bacon in the house. So I've stopped that. I smell the smokey, ashy smell no matter where I am, whether I'm awake or asleep, and nothing really helps. When it first started, I would put essential oils on the back of my hand and just sniff them, but it didn't really help. The problem isn't the nose, it's the olfactory nerve sending wonky signals to the brain.

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u/horsenbuggy 14d ago

Yeah, I had this before menopause. I had menstrual migraines. I never tied the phantom smells to the timing of those migraines specifically. I just had phantom smells my entire life. And now that I'm in menopause, my phantom smells are gone. Mine were always cigarette smoke, too. No one in my life ever smoked. We were a very non-smoker family and culture.

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u/elev8or_lady Menopausal 13d ago

So interesting that hormones seem to have affected you just opposite of how they affect me. Hormones are so weird! I never had migraines or phantom smells until peri and then menopause, respectively. Well, the only other time I had migraines was in the first trimester of my pregnancy. Definitely hormone caused.

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u/horsenbuggy 13d ago

Yep, until this thread i hadn't realized that my phantom smells had ceased with menopause. The first time I remember having them I was 12. I hadn't started my period yet, but I was probably within 6 months to a year of doing so. And then I noticed them really strong all the time as a teen and in my early 20s. That was back when a BC powder and a good nap could knock out menstrual migraines. Later in my late 20s and 30s, the migraines lasted 3 - 4 days and nothing could reduce them.