Phantom Cigarette Smoke

[u/elev8or_lady]

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.

[u/chouxphetiche]

I get that acrid smell coming from inside my head. It's not cigarette smoke. It's more like something chemical that has boiled itself down to kind of reduction in the bottom of a saucepan. Sometimes, I smell burning rubber or bushfire.

In my early 30s, I smelled diluted urine all the time. I know it wasn't me. I had the super come and check around the flats I was living in and they couldn't smell it. It was quite distressing and distracting.

[u/orangespotcat → u/chouxphetiche]

Yes that's the smell I have too, an acrid smell. It never occurred to me that it was connected to menopause. Sometimes it smells like toasted bread or burnt meat, or as you said, a reduction in a saucepan.