Do any of you have problems with scents, odors?

I do, I have a lot of trouble with all kinds of chemical scents. I've been on CPAP since May of 1998
and the last 7 or 8 years the problem has gotten much worse. I'm just wondering if it has anything
to do with a constant air pressure being blown up my nose each night.

Just wondering.

Bryansong

No, but I have noticed my nasal passages are clearer than ever. Perhaps these odors were diminished by congestion before CPAP?

bryansong wrote:I do, I have a lot of trouble with all kinds of chemical scents. I've been on CPAP since May of 1998
and the last 7 or 8 years the problem has gotten much worse. I'm just wondering if it has anything
to do with a constant air pressure being blown up my nose each night.

Just wondering.

Bryansong

For me CPAP has proved the opposite keeping airway open. before starting CPAP i went through several years of Bronchitis / Pneumonia. so far so good. when i do stop machine in morning i have sneezing fits, nose blowing. our noses all have different sensitivity . i can pickup mildew smells when the mrs. cannot . Antihistamines have also helped to control the nose faucet.

Sometimes ... when I'm working outdoors on a hot day I tend to have a slight problem with my scent, odor.

A quick shower usually takes care of the problem though.

I have problems with scents and odors. Fragrance and smoke are my two biggest triggers. This proceeded CPAP by many years. It's a form of chemical sensitivity/asthma/allergy. Certain scents give me an immediate and severe headache and coughing, prolonged exposure can trigger asthmatic bronchitis.

It has nothing to do with CPAP. CPAP actually helps, because I'm breathing clean, filtered air all night, and sometimes when I've been heavily exposed to a trigger, I'll take a nap with CPAP and feel so much better afterward.

Sometimes going out to public places is miserable because of this: religious services (even though our congregation is SUPPOSED to be fragrance-free), theater and public performances, and other places where women wear perfume to feel "dressed up". GAAAAK!!!! If I'm already feeling a bit under the weather, I just don't go to these places.

Here's what helps:
1. Avoid the scents if you can. Not always possible. The worst are women who reek of fragrance and insist on hugging me--URGH!!! Now I'm wearing THEIR scent for the rest of the business day. I have to keep my office door closed against office mates who wear scented products and use scented lotion on their hands at their desks all day long.

2. I use fragrance free products whenever possible: soap, shampoo, deodorant, detergent, dryer sheets, and cleaning products. I make some of my cleaning products (orange spray, for example), and use natural alternatives when possible (crystal deodorant stick, coconut oil for moisturizing). I have found that even so-called "fragrance-free" personal products have fragrance in them sometimes. WTF???

3. Sometimes newspaper ads and magazines come with fragrance samples. My husband tries to put the ads outside as soon as he brings the paper in, and I don't subscribe to magazines anymore except online.

4. My poor kids suffer because they aren't allowed to have all the fancy scented things that are popular with teen girls in our house. They like to joke about buying scented lip gloss just to "kill Mommy", and think it's hilarious that incense at a Catholic funeral I attended almost killed me. Thanks, kids! Aren't teens fun???

If it's really severe, you may benefit from seeing your doctor or an allergist. Inhaled or nasal steroids may reduce the bad reactions, and because I have asthma I also have a rescue inhaler for such times. I seem to react less now that I'm on a Paleo diet and taking Vitamin D supplements.

Artificial fragrance seem to be worse than natural (essential oils) for me, but too much of anything is just a horror.
My sister-in-law (with emphysema) can't even go into B3 around the holidays--she just can't breathe at all.
I get sneezy when somebody with issues about perceived odor piles the stuff on--(even ex$pen$ive stuff)
Most room air fresheners, too. (But I love my hubby's natural beard scent when he gets all sweaty.)

Vanilla candles. Not PAP-related, years ago I worked in a furniture repair shop that took on a lot of insurance work. One fire job was for a lady who had a thing about vanilla candles. all her bedroom furniture had 3/4" of a mixture of melted candles and soot from the fire melted into the finish. Scrape it off, put it in the stripping tray and the solvents released all that vanilla goodness into the air.

Makes me more nauseous than pot smoke. Working on a college campus I occasionally get subjected to the double-whammy of pot smoke in somebody's clothes mixed with Patchouli. Guess if it was good enough for grandma when she was at college in '67...

I noticed the first time I used PAP at home that after an hour or so when i took off the mask I thought "this place smells funny", but only for a minute or so then everything smells normal.

Quite a few people report a more sensitive sense of smell with CPAP. Some people think the CPAP caused the smell, but it's something real you just didn't smell before. It's something to do with clearing out your nasal passages or something.

Some people seem to become hypersensitive to smells.

Some people seem to pick up "phantom" smells after CPAP. i.e. there's nothing really there, but they smell some sort of odor all the time.

I believe this is probably a real phenomenon in some people, not a psychological problem.

I haven't heard of any research or cures.

I kept noticing a burnt oil smell while driving my car. I finally figured out it was the smell of oil on the road where it accumulates at stop lights. It became less noticeable over time. I'm not sure whether that was CPAP or the allergy shots clearing up my nose.

Funny timing reading this thread right now. I'm staying in the bedroom while my wife has bunco (sp?) night. There's about 13 women down the hall and the toxic cloud of trier perfume is rolling down the hall into my room and my chest is closing up and eyes are starting to water. Fortunately it's not too cold out so I can open a couple windows.

Randy

I battle constantly with allergies - and have really very swollen sinuses most of the time and still, my sense of smell is just obnoxious. . . maybe because of it? I don't know. I do know that I went through hell and high water to make sure my cpap tubing and mask doesn't smell like ANYTHING when I go to bed at night because the soap smells or the cpap wipe smells drive me bonkers.

Heh. Some dogs just have good noses on 'em.

I have no sense of smell I keep hoping that I'll get it back. Sinus surgery didn't do the trick. I think maybe CPAP will but my husband says I'm grasping. I've had awful allergies since I was little. I was that kid with the runny nose all the time. My sense of smell just kept getting worse until I realized one day that it was gone.

If I see dog poop especially in the morning I will check the bottom of my shoes all day long because I keep thinking I can smell it. I know it is just my imagination but the false smells linger on.

Certain times of the year, especially a dry windy Fall season, I smell smoke. Everywhere. Not cigarette smoke, but more like brushfire smoke.

There won't be smoke anywhere, but I'll smell it in the bathroom, living room, work, outside, in the grocery store, in the parking lot, in the car, in the CPAP.


Honestly I suspect it's mold. Nobody else will smell it (nobody in my house smokes, nor have they ever). I know I am affected by mold terribly. The smell gets AWFUL if I don't use the heated humidifier.

Stormynights, I'm the same.

I used to love my clothes being washed in scented detergents and fabric softner. Now I can'tuse them, the smell is overpowering to me. I've found I can only use bosisto's laundry powder. It has a very light eucalyptus fragrance.

I suspect we ARE more sensitive to smells with CPAP because our sinuses are cleared out more than without CPAP.

Funny timing reading this thread right now. I'm staying in the bedroom while my wife has bunco (sp?) night. There's about 13 women down the hall and the toxic cloud of trier perfume is rolling down the hall into my room and my chest is closing up and eyes are starting to water. Fortunately it's not too cold out so I can open a couple windows.

As a woman I have to assiduously avoid gaggles of women because they usually try to out-perfume each other. GAG! No Bunco for me. (Funny story: My then 8 year old daughter's friend asked if could spend the night because her mom was having a ladies' night gathering. We asked the kid what her mom did with her lady friends, and the daughter told us "she's playing "Bimbo"." LOL!!!! She meant "Bunco".)

It's sort of an odd thing to have to avoid groups of women, being a woman and all. Women who wear that much perfume don't get how unpleasant it is to some people. The worst is when the scent is so strong it lingers everywhere--I hate getting on the elevator sometimes because someone's perfume becomes a passenger for hours. UGH! I can't imagine that most men would like it that much, either, though I know there are some. I think some men "like" perfume just because they are so darn relieved to have something they know that they can buy as a gift that their significant other will like.

Occasionally a man will reek of aftershave, but most men are smarter than that.

When I was a child, my mom wore Chanel No. 5 on special occasions. That is one strong perfume and I never understood why I felt so SICK whenever we went somewhere fancy. Now I know!