Awful musty chemical smell

[MoonlightFire]

I've had this awful musty chemical smell following me round for the last week or so. It comes in waves and it's extremely unpleasant - a really overpowering bitter, chemical like smell. It reminds me a bit of moth balls or burning hair. Has anyone else had this? I've had a lot going on recently which could explain it - I'm under a huge amount of pressure at work, I have some post traumatic symptoms from an assault I suffered last year and I've been on some really strong antibiotics (metronidazole) following impacted wisdom tooth surgery. I'm also getting over a bad cold but all the other cold symptoms are gone now.

Yesterday I got really worried about it and googled...then totally panicked as lots of brain disorders came up in the results. I know googling is a dreadful idea so I did a safe search by typing in 'stress and sense of smell' thinking that would come up with sensible results but it didn't. The smell is driving me crazy. Has anyone else had anything like this?

M xx

[LunaLiuna]

Lack of appetite or taste, a tinny, metallic or ammonia smell or taste

What you feel:

Sometimes you just don't feel like eating, or the thought of food is unappealing. Or, that even though you are eating, the food has no taste or is unsatisfying.

You have a persistent 'tinny', 'metallic' or 'ammonia' smell in your nose, or you taste it often and it's not from your food or environment. Often it's just there, but you can't figure out why

What causes this:

Similar to the other stomach related symptoms, loss of appetite is a result of an upset stomach due to the sustained increase in digestive action. Loss of taste occurs because taste buds are nerves, and an over stimulated nervous system can send false signals to the brain which means that sometimes we can experience odd, dulled or incorrect sensory perceptions (since our receptive senses are controlled and interpreted by the nervous system). The loss of taste because of this miscommunication or misinterpretation by the over stimulated nervous does occur. This is another example of how we can receive incorrect or inaccurate sensory perceptions because of an over stimulated nervous system.

The only remedy for this symptom is rest so that the nervous system can regainits health.

Taken from the symptom page on this forum :)

[MoonlightFire]

Thanks Luna.

That symptoms page is so informative. It's been invaluable so many times :) I knew the funny smells thing was on there but I was wondering if anyone else had any experience of the this symptom. I think it's probably more likely to be with the antibiotics I've been taking but it's incredibly distressing and I can't help thinking there is more wrong than just antibiotic side effects. I have suffered from health anxiety for 20 years and since I've been off medication (3 months) the health anxiety keeps rearing its head. It's breaking me.

[LunaLiuna]

No problem!

From what I know, antibiotics can be quite disruptive on your gut. So you are probably right. Were these thoughts strong before the googling? Or did that reinforce them? In all of the 20 years you've suffered, have you ever felt this bad? If the answer is "I've felt worse" then you should bet on it being anxiety.

I hope your feeling a lot better soon!

[MoonlightFire]

The thoughts were strong but the googling made them stronger and tossed me into a state of panic in the street.

The smell persists. I have now been off antibiotics for 3 days but no let up. The smell is noxious. It knocks me backwards every time it comes over me. Depression has returned. I feel heavy and lethargic. It's like I'm living off really dense air, everything is dense. Like treading water.

M xx