Phantom smells for 6 months, anxiety going insane!

[SonicTheHedgehog]

Hi everyone. Sorry to be annoying with an anxiety question and apparently a common one at that. I’ve never had covid as far as I know, but since January I’ve been getting the smell of cigarette smoke when its not actually there. Im 27 and have never had any health issues except health anxiety that started 3 years ago.

Cue googling like an idiot and I saw brain tumours and epilepsy. I started getting horrible feelings of being twitchy and sensitive and my tummy sinking, my head feeling numb and pressure and my facial features not feeling ‘right’ on my face as if my eye was wonky or something. I started worrying about simple partial seizures.

I’ve seen an ENT in May who gave me an MRI but I haven’t heard anything back yet, my follow up is later this month so I assume it might be OK? Though the NHS makes me nervous with its response times etc.

I now am thinking even if the MRI is OK, what if I need an EEG to test for epilepsy? Im scared of things escalating and having a full blown seizure and something bad happening. All day today my head has felt heavy and fuzzy and i smell the cigarette smell. Its been going ok for weeks. The only reassurance I have is that sometimes when I’m out of the house and fully engrossed in what Im doing I dont experience symptoms so maybe its anxiety. But im so scared and feel like I have no support as I have no one to talk to and I dont know whether to push my doctor or accept my results when I get them. I wake up everyday feeling so down and anxious because of this and feel I have nowhere to turn and can’t relax.

[cattia]

Hi, I have been through the phantom smell worry more than once, likelihood is there will be a post or thread on here from me about it somewhere! I can tell you that the more you focus on it, the more you’ll experience it. I have had phases of it that last for months at a time. The only thing that makes me not worry about it so much any more is that it’s been going on for years!

[SonicTheHedgehog]

Hi Cattia, thanks for replying. What sort of smells do you get? Do they last long? Its good to hear someone who just gets on with it despite smelling them. The anxiety is awful!

[StarsDie]

I've gotten weird smells that I can't describe what they are. They'll last for weeks and sometimes a month or two. Typically I get them during seasonal changes for some reason, and sometimes the smells give me a strange feeling of deja vu.
I went through a period where I thought it meant I was going schizophrenic, but I'm now noticing that it shows up during high periods of anxiety. So ultimately I have figured that at least for me, it's probably just seasonal changes and high anxiety.
I haven't come down with any condition due to it. I haven't been hospitalized for it. And it hasn't 'gotten worse' or caused any discernible problems that I can think of.

[NoraB]

I now am thinking even if the MRI is OK, what if I need an EEG to test for epilepsy? Im scared of things escalating and having a full blown seizure and something bad happening. All day today my head has felt heavy and fuzzy and i smell the cigarette smell.

Sounds like sinus issues...

[WorryRaptor]

I get that cigarette smell too. I also go numb in my entire left side, from head to toe...no exaggeration, they've seen it happen. My head fills with pressure, my face spasms, and my left eye gets darker in vision. I get headaches from hell, and awful nausea with balance problems to boot. If anybody was a candidate for a brain tumour, it would likely be me! But I've been through an MRI three times, plus an extra one I paid for privately to examine my blood vessels, and there's definitely no tumour there. They've tested my nerves and reflexes and checked my eye pressure to ensure nothing was pressing on anything in there.

I hope its somewhat reassuring that somebody with all of the above rolled into one barely functioning human doesn't have a brain tumour or epilepsy.

I know the concern with the NHS waiting times, but they're pretty great once they do find a problem. Anything that is really a concern gets dealt with quickly.

Phantom smells can be from anxiety, irritated sinuses (which can also get inflamed from stress) or even migraines getting the smell signals muddled.

[silver_shoes]

Hi Sonic..
This might sound like a really stupid thing to say, so bear with me, but are you absolutely sure you are not smelling the cigarette smoke because it is somehow getting in the house via a window?
Years ago, I went through a phase where I kept smelling toast. I wasn’t particularly worried about it but it was driving me insane because I was the only person who could smell it. I realised that I was smelling only when I was in our bedroom. Then one summers evening, when I had the window open in there, my husband came in the bedroom and he finally could smell it! So I think he realised it was probably somebody locally just making toast, but because I have the bedroom windows open a lot, the smell was coming in there!