"Super sniffer"

[HarleyMama]

Any one else notice they can smell things others can't? Beyond the normal sensitive nose...
I was trying to explain to my husband that our son doesn't smell sick, so I'm starting to wonder if he has a food allergy. And before I've been able to smell that the virus he got was "weird" (aka knew to me) and lasted longer than a normal flu /cold.
Can you guys smell illness?

 

[MicroWeiss]

I think your are likely correct in your senses, though I can't smell illness. I find my nose is sensitive to different things than most people. Like walking by a hairdresser I thought everyone should be gagging on the floor, which is what I felt like doing, the smell was so powerful, but they were acting normal. Using liquid laundry detergent, I couldn't figure out for months why the smell of my clothes was making me sick. Most people don't react at all to things I react to, and then I in turn don't react at all to things that bother them. There are genetic differences in the way each persons olfactory receptors work. I don't think science has caught up with this field of interest.

 

[DogwoodTree]

This is kinda gross...

I could tell from the smell of my kids' poops whether they had a tummy ache and what kind, or some other something going on.

And yes, I think my kids smell different when they have different kinds of illnesses, though I use other clues as well, of course. My DH smells different when he's having an allergy attack, too.

And other senses...I can tell what part of my cycle I'm in by how chocolate tastes, and whether I'm pregnant by how the oven smells to me. My sense of smell gets cranked waaaay higher when I'm pregnant!

 

[Judge]

Sometimes I wonder if I have olfactory hallucinations. Sensing smells that aren't really there. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Given further thought, they may well fit right into what are known as "hypnopompic hallucinations". Where I wake up from REM sleep in the middle of the night smelling tobacco smoke that simply isn't there.

Either way though, I do have quite a sense of smell.

 

[watersprite]

Yes HarleyMama me too - I smelled it when I'd go in their (my kid's) rooms in the morning if they were sick.

 

[AsheSkyler]

I can smell a certain breed of ants when they're squished, I know every time the old woman in the office runs her ozone machine because of the highly weird smell it puts off, and that's about it for things I can smell nobody else can. The rest of the time, I smell the same things, but much more strongly. I also share a hatred of salons and the stink they create. And I know whenever they treat the water because it smells just like a public pool.

I typically don't smell anything abnormal about my family. But I do freak a bit if my husband has been eating one of those fruity candy canes and I don't know it, because that smells just like diabetic keto acidosis.

 

[Naturalist]

Yes, I can smell illness... and I can smell when the weather is likely to change, about a day ahead. I can NOT smell those little bugs they call "stink bugs", for some reason.

My otherwise NT sister could smell when my mom was cutting cucumbers, from one floor up and the opposite side of the house...

 

[DogwoodTree]

I can NOT smell those little bugs they call "stink bugs", for some reason.

Me neither!!! I also can't taste that litmus or whatever it is on the little strips they have you taste in high school biology class when studying genetics.