posted
I'm wondering if abx can change your sense of smell - or rather heighten it. I tend to smell a skunk when there is none around, wet earth when it hasn't rained, etc.
Is this just another one of those 'unexplained phenomena' of having this lovely disease?
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Abxnomore
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posted
I suppose so but in my experience it is usually the lyme hitting the cranial nerves that alters your taste and smell.
Do you have neuro lyme? Also a fungal infection in the sinus can cause that as well.
Lets see what others have experienced and tell us what ABX is causing this.
Posts: 5191 | From Lyme Zone | Registered: Jan 2009
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sutherngrl
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
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posted
I spent over a year smelling a dead rat, that no one else smelled. I have also smelled the skunk smell.
I believe it is a neuro issue from Lyme. It is very annoying.
Posts: 4035 | From Mississippi | Registered: Jul 2008
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steve1906
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posted
I've been smelling smoke for about five weeks. I also have a nasty teast on my Tongue all the time.
-------------------- Everything I say is just my opinion! Posts: 3529 | From Massachusetts Boston Area | Registered: Jul 2008
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MariaA
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posted
there was a very funny thread here a few months ago about the dead rat smell. Apparently lots of people have experienced that . The funny part was when one of them smelled it and no one else around him/her did, and then it DID turn out to be an actual dead rat.
I've had a heightened sense of smell most of my life (and might have had Lyme most of my life, mostly asymptomatic)- I think that once you start paying attention to it, you'll smell more things. However, it's definitely known that a)Lyme causes increased sensitivity to smells in some people just as it does to light or sounds and b) some antibiotics cause changes in sense of smell and taste, once in a while.
-------------------- Symptom Free!!! Thank you all!!!!
posted
Rifampin upped my sense of smell by about 10000 percent! It was so bad that I had to change drugs.
Posts: 398 | From By the Salish Sea | Registered: Dec 2008
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I think it's the disease, not the drugs. My partner has this, off abx. Weird part is (okay, another weird part is) that in most of these stories, the smell is always bad. No one seems to be hallucinating flowers.
Posts: 204 | From ma | Registered: May 2007
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sutherngrl
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 16270
posted
Bystander, thats an interesting thought. I mean couldn't you hallucinate a nice smell just as well as a bad one??? hmm! I would settle for the smell of a live rat vs a dead one.
Posts: 4035 | From Mississippi | Registered: Jul 2008
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posted
In my case, Rifampin actually increased my sense of smell. It didn't cause olfactory hallucinations (though I've had those since).
On Rifampin, I could smell *everything*. I could smell the dog pee on the grass two yards over. I could smell people from 20 feet away. I could smell the "human" smell of my husband just after he stepped out of the shower.
I could smell food cooking at my neighbor's house. Perfume on the lady at the grocery store, three aisles over.
It was terrible. Luckily, it went away about two weeks after I quit the Rifampin.
My LLMD said it was a very rare side effect.
Posts: 398 | From By the Salish Sea | Registered: Dec 2008
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