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My husband's sense of smell has become heightened in the last two months. Nothing smells good and cooking odors are totally repugnant. At the same time, he can only eat highly spiced foods. Pizza, his food of choice for the last year, must have jalapenos on it.


These seem to be opposite to me. Very sensitive to odors, but food is tasteless without some sort of heat added. Looking online I can find one or the other but, I can't find any discussion of someone having both situations at the same time.


Anyone have any experience with this?

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I am sure this has been discussed before about heightened tastes and smells. My Aunt had a head injury that took away her taste and smell.

People with a Dementia usually lose the ability to smell. Since smell and taste are linked, taste goes too. It may be that all your husband can taste is hot stuff. Just like people with any type of brain injury like sweets. They can taste sugar better than anything.

Good thing to run by his doctor.
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graygrammie: Perhaps your husband's neurologist should be made aware of this and perchance would give you the best answer to your query.
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Cooking with the range hood running or outside is an option. Temperature also affects the smell. Try more room temperature or cold meals like sandwiches, cold fried chicken, quiches, smoothies or cereal for bkft, chef salads, etc. At the hospital we encouraged patients with this problem to order the colder entrees and it helped.
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graygrammie, I know this is going to sound strange, but any changes in toothpaste? Why I asked I had experienced a very noticeable change in smell and taste of food when I switched to a whitening toothpaste.

I stopped using the whitening toothpaste, went back to my regular toothpaste and it took a couple of weeks to get back my normal sense of smell and taste.
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graygrammie Oct 2022
Wow, now that is interesting. We were using Colgate MaxClean for the longest time and then I couldn't find it in stores so bought MaxFresh instead. I found MaxClean just a few weeks ago and went back to that just in the last two weeks. Maybe I just need to give it time!
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that could be possible . Please check CT Scan head injury
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I think ur husband maybe . Just maybe just want to eat those unhealthy foods. Lol. I’m not sure. Get his blood tested, urine and everything else his tastebuds, Thyroid. He should have that maybe once a mth . Right now! If this is true to get his taste back hd needs to be on a plate based diet, drink lots of water, fruits and veggies.
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graygrammie Oct 2022
Blood work is scheduled in three weeks with pcp the following week. And sadly, he can't take in a lot of fluids because of the heart failure, limited to four bottles a day of water but he won't drink water so he drinks two sodas and two or three lemonades a day, all containing high fructose corn syrup. He adds an occasional beer to that as well. Over the years, so many things have pointed to thyroid but he always checks out okay on that. And there is no way I am going to get him to change his diet. You can't argue with a broken brain.
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FYI

https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/loss-smell-linked-alzheimers-cognitive-impairment-and-biomarkers

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6051255/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/managing-your-memory/202103/when-dementia-diminishes-smell-and-taste
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graygrammie Oct 2022
The Psychology Today article is about loss of the sence of smell but my husband is the opposite -- he has become extremely sensistive to smells. The article suggests adding spice to foods and that is exactly what is required for him to eat even though his sense of smell is anything but diminished. He is pretty much fixated on pizza daily and has to have it with jalepenos. Just pepperoni, however spicy, is not enough. Now the jalepenos are starting to irritate his stomach.

The NIA/NIH article caused me to look up the phrase "enhanced sense of smell" and I found some articles on Hyperosmia. He fits into several of the categories of causes for this - Lyme Disease, seizures, kidney disease. The only thing that doesn't mesh is that a person with heightened sense of smell also is more sensitive to the taste of food and he is the opposite, food has no taste unless hot and spicy.

Thank you for the articles.
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If this is a dramatic change and it happened suddenly I would discuss it with his doctor. You can never tell what parts of the brain are effected by stroke, or other problem that may have caused new damage.
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graygrammie Oct 2022
Something to consider for his next appt with his pcp.
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Interesting. My husband's FTD diagnosis was based on an old head injury discovered by an mri four years ago. He played high school football in the late 60s / early 70s and had many concussions.
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Becky04469 Oct 2022
My son was roller blading in college. A 90+ woman ran up on sidewalk in her Cadillac and hit him causing him to go head first into a tree. He spent two days unconscious in the WVU Hospital with no ID. When he regained consciousness he only knew his grandfather’s name.
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My son has a similar problem. He had a head injury that left him with little sense of taste and sensitive to certain smells. He cooks outside on a grill most of the time to avoid smells or they use door dash to deliver food. Eat lots of salads and fruits that don’t have to be cooked. It’s a hard situation but he and family get along with it. When he visits me I try to avoid the things that are really difficult for him.
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