Awful smell.. Can i smell my cancer..

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Hi all, thought i would tell you about my experience. About Aprl/May 2016 i started to smell this awful smell… Burning plastic but not not plastic but rotton . Very hard to describle. Took a few days to figure out it wasn’t enviroment around me but it was something only i was smelling. It went on and on. Everyone around me thought i was nuts. For relief i would put Vicks up my noise and that worked for a while. After a few weeks the smell would dissapear. All would be good and then 2 weeks later it was back… This went on for 6 months. Early January, i found a lump left breast 12 o’clock 2 cm from nipple. After having mammo and ultra sound down this turned out to be nothing… BUT the real lump was found 3 o’clock 5 cm out… Anyways, back to the smell… It continued on and was driving me nuts. Had lumpectomy SNB and Rads. Since surgery in April, the smell has gone. It’s now August 4 and still no smell… Am wondering, if like the lump that was nothing, if i was smelling my own breast cancer… I know if sounds strange but i have no other explanation… Anyone else??

 

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Hi Jane.

 

I too have been in this position a few years ago (pre-dating my BC) except that in my case it was cigarette smoke.  If it had been the smell of frying bacon, I wouldn’t have minded so much!

 

My symptoms were exactly as you describe.  It came and went over a period of about 6 months.  The times I had it always felt longer than when I didn’t.  It also took me a while to work out it wasn’t in my environment.  I even asked people at work if they could smell somebody smoking in our non-smoking office.  Eventually I went to my GP where I was diagnosed with ‘phantosmia’. No, I am not making it up, it does exist! ?.  The trigger for my condition had been a very bad cold and respiratory tract infection a few months previously which left me with really bad sinuses.  Once I had had treatment for the latter, it disappeared and I have never suffered since - thankfully.  It was infuriating!

 

Take care. Ezzie. X