Things smell funny lately

[cjsmith]

For the past few days or maybe a week, many things have smelled... odd... to me. On Tuesday, Spaghetti-Os smelled like rosemary. A cheeseburger smelled like fresh cut paper (or cardboard?) Wednesday, and even more disturbingly, last night a cheeseburger smelled like nothing at all! It had mustard on it. How can I not smell at least the mustard? Potato chips and french fries both smell somewhat sour, but they taste okay. My body's waste products smell like old fish; conversely, bad breath smells fecal. Today, driving in traffic, I was sure I should be smelling icky car exhaust smells, but what my nose reported was a pot of freshly drained pasta.

This is mildly disturbing. What is going on with my body? Does this have something to do with the new nutritional supplements I just started? I am sure at least the bit about my body's waste products does indeed relate to that; among other things, I'm taking 1.8g of "marine lipid concentrate", whatever that may be, twice a day. But what's going on with my olfactory sense?

Comments

[daltong.livejournal.com]

"marine lipid concentrates" are, i am guessing, omega-3 fatty acids. i know when i was taking them, i would burp fish taste.

i talked to a doctor about them this week and he said that one has to take high doses in order to have any effect on depression (there's been a recent study that says they can help with bipolar disorder). he said that when the people in this study took these doses, they literally *smelled* like fish.

and on the even less appetizing bad-breath=fecal-matter-smell topic...well, the gastrointestinal tract is one long tube that finishes, at one end, in the tongue. it kinda makes sense that sometimes that is the case.

my vote: stop the supplements and give it a few days and see if your smell returns to normal before going to the doctor.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

"marine lipid concentrates" are, i am guessing, omega-3 fatty acids. i know when i was taking them, i would burp fish taste.

Yeah, I wonder. I used to take omega-3,6,9 based on fish, and I couldn't stand it. The pills themselves smelled revolting, the burps were revolting, I got queasy... I had to give away the rest of the bottle. I'm stuck with flaxseed for that stuff, apparently.

(I am allergic to some, maybe even most, fish and seafood. I find any fishy scent unpleasant.)

Interestingly, these don't give me that reaction. And they don't break down the omega-N contents, making me think that maybe that's not what this is. I'm taking this combination for the other stuff it gives me: glucosamine and chondroitin. Maybe if they'd left off this marine lipid stuff, the pills wouldn't choke a horse. Sigh.

Ah HA! Looked this brand up on the web. Two of the four capsules per packet are "enterically coated fish oil capsules that dissolve in the small intestine". You have it exactly right. And the coating explains not only why I'm not burping any nauseating odors, but why my bathroom smells have changed more dramatically than with normal fish oil. And I can GET RID OF these without losing the glucosamine and chondroitin, which are in the little powder caplet things. Heh.

my vote: stop the supplements and give it a few days and see if your smell returns to normal before going to the doctor.

Sounds sane.

I bet if fish started smelling good to me, it'd be time to see not only a doctor but a psychologist. ;-)