Smelling cigarette smoke at certain times during my cycle - could this be a peri symptom?

[Armyofprawns]

Amongst many other peri issues I have been experiencing the smell of ashtrays/cigarette smoke.

It started in the Summer of 2022 (I was 49 at the time). I find it tends to come mid-cycle and a week or so before my period. I can go days without anything then it just appears.

It drives me insane (most things do these days tbh) and makes me feel quite nauseated and weirdly makes my throat feel really dry and raspy.

I have an appointment with the menopause clinic at my local hospital beginning of February as I am not yet on HRT due to my recent diagnosis of endometriosis and adenomyosis and because my mum has hormone sensitive breast cancer (GP didn't want to prescribe me anything). I will definitely ask them about this smoke smell.

Could this be a perimenopause issue?

I have never smoked btw and neither does anyone I live with.

Watching with interest!

I have this too. Post menopausal though, so cannot link to any points on my cycle.

It comes and goes, but very noticeable when it's here.

I think this is a residual long covid symptom. My DH gets it every now and again. No other real symptoms but this started after he’d had covid and it does seem to be a thing - there are plenty of articles etc about it.

https://covidaidcharity.org/advice-and-information/long-covid-and-smell-disorders-what-we-know-so-far

More on it in general here: www.healthline.com/health/phantosmia#outlook

Thanks for that.

Personally, I believe I haven't had Covid as I had to test x3 a week due to working for the NHS. And haven't felt ill since they stopped the weekly testing.

Wondering if there are other explanations too...

I get aura without migraine. Its basically a migraine without the actual headache. I sometines get smells,visual disturbance or tingling. One week all I could smell everywhere was copper. We recently had a gas leak and I didn't trust my own sense of smell because of it.

I have read that too but this all started before I got COVID.

Yes, most of the phantosmia causes aren’t covid related - but it did seem to come up in relation to that sometimes. I don’t think it’s very well understood. But I can’t see menopause listed.

I've suffered with aura migraines for 20 years, hardly ever get the headache, it's a blind spot followed by a big zig zag across my vision. Quite often I can feel really spaced out and confused with it.
I wonder if it's a silent migraines thing? I never even considered that.

It's hard to tune out from it, I'm aware of it all the time when I get it.

Migraines are listed as a common cause of phantosmia in the second link I posted, so it could well be related to that.

I had it badly for about a year after having covid.
It then comes back after any respiritory virus but fortunately doesn't linger long.

I have this sometimes, and I think it's peri related. The first bout was awful, staying in a different city and I thought it was the air, but the smell carried on when I got home. I get it occasionally now. I have not been 100% reliable at applying the estrogen gel so I do get breakthrough symptoms

Omg I thought I was the only one who gets this! Or at least that it was rare.
I've been getting it since my mid 20s. Now 40. It happens every few months but always at the end of that month's cycle. It makes me convinced I stink. Nobody else can smell anything though.
The weirdest part for me, is that if I leave a room and then come back later, and have somehow managed to momentarily get the smell out of my nose, if I then happen to return to the room/seat I was in earlier, the smell hits me as soon as I approach it. Same with my pillow for example. If I've managed to temporarily get the smell out of my nose before I get into bed, the second I hit that pillow it's like a wall of smell hits.

So I've come to the conclusion that it must be coming out of my pores? That perhaps it is a scent that just smells worse (or just stronger) to me than to everyone else?

On those miserable days (usually sticks around for about a week) it doesn't matter how many showers I have, the smell allllways returns within about 10 mins of showering - which is also what leads me to believe it's sweat related as I also have a heat intolerance AND Hyperhidrosis so I sweat (& shower) a LOT!

It's a miserable, upsetting & nauseating experience and categorically nothing works** to get rid of it, besides time. Like I said above, usually 6/7 days.