bettydavis

and maybe some of the more intelligent people will read my experience and check their blood iron before going to a neurologist.. . . .

Yes thank you for your positive input, the reason I gravitated to this forum was because my doctor drew a blank when i mentioned the smell cravings, seemingly this is not a recognised condition hence my joy at reading other peoples experiences, it normalised it slightly for me. i do also know how to differentiate from anecdotal experience and medical advice. A lady coincidentally put a post up the day before I did which was funny as no one had commented since 2011! Perhaps I was hoping to hear feed back from her or maybe I wanted her to check her iron. I won't be developing a new vaccination any time soon...not this month anyway!! lol. so to round things up the following symptoms I experienced were due to a lack of iron in my blood sniffing lemgel eating raw carrots niggly tickly cough hope this helps someone...that's all

Feed back from people who experienced the same symptoms and have since found solutions and have opinions on the subject is what i was hoping for. Not medical advice, is that not what this forum is about???

UPDATE.. To whom is interested, I got my blood tests back and I am very low in iron...8.6 in fact. This would explain my cravings, I also have been craving raw carrots and this too is a sign of low iron and a niggly persistent cough I am experiencing is another symptom, so if you are having these smell cravings, get your blood checked, you may have low iron. I have been prescribed an iron supplement by my doctor and will take it from there. Hope this helps someone in a similar situation. Even though I have had no feed back on here which I was hoping , there is a chance someone will read this and benefit from my experience. I suspect that the low iron is due to my extremely heavy periods lately due to age and hormonal changes, but further blood tests will confirm this. I will update to inform if the smell craving stops after replenishing my iron stores.

Hi, I am 49 years old and this past few weeks have become really inclined to sniff lemgel, a strong chemical all purpose cleaner. Just yesterday I was trying to articulate to my partner how it's like all of a sudden I am right in the middle of an addiction to this smell, no build up just an onset of really wanting to smell it so much, but the thing is smelling it is just not enough, it only partly satiates my longing for it, obviously I know not to drink it and inhaling it through my mouth has no pleasure, I tried it once! I have read on other similar forums that it may be a mineral deficiency, I have recently been having extremely heavy periods and suspect this could be the cause due to a lack of iron. I do take chlorella and spirulina and wheatgrass which I though would have given me more than enough iron but maybe the algae is drawing iron from me. I am awaiting blood tests and should get a hormone profile soon which may tell me what my hormone situation is at present. I usually just put my nose near the top of the bottle and squeeze the pastic to get some back draft in order to get a whiff! I feel almost like a teenage glue sniffer or something! Glad to hear other people experience this weird craving (rwilli) it feels good to talk about it for a while as it is my guilty secret at the minute. Any insight into this would be great and if my doctor enlightens me as to my iron situation I will share it on here. I had to join this site just to make this reply, it was nearly impossible to get to this point. Hopefully this is not the onset of some debilitating neurosis or something...fingers crossed!!