An intolerance to manufactured scents can lead to migraines, respiratory issues and long-term sick leave. So should they be banned in public spaces?
If you flew abroad this summer, you probably passed through an airport’s duty-free perfume section. Perhaps you paused to spritz yourself with an expensive scent you had no intention of buying, before making the obligatory trip to WH Smith for overpriced crisps and bottles of water.
For most people, the wafting odours of perfume counters are not a problem. But, for some, the trip through duty free is a choking, cloying experience.
Cleaning products cause me a lot of problems , I've always been sensitive to odours , (at work I would get into a vehicle and know who had been in it 3 days before because of their perfume , dont get me wrong I used to love the smell of a lady perfume but now strong perfume is obnoxious to me)
So many household cleaners smell, public toilets or in resteraunts pubs clubs etc are actually rank , they seem to think the stronger a chemical smell the better .
Like I said I have always been sensitive to smells but these days much more so , I'm guessing so many others with lung diseases suffer like me also
One of the worst places for this is my GP surgery! Especially their toilets. Like Soulboy, cleaning products tend to be the worst but aerosol deodorants and air fresheners are awful too.
I tend to buy fragrance free toiletries and detergents and washing up liquid etc.
It's interesting the article says some doctors think it's all in the mind. If I enter a room where a scented candle has been lit, even if it was extinguished a long time earlier, I immediately start coughing and my eyes puff up and start running. Mostly artificial scent does this but some essential oils too. Most often I don't know a candle had been lit earlier so it can't really be psychological.
Almost 3 years ago, returning home from a CT Scan. A young girl, who stunk as if she'd had a bath in perfume, got on the bus and sat behind me. I had real breathing problems, enough that an ambulance was called, their pulse/oxymeter showed my O2 sats at 86. I was blue lighted back to the hospital and after a X-Ray to check for an embolism I was kept under observation for the night in Majors.
Now if a "stinker" gets on a bus that I am on, I get off at the next stop and wait for the next one, inconvenient that I have to allow extra time for a journey as once bitten, twice shy.
In particular they should be BANNED at PR. One woman on my course used to come regularly doused with perfume. I mentioned it to her but she came stinking the place out the next week just the same so I had a word with the physio. It stopped for a while. Then I went into a regular maintenance group and thank heavens she wasnt there. But I had to swap groups one week and there she was again with the per-fumes all around her - and everywhere in the room.
No idea why especially people with lung disease dont get it and at least when they've been asked, they could desist from wearing perfume while they are at PR sessions.
It's not just women who are guilty there are plenty of men who stink of (putting my tin hat on) perfume, albeit an aftershave or under arm aerosols, net result , they stink just as bad.
The oxygen delivery guy asked me if he could have some of the Yankee candles I happened to have out having just found them at the back of a cupboard . He said they would be ideal to perfume his van! I took the rest to local charity shop.
I have to hold my breath to get through the perfume counters at airports safely. It seems to be the cheap perfumes with a lot of alcohol in that cause the problems. I love using perfume myself but find I can only wear some of the branded expensive perfumes - well, that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
Lol me too I liked Guerlain. Obviously don't /can't wear any nowadays as I'm on oxygen but also because I'm acutely aware how horrible it is inhaled! Reminds me when on acute cardiac ward 3 years ago a particular night nurse would come on absolutely reeking of ghastly cheap lavender perfume. The whole place stunk of it 😡😡😡😡
I really shouldn't even begin...my pet peeve! Allergy reaction to triggers such as scented products, colognes, perfumes, etc. are so commonly known, and are so costly when one has to seek medical treatment, I don't think that it would be out of line to request persons not to use them prior to attending a public function. I can't even think of attending a presentation at our Fine Arts' Center...I might as well go check myself into the pulmonary ward for several days. Thoughtlessness is deadly to some of us. J.
At last! My daughter is 46. As a young child she was very ill. Our gp agreed with me that perfumed products and the propellant in spray cans were causing her problems.
Among other symptoms she could be very moody, much more than most children. I lost count of people who would say her reaction to perfumes was an excuse for bad behaviour.
As she got older (5/6 years) she was able to describe how she felt. She would say her head felt' whizzy' and would then hurt, that it was hard to breathe and she felt trapped.
We made our house as fragrance free as we could and spent a lot of time in the local woods.
hen CFC's lost popularity her health improved a lot but there's still a lot of perfume to deal with.
My husband needs 2 carers 4 times a day and to begin with they would all smell of their individual perfumes and deodorants. It would make my breathing difficult and I would open doors and windows to clear the air even having to let all the warm air out. I mentioned it to the care manager and thank goodness it hasn’t been a problem since.
I’m always surprised nurses plus doctors are also culprits of this. Been on the respiratory ward many times and the perfumes are so overwhelming. Will say it’s usually the younger staff that bathe in it.
Perhaps we need adverts on the tv that show how us lungies suffer when nearby these people, it would help to educate them and hopefully some would take this on board x
I wouldn't go as far as ban them I DEFINITELY prefer they were at the back off the shops that way we get to shop freely and enjoy the experience especially if it's a shop you've been excited to go to and never been.But I also think that these nail art bars where you can get acrylic nails ect should only be allowed to open in an actual shop again giving us a choice to go in ir not
I like most on here am newly diagnosed with emphysema and heart disease and where I stay we have a reasonable sized shopping centre but down the middle there is stalls of various types of goods especially at xmas time
But a few months ago A nail Bar opened the girls doing the nails wear masks which is understandable
But what about individuals like us and even people who dont have health issues we need to walk past this bar to get to most shops
While buts of skin..nails..smelly acrylic and the power is flying around
Shouldn't health and safety be an issue in Regards to these kind of stalls.
Too true! I am extremely sensitive to smells. Perfume is one of them and recently i flew out here to Spain and yes, walking through duty free to the gates i felt my chest tighten going by the perfumes.
I think something should be done actually, maybe put perfumes and smellies in a closed in shop. I think a lot of the time we people with chest problems copd etc are overlooked in public places and it really is sad.
Thank goodness i am travelling back to UK by road and ferry.
I have a huge problem with any scent or strong fragrances, people are a big problem if standing behind them in ques like asda and costa to name just a few, why do people use so much on themselves is beyond me, it is a problem wherever you go today everything has to smell so strong on and i have to leave smelly places quickly or i am in trouble with my breathing, i am lucky i have a wife who understands my problems with perfume, not many understand and a lot will not care,
Definitely a problem. People who are wearing perfume start to lose the sensitivity to the fragrance (in a few breaths according to Pamela Dalton, a cognitive psychologist at Monell Chemical Senses Center). While everyone around them can smell it, they can't and keep putting more on.
Teachers also need to go fragrance free as it is not only respiratory students who will have problems but also some autistic students are highly sensitive to smells.
I have asthma and I remember when I was around 10 years and my Mum asked me if I wanted carpet or lino in my bedroom. When she said the word "carpet", I had such a feeling of suffocation that I immediately said "lino". It was only years later that I realized why I felt that way. I had subconsciously noted that when I was around carpet my breathing got worse.
A friend hated band-aids and would resist putting them on as a child. Years later she discovered she was allergic to the glue on the band-aid. It caused her pain. In her day it wasn't acknowledged that such a thing could happen so she was just thought of as a difficult patient/child.
Were these psychological problems which required cognitive training to lessen our reactions to the product? Would psychological intervention stop my lack of breathing around carpet or her inherent allergic response to the band-aid?
It annoys me greatly when people who don't have a certain problem come up with what amounts to a dangerous theory where the person with the sickness has to prove that they are sick and often symptoms aren't proof to these people as they can then, in their mind, say that the symptoms are just "anxiety".
To me it's like telling someone with a broken leg that it's all in their mind and a bit of cognitive therapy would fix it.
Having said this, I have met a few of these doctors, who test you for something and when they can't find the answer - "How is your life going?". I am lucky that I moved on and found doctors who did not stop looking for an answer and consequently have helped me greatly.
I gave up counting the things that I have reactions or am allergic to, after taking my husband to a&e had an allergic reaction and we both had to be taken care off, he for a bladder infection and me because of the solution they use for wiping down their mattresses and furniture. Now I have to take a couple of face masks with me on my journeys.
Im thinking of throwing away my handbag and buying a lorry.
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