My Skin Smells Like Smoke!

[GlutenFreeManna]

I am not a smoker and I don't go to smoky places like bars, nor do I work outside the home. At first I thought it might be coming through the wall from a neighbor (I live in a duplex/townehome type apartment and share one wall with neighbors) but it's definitely a smoky smell on my skin. It goes away after I shower but only for about two hours. Once I start moving around a lot and sweating a little the smell is back. My husband says he can't smell it but he has a sinus infection and a terrible sense of smell (and there is no one else I am close enough to to ask to smell me, LOL). Could this be a thyroid dysfunction? Or something I ate? The only thing that has changed in my diet is that I found coconut aminos and have been using them as a soy-sauce substitute. I tried doing a google search and couldn't find anything about non-smokers having smoky smelling skin. Help!

[RiceGuy]

The first thing that comes to my mind is something you're eating. Try not having the coconut aminos for awhile, and see if the odor fades. Perhaps it is due to leaky gut. I had noticed an unpleasant skin odor during the time I had leaky gut, but only detectable on the back of my left hand (I'm right-handed).

[GlutenFreeManna]

Thanks I'm going to cut out the coconut aminos for a few weeks and see if it goes away. I was so excited to find them too. I really miss Asian food and I think I got a little carried away with them.

[kwylee]

I have the same thing sometimes, it's a smoky, tobacco smell - no one will be smoking, and no one smells it but me. It's happened on occasion for years, but I have found it happens more frequently since I removed gluten/casein from my diet. I've never smoked either, in fact, I've always reacted fairly strongly to tobacco smoke of any kind. But my parents smoked like stacks when I was very young. Sounds weirdly unscientific, but I've secretly wondered if those old tobacco toxins are trapped in my cells and are being emitted here and there through my skin.

[GlutenFreeManna]

I have the same thing sometimes, it's a smoky, tobacco smell - no one will be smoking, and no one smells it but me. It's happened on occasion for years, but I have found it happens more frequently since I removed gluten/casein from my diet. I've never smoked either, in fact, I've always reacted fairly strongly to tobacco smoke of any kind. But my parents smoked like stacks when I was very young. Sounds weirdly unscientific, but I've secretly wondered if those old tobacco toxins are trapped in my cells and are being emitted here and there through my skin.

Interesting. My parents were casual smokers but they quit smoking before I was born. I did hang around with some smokers and did my share of going to smoky places in college (10+ years). But I had asthma and would never be able to stay around someone actively smoking or stay in a smoky environment for long, in fact I was really happy when my college town decided to make all restaurants smoke-free. It made eating out easier because I didn't have to worry about having an asthma attack. Now my asthma is mostly gone since going gluten free/soy free/dairy lite (I do use butter and eat yogurt now, but can't do milk and ice cream). I do wonder if this is some sort of detox happening. I have read some crazy claims about the positive detox effects of coconut. So now I wonder if I should keep using the coconut aminos or stop.

[Mari]

Toxins will come out in our sweat and the oils we secrete from our subaceous glands. I have read that coconut oil can trap some pollutants/toxins and can be excreted in the skin. You could look up coconut oil and find out which types of toxins it trapsand find out other methods of getting those harmful toxins out of your body.

[SGWhiskers]

A different thought came to my mind. Sometimes my migraines are accompanied by or exist only as auras. My auras have a pretty broad range including olfactory halucinations. I smell burnt things that are not really there off and on for days at a time every couple of months. Or the normal smell of things is off and smells burnt, rotton or chemically. Usually this is accompanied by other milder migraine symptoms, but not a full blown migraine. Pre celiac diagnosis, I had a year long migraine and the auras were fairly common then.

[GlutenFreeManna]

A different thought came to my mind. Sometimes my migraines are accompanied by or exist only as auras. My auras have a pretty broad range including olfactory halucinations. I smell burnt things that are not really there off and on for days at a time every couple of months. Or the normal smell of things is off and smells burnt, rotton or chemically. Usually this is accompanied by other milder migraine symptoms, but not a full blown migraine. Pre celiac diagnosis, I had a year long migraine and the auras were fairly common then.

That's an interesting thought; I have gotten visual migraines in the past. The migraines used to start with floaters or blurred vision and get worse until I couldn't do anything but lay in a dark room with a damp towel over my eyes. But I don't think that's what I'm experiencing because I didn't have any headache with the strange smell.

The good news is I didn't have the smoke smell today. Have not had any coconut aminos for two days so I will keep away from them for a week then try again and see if the smell comes back. After reading more about coconut detoxes it seems likely that some sort of detox was going on.

[athurart09]

The first thing that comes to my mind is something you're eating. Try not having the coconut aminos for awhile, and see if the odor fades. Perhaps it is due to leaky gut. I had noticed an unpleasant skin odor during the time I had leaky gut, but only detectable on the back of my left hand (I'm right-handed).

Thanks for sharing.