sniffle

September 20, 2005 3:38 PM

Does everyone experience a specific feeling, a taste, almost, in their runny nose when they have a cold? What is it, and does it tell you anything useful?

Whenever I have a cold and my nose is running, I can sense a very specific feeling when I breathe through my nose that's sort of like a taste or smell, and which doesn't occur when I have a runny nose due to allergies or anything else.

posted by transona5 to Health & Fitness (22 answers total)

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, but am at a loss to describe it more than a vague taste/scent at the back of my throat that's unique to coming down with a cold. I sometimes get it even before I start with the coughing or the runny nose themselves -- it's basically a kind of 12- to 24-hour warning that I'm coming down with something.
posted by scody at 3:47 PM on September 20, 2005

I taste cigarettes and liquor in my snot.
posted by dsword at 3:47 PM on September 20, 2005

When I had a lung infection, I had a taste in my mouth that I described as the taste of a popscicle stick (without the taste of popscicle). More accurately, those little wooden paddles they give you with the cup of chocolate malt ice cream at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
posted by samh23 at 4:01 PM on September 20, 2005

I think this might be different than what you describe, but like scody, I can sometimes tell when I'm about to get very sick, because I sort of smell this odor everywhere. It's a little like feet - a gross, funky smell. I'm prone to sinus infections, and I actually think I might be smelling my own infection. Ewww!
posted by peep at 4:10 PM on September 20, 2005

Perhaps related.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:18 PM on September 20, 2005

It's the salty taste of your own mucous.
posted by Rothko at 4:34 PM on September 20, 2005

Rothko, it's not (at least in my experience) -- it's a distinctly different taste/scent. I don't have it regularly, and I don't have it when I sneeze/cough due to non-cold related reasons.
posted by scody at 4:41 PM on September 20, 2005

Umm.. I have a aweful cold right now and know exactly what your talking about..
I gotta ask you guys this:
Do your boogers smell like sawdust?
Its gross but if I blow my nose and breath as I am pulling the rag away my boogers allways seem to smell like sawdust.. I tried to get my wife to smell them but she refused to talk to me when I bring this up..
posted by JonnyRotten at 4:45 PM on September 20, 2005

I remember reading somewhere (online, but no idea where) about this guy who could smell something that seemed to be coming from the back of his nose/throat and it was there for a long time and he couldn't figure out what it was. So of course he got all paranoid, thinking he had bad breath, but no one else could smell it apart from him, so he started thinking he must be nuts. Then one day, he coughed and out came a big glob of...something. He said he leaned down to smell it and it was what he'd been smelling all that time, except way worse.

Of course I realise now that that story might be complete rubbish, but it made me totally paranoid at the time because I can definitely smell/taste something in the back of my throat sometimes. I thought it was random but the last time it happened was just before I had a nasty cold. So hopefully I don't smell and won't be coughing up any nasty globs. Still kinda gross though.
posted by speranza at 4:46 PM on September 20, 2005

I'm with samh23 on the popsicle stick thing. It's a weird, almost dry taste
posted by clh at 5:33 PM on September 20, 2005

Wouldn't that taste be the mucus, yellow with dead stuff.
posted by Max Power at 5:47 PM on September 20, 2005

I smell a chicken soup sort of smell, myself.
posted by konolia at 6:12 PM on September 20, 2005

When I have a stuffy nose, I smell something resembling stinky armpits. But it isn't coming from my armpits, and no one else can smell it, so it must be the smell of my nose mucus.
posted by leapingsheep at 6:14 PM on September 20, 2005

When I was a teenager, I had Mono. During the entire time that I had it, I tasted Peanut Butter. I didn't eat any during that time -- I spent most of it sleeping.

Shorter version of that is: No, you're not alone.
posted by thanotopsis at 6:44 PM on September 20, 2005

I know what you're talking about and have observed it myself, and I'm pretty sure it's a faint odor from the [slightly] infected mucous. Kind of a stale, faintly sweet odor. The mucous is triggered by the viral infection, and it sits around in your respiratory system breeding bacteria. Your body battles to keep this secondary infection in check. This is why it progresses from clear, to yellowish, to sometimes greenish when you sometimes cough it up. If your body is unable to clear it through sneezing/coughing, or if you don't drink enough liquids to keep it thinned out, the infection gets worse and you get bronchitis.
posted by zek at 7:11 PM on September 20, 2005

Best answer: This is dysgeusia. It's common in upper respiratory ailments. It's also pretty common around AskMe; this is the tenth or so time I've mentioned it, I think.
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:11 PM on September 20, 2005

Response by poster: Well, it's the first or so time I've heard of it! Now I know what it's called, anyway.
posted by transona5 at 8:21 PM on September 20, 2005

Oh, I didn't mean to chide you, sorry if it came off that way. I just mean that now you can google for dysgeusia, and learn what it is all about.

I had this passing idea I ought to put together a metafilter dysgeusia FAQ or something, but I don't know where to put it where folks who had funny smells in their nose would know how to find it.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:37 PM on September 20, 2005

Speranza, I think the guy in your story may have coughed up a tonsil stone.
posted by hot soup girl at 4:08 AM on September 21, 2005

I have allergies of the hay fever variety too. I can always tell when my sneezing is from allergies or a cold because I get this "cold sweat" feeling after about the third sneeze. The feeling doesn't go away until I've killed the cold. When I get that feeling, I need vitamin C and water healing.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:37 AM on September 21, 2005

Response by poster: Yeah, it's hard to search for "that strange sort-of feeling in your nose and sort of the back of your throat." Anyhow, thanks for finally giving this a name.
posted by transona5 at 7:15 AM on September 21, 2005

Everything tastes and smells "green," to me, when I've got sinusitis.
posted by Carol Anne at 11:53 AM on September 21, 2005