Smells

[molly-pop]

Hello

I hope i am posting this in the right area - i am still learning to navigate around this site!

The other day i experienced one of my auras which did not develop into anything - something that has been happening for about 2 months now and is currently getting investigated.

However, my point is... I was looking around a flat to buy and as the estate agent opened the front door i got a woft of a smell that i am sure triggerd me having my aura. It was a familiar smell that almost reminded me of childhood - almost like de ja vu in smell form!

I have heard of people smelling odd smells during a seizure but not smells triggering auras/seizures....

Has any one else experienced this???

M-P x

 

[RobinN]

I have read about people using smells to divert a seizure. It is written about in Epilepsy: A New Approach.
So I would presume that it might work the other way too. Especially if there were emotional triggers, or adverse effects. IMO

 

[Nakamova]

There are definitely smell-related seizures. Some work along the lines of a photosensitive ones. Instead of flashing lights triggering the optic nerve, an odor triggers a seizure that originates near the olfactory nerve. Since you mentioned deja vu, the smell and/or aura could also be seizure activity originating near the temporal lobe and hippocampus, where memories including (smell-based ones) are stored.

 

[epileric]

It does make sense that if aromatherapy can help seizures that certain smells can trigger seizures.

http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/index.php?p=aromatherapy

 

[KelVarQ]

Yes, absolutely a smell can trigger a aura/seizure. The whole deja vu thing bringing you back to childhood. This used to happen to me years ago when my seizures first started (the aura / warning eventually stopped), but mine was visual/landscape rather than a smell. I would see something (perhaps someone mowing his lawn) and bang I would get the weird deja vu bringing me back to childhood. I never knew what this was until a few years later I had the tonic clonic and found out these were in fact seizures. Anyway, the book by Oliver Sachs "A Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" discusses this and he described exactly what I was experiencing. I think he phrased it as, "A transport back to early childhood" and this could be triggered by a variety of things such as smells, something you see visually, hearing something, etc. I recall one case where the person kept hearing a song playing (from childhood) over and over. If you happen to go to the bookstore you can pull the book and look in the index for Epilepsy and read the auras (seizures) because basically that's what they are.

 

[molly-pop]

wow thanks everyone!
the brain is for sure a crazy thing... im going to look out for this in the future and see if my auras are smell related or if that was just a coincidence,
Thank you,
M-Px