Why do I sneeze when I smell strong scents?

[Katie]

I could be on the other side of the house, and if I smell grease, like from someone frying something, or strong perfume,or Lysol, air freshener, smoke from cigarettes or cooking, I sneeze really hard for hours, and my nose burns!

[shauna]

You could have a sensitivity to certain irritants, which sometimes happens if you have low level hay fever or environmental allergies.

If you have other symptoms too, like maybe periodic headaches, or bone pain, joint aches, or anxiety/depression, or gut or bowel issues, or exhaustion or other physical problems? You might want to check out mast cell activation disorder. It's a condition that involves the body triggering a reaction to substances that are not actually allergens, like smells. I react with sneezing too, to pretty much all you mentioned, and I have this.

It's considered very rare, but researchers are wondering now if it might be more 'rarely diagnosed' rather than rare.

Best information I've found on this is NOT on medical sites (it's so rare you just don't see much on it, and much of what IS there is so vague, or misleading, that it's not much use). Oddly enough, the best info I've found is on a few support groups which are on facebook. If you look under mast cell or mcad or mcas, many of them will show up, and they have great files systems on symptoms, diagnosing, that sort of thing. :-)