I rarely ever catch a cold, norovirus or other common contagious diseases and always thought that I seem to have a good immune system. I do occasionally get a scratchy throat or a queasy feeling in my stomach for a couple of hours but that's about it.

However, a while ago I read that the symptoms of the common cold are caused by a person's immune response and not by the virus. So maybe my immune system isn't so good after all but actually rather lousy? BTW, I am also a smoker.

I noticed it first when I had a sandwich that had some tomato relish in it. As soon as I brought the sandwich to my mouth to take a bite, I immediately got a strong smell of acetone - at least that is the closest smell I can think of. It didnt smell like any kind of food and I couldnt smell it for long without having to take it away again it was so strong. I decided then that there was just something wrong with the sandwich. But later when I was chopping tomatoes I got the smell again, so I decided to test with a few other items - ketchup was the only other thing I had that gave me the same smell. I tested them and no one else smelt anything out of the ordinary. So presumably it was caused by some mucus in my nose at the time. Was it a chemical reaction in my nose that caused the strange smell?

2 days later and tomatoes smell normal again - the strange thing is, I still have a cold.