What is the term for difficulty with smell, similar to photophobia (sensitivity to light) being difficulty with light?

Terminology for Difficulty with Smell

The term for difficulty with smell is "dysosmia," which serves as the umbrella term for all olfactory disturbances, just as photophobia describes light sensitivity. 1

Specific Categories of Smell Dysfunction

The classification of smell disorders follows a systematic framework based on the type of disturbance 2, 3:

Quantitative Disturbances

These involve changes in the intensity of smell perception 1:

• Anosmia: Complete inability to smell 1, 4
• Hyposmia: Diminished sense of smell 1, 2
• Hyperosmia: Enhanced or heightened sense of smell 1, 2

Qualitative Disturbances

These involve distortions in smell perception 1:

• Parosmia: Distorted perception of odors that are actually present 1, 3
• Phantosmia (also called olfactory hallucination): Perception of smells that are not present 1, 5, 2
• Dysosmia: The general term encompassing all qualitative smell distortions 1, 2

Discrimination Disturbances

• Agnosmia: Inability to differentiate among various smells despite being able to detect them 1, 2

Clinical Context

The most commonly used terms in clinical practice are anosmia (complete loss), hyposmia (partial loss), and parosmia (distortion), as these represent the majority of patient presentations. 1, 3 The term "dysosmia" functions as the overarching category that includes all these specific subtypes, making it the direct parallel to "photophobia" when discussing sensory difficulties 1, 2.

Taste disturbances follow parallel terminology: ageusia (complete loss), hypogeusia (diminished taste), hypergeusia (enhanced taste), and parageusia (distorted taste) 2.