Other than death the one thing I feared most about getting Covid was losing my sense of taste and smell. Well it happened. Not the death part. I can sort of taste extremes of spicy and sweet but nothing more subtle. Also toothpaste. I can taste my toothpaste. Great.
There is a lot of woo out there. Is there anything that has been scientifically proven to help bring back your taste and smell? If it happened to you what is your experience with it?
I have seen some recommendations to eat spicy food, to try to shock the tastebuds back to work. One person I know says that has helped, but it’s been a long time coming back.
A lot of people lose their senses of smell and taste, sometimes for weeks or longer. It might be worth trying a steroid nasal spray - in Canada these are sometimes over the counter.
I had a nice Thai dish yesterday which had a nice flavor to it. It probably would have burned my face off normally.
Look on the bright side, even if neither of them come back, you can at least let it work to your benefit:
No longer will you gag when opening your garbage can or taking the trash bags out.
You can now confidently enter bathrooms where someone just dropped a massive deuce.
If unhealthy (but delicious) food and healthy food both taste the same to you now, why not start up a diet?
Now’s the time to enter any hot pepper eating contests in your area.
My spouse lost her sense of smell and taste while she had covid. Hers came back within 2 weeks.
I lost my sense of smell completely, and my sense of taste was affected, but mostly intact. My sense of smell is a tiny bit better, but still extremely diminished almost 8 weeks out now.
I have previously had a diminished sense of smell for a year or more from a case of influenza probably a decade ago.
I have an unrelated appointment with my doctor tomorrow, and I plan to ask if there’s anything I can do.
I think it varies a lot. I hope it comes back for you quickly.
Potential new career as skunk-wrangler
They are in the U.S. as well, although in some cases, they may be kept behind the pharmacy counter.
This was on “All Things Considered” this afternoon. It’s worth a listen.
One thing to note here is that you may not taste the peppers, but their effect on your digestive system is probably not diminished(?). Anyone got insight on that?
I’m a bit confused RE: losing one’s sense of smell and taste from Covid. When someone loses their sense of smell from a bad cold, they say they can’t smell or taste anything, but they really just mean they can’t smell. They say they can’t taste because our sense of smell is tied so closely to our sensation of taste. But in the cold scenario, you can still detect the basic taste bud sensations of sour, sweet, salty, bitter and umami.
But when my sister got Covid and lost her sense of smell and taste, I said, well when I had a cold and lost my sense of smell, I could still enjoy a good beer and a salty snack because all my taste buds came into play. But she said she lost it all-- basic taste bud sensations as well. Is this actually true then? And what about spicy things-- capsaicin triggers heat sensing nerves, I didn’t think the sensation of spiciness had anything to do with smell or taste at all.
BTW, my sister recovered her senses of smell and taste, but it took her a couple months to get it fully back.
Yes it’s true. No taste at all. A few days in it seems a little better. By a little better I mean when I put a habanero hot sauce directly on my tongue it barely registers as any taste at all. I noticed I can detect extreme sweet as well. That’s about it.
One morning my coffee tasted like hot water. It was more telling than my subsequent covid test.
My taste and smell started returning in about a week. Two weeks and I was back to normal.
It’s definitely different from not being able to smell from your nose being stuffed up, like with a regular cold. In that case, I think the amount of odor getting through to the detectors is limited, but nothing is really wrong with your sense of smell. And taste is just, as you say, affected via the limitations on the aromatic compounds in food not getting through either.
Covid is actually infecting the olfactory nerves and the olfactory bulb. It has nothing to do with being stuffed up. I’ve been able to breathe freely since probably my second or third day of Covid infection. But I cold not detect any smell at all for weeks afterward, and now just extremely faintly.
Taste, including basic tastes like sweet and salty, are diminished, too.
This isn’t exclusive to covid. It can happen from other viruses, but it’s super common with Covid. It’s pretty rare with other viruses.
I thought I dodged that bullet. I was a few days in. I ate breakfast and was fine. I went in for my ill fated MAB treatment and after I was done I had some BBQ potato chips. Zero taste. My girlfriend who got sick a few days before me lost her taste a few days after me.
So I asked, and my doctor said there really isn’t anything yet. She’s a GP, but she’s married to an ENT, so she said she’s been keeping up with this issue because she has patients with the condition and easy consultation with a specialist. She said she also has patients going to the long covid clinic, and she’s not aware of any treatment that they are providing for loss of smell there, either. She said that steroid prescriptions have been tried, but have not proven effective. I asked about nasal spray steroids (over the counter, like Flonase) and she pointed out that, as I have allergic rhinitis, and it can help that, there’s no harm in trying it.
She is going to look into it to see if there’s any new developments, or new things being tried, but she didn’t see anything when she checked during the visit.
Amy bets we’re going to start seeing folks advocating snorting ivermectin nasally?
I’m in!
Luckily it seems like I might be getting it back. I tried up some eggs. Lots of butter, salt and pepper. I did taste it. Not all the way but its a start.
If you can taste eggs that seems like a good step - they don’t have a strong taste at all.
Well it was more the butter salt and pepper. It’s a good step I can taste butter even a little.
Taste and smell are interdependent. Are both senses improving? Just curious.