I’ve been on metformin for more than a decade, who knows if it helped me.
Same for me.
My one round of COVID was summer of 2022 by which time I’d been vaxxed at least the initial set, and maybe a subsequent booster / new version, the commonly circulating strain then (Delta?) was rather wimpy, I’d been on metformin for years, and I’m generally pretty stout when it comes to immune responses.
So a non-event for me then or since.
I asked my doctor for it the first (and only) time i had covid, and took the course used in that study. He prescribed it for “prediabetes” but emailed me instructions of the doses to take to follow the study protocol. Dunno if it helped, but metformin is cheap and has an excellent safety record.
I completely lost my sense of smell when i had covid, and totally freaked out, because my sense of smell is important to me. I spent the next day frantically researching studies about treating that, and found three tiny studies, all successfully treating it with OTC nasal steroids. Each study was too small to be definitive (15-20 people each) but each has highly better outcomes among those treated than among the controls. So i bought some Flonase (it has the active ingredient used in the strongest of the three studies) and took that. Again, i don’t know if it helped, but some sense of smell returned within a day of my first dose.
I felt tired and draggy for a while after i recovered, but my husband convinced me to go back on daily caffeine, and that’s pretty much resolved the issue. I don’t feel as smart or as able to process large amounts of data as i used to be, but that may just be old age. Getting old sucks.
My sense of smell mostly recovered, but i don’t trust it as much as i used to. It’s less unpleasant to clean the litter boxes. I can tolerate some lavender, a smell that used to make me gag. But i can no longer confidently sniff leftovers and tell if stuff is growing in them. And the whole world just smells duller and less interesting. But i still have a better sense of smell than anyone else in my family.
I lost my taste and smell in the fall of 2024. It was so disorienting.
Like you, recovery has been a mixed bag.
I’ve heard recovery can take a long time.
I also used Flonase and Sudafed with hopes for some relief.
Just recently I started noticing many more smells but not sure I trust what’s happening.
I actually thought I could smell my toothbrush bristles the other day.
Energy, motivation, information processing and stress tolerance are all somewhat depleted.
I’ve had it 3 times. The only bad time was the first. Like others I lost my taste and smell. It came back but not as good as it used to be.
I believe that I had it before the panic set in. February of that year I had a weird bout of the flu. Very high fever, in bed, 18 hours later I got up and was fine. But I felt almost dead for that 18hrs.
Was working in a dorm at a Job Corps center when every body paniced in March, they sent all the students home, except 3 guys from Africa that had no place to go, it would have been cruel to turn them out on the street, so against instructions they kept them, and I kept working. Graveyard shift watching a dorm that normally had 150 students that now has 3.
I watched a lot of Youtube, read a lot, and had nothing much to do for about 3 years. Still got paid and never did get sick at all.
When the students finally came back I had to take and record their tempurature every morning face to face, before they could go to training. Exposed to 150 possibly sick people, every morning. Still never got sick again. I think that 18 hour flu in Feb. was it and gave me some sort of immuinity. Somewhere before the students returned I had the one time Johnson immunity shot.
These accounts are horrifying to me. My wife and I managed to avoid it altogether. We rigidly avoided contact with people (which is much easier when you’re retired) and got vaccinated as soon as it came out and have gotten every booster since. I can’t imagine losing one’s sense of taste. Mine has degraded a bit through aging, but not to the extent related above. I feel for y’all.
I wonder if any of these hot pepper eating contests are being won on account of taste lost by the contestants?
I never liked particularly spicy food but since COVID remodeled my taste and smell I find myself gravitating towards more vibrant cuisine.
Initially I had to deliberately eat very spicy food for a long time just to experience any kind of taste.
It’s mostly better now but I don’t think it will ever return to what it used to be.
Both off my bouts with Covid were travel related, Croatia and San Francisco
Maybe, though my understanding is that the negative/painful effects of hot peppers are due to the irritating nature of the capsaicin that they contain, not the flavor or scent per se.
Physically, I was exhausted for about a week.
Emotionally, I was devastated by Covid because I was unable to officiate my best friend’s wedding and I lost both of my parents, 3 days apart.
That is ghastly! I’m so sorry.
Had it 2 years ago. Only found out from a test. Had runny nose and fatigue.
Dr prescribed rest and liquids.
Been fine since.
When i got it, and woke up one day with no sense of smell at all, it completely freaked me out. I also felt disoriented, because one way i know where i am is how places smell. I messaged my doctor, who was totally unconcerned. So i spent the day researching pubmed, looking for treatments. There are very few studies. I think doctors just don’t take it seriously. But i found three, small, but otherwise well designed studies that each showed that a nasal steroid (and also a steroid on the tongue, for one that also looked at lost sense of taste) we dramatically effective at restoring the ability to smell. Despite being quite sick, i put on a tightly fitted mask, changed into clean clothes, washed my hands, and went to my local pharmacy, where i bought some Flonase, the one with the most dramatic results. (All the studies were too small to be really conclusive, but i figure you use the data you have.)
My sense of smell, which was totally gone, i couldn’t smell a bottle of vanilla extract under my nose, came back slowly, but it or was partially restored the next day.
I also spent a lot of time sniffing strongly scented things, both because in general, using nerves helps them regrow, and in particular, “practicing with scents you can perceive” is the one treatment that’s widely agreed to help restore smell.
Anyway, it worked. I don’t trust my sense of smell as much as i used to, but it’s back to being better than average.
Should you lose your sense of smell to covid, those are the two treatments i recommend.