To ask about covid sense of smell and taste loss

[WilsonMilson]

I know aibu isn’t really the place, but posting for traffic.

Got covid (for the first time, can’t believe I avoided it so long) over the festive season.
Very mild symptoms, have had worse colds, but on day 5 I lost my sense of smell and taste. Now a week on from that and still nothing. My sinuses feel weird too, dry and a bit blocked but no mucus.

It’s really freaking me out, I’m not usually an anxious person but I’m finding this sense loss very debilitating. Some things I can smell vaguely if I put my nose right up to them, but I’ve lost all transient smells in the air, can’t smell cleaning products or bleach at all and feel very cut off from everything, it is the oddest thing. I usually have a very keen sense of smell.

I keep testing it on strong smells and trying to retrain my senses with perfumes, coffee, menthol etc.

Taste wise I can differentiate sweet, salty and bitter tastes but that’s about the height of it.

Please no horror stories about it never returning as I can’t stand the thought of going on like this in perpetuity. Would like some hope and/or any tips.

you dont know you are smelling anything though, if you see it before you smell it, it could just be your brain filling in the gap. You need someone else to set up a proper blind smelling test for you, closed containers with smelly substances in, to see if you can identify without any visual prompt

@Nimbostratus100 I’ve done the eyes closed test and passed thank you. They are not phantom smells and I’ve no idea why you’re being so insistent that they must be. Given that just about everyone who loses smell due to covid gets it back, and the fact that I can vaguely smell some things correctly blindly and otherwise, then the problem you have, which I’m very sorry you have as it’s awful, is not the same as mine.

I lost mine in Dec 2020. It's gradually come back but not 100%. But I am grateful for whatever I have regained as a year ago it felt hopeless and I couldn't eat anything healthy other than salty or sugary stuff. I have tried steroids but it didn't help me. I used to smell train regularly which I think helped a bit but I am not sure. I think it takes time for some to regain the senses.

Thats good, I am really pleased for you. I lost my sense of smell in March 2020, and still find it very hard to judge what I have now got, or not got, because I know most of what I can smell is clearly phantums, and sometimes it seems it might not be phantum, but real, and then sometimes everyone else is horrified by a terrible smell I dont notice at all, such as burning, or sewage leaking.

I'm not insisting that you have phantum smells, just trying to warn you - but if that isn't what is happening for you, and you have checked that, thats really nice to know. I am pleased for you 💐

Thank you. There may still be hope for you, I’ve read loads in the last few days of people who can take even a few years for it come return. I hope that will be the case for you as it’s such a loss.

Do you cope ok with it now and manage to enjoy eating?