If you lost your sense of smell and taste - was it sudden?

[notanoctopus]

DD went down with a cold on the weekend, so I kept her off school for a few days, given the current climate. DS and other DD (baby) then got it, so kept him off yesterday. He was a bit sniffly and then ok, pleased to get a day off for a minor sniffle and baby is snotty but ok in self now. I started feeling rough yesterday afternoon and by last night went down with a stinker of a cold. Tonight I couldn't taste my dinner, but could taste things earlier on today and don't have a metallic taste or anything. I've been sneezing a lot, so apart from the taste thing tonight hadn't thought it could be coronavirus. I don't normally lose my taste when I have a cold. I then had a spoon of lemon juice and a spoon of mustard (yep, I know batshit) to test the taste thing. Whilst I could feel a tingling on my tongue, i couldn't really taste anything, other than a tiny hint of heavily diluted mustard. Has anyone else had similar with Covid? In absence of a test, should I be whatsapping kids class or what?

When I lost my sense of smell and taste it was really sudden and I had a completely clear nose e.g. no cold symptoms. Very different. It was back in March so no testing but that combined with a high temp for a couple of days makes me pretty sure it was C19.

I lost my sense of smell on I think day three or four of Covid. It's hard to know if it was sudden, as it's not that easy to notice a sudden absence of something. I think it was though.

The crucial thing is I had no cold symptoms. I didn't have a stuffy nose and could breathe normally, I just couldn't smell anything at all - not even when the kitchen filled with smoke from the oven, or neat bleach held under my nose, or anything.

If you have a stuffy nose then it's normal to not be able to smell or taste much, but that isn't the Covid type loss of smell.

Yes it was sudden. I felt fine but was cutting garlic for dinner and realised I couldn’t smell it at all. I couldn’t taste anything - even really strong flavours and couldn’t smell my son’s nappies.

It took about six weeks to get most of it back, but I am one of the people who has long term changes to my smell and taste. I cannot stand onions, garlic, coffee, soy sauce and many other things. I’ve had to change face wash, shower gel and shampoo as the stuff I had made me want to vomit.

(I’ve had a confirmed antibody blood test.)

Very sudden. I sprayed air freshener and couldn't smell a thing, so sprayed more and DP complained it was overwhelmingly strong. No blocked nose or any feeling of head stuffiness. Lasted about 10 days, in addition to feeling run down, persistent headache and cough. No temperature, and won't know if I ever had it, but it was like nothing I've experienced before. Food tasted of nothing except a bit of a sour taste, and I had a very metallic feeling in my mouth the entire time.

@Nightmanagerfan that's really bizarre

Mine disappeared out of the blue. I was feeling completely fine otherwise.

Took a while to come back and I now struggle with a complete change in my sense of smell. Things that I used to enjoy the smell of are now pretty repulsive and lots of things seem to have this odd chemical smell that I cant put my finger on.