How long until your smell / taste came back?

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I know this is trivial and I'm so lucky to have had a mild (confirmed) case but GOLLY I MISS FOOD! Absolutely no smell or taste at all. How long until yours came back please after a confirmed positive case? Thank you!

Hiya hope you're feeling better. I too have lost my taste and smell. Smell has completely gone and taste in not too sure like when I eat I can tell all the different foods have a different taste but it doesn't taste like before everything is so bland unless I add loads of salt. Its only been a week though so guessing I have a while to go. Its just not being able to smell anything at all is driving me mad but I am greatful that is all I have to worry about.

Did you have a kind of metallic taste in your mouth? I could taste and smell still, but had a metallic taste for about a week which got me wondering!

End of Day 9 after the start of my symptoms I started to be able to smell my coconut shower gel if I really tried. I’m on Day 11 now and I’d say my smell is at about 80-90% as it still feels a bit less sensitive than normal. Sadly I still can’t really taste anything but I do sense that is also starting to creep back in as I could kind of tell the sweet and salty parts of my dinner tonight.
I didn’t lose my smell and taste until about 3 days into the headache and cough symptoms I had so technically I am about a week on from losing them.

Thank you! Day 5 of nothingness here so fingers crossed I get something back soon!

It took 16 days for mine to come back. This was back in March before it was a recognised symptom so I wasn't swabbed but have subsequently had a positive antibody test. Hope you feel better soon

2 weeks

Mine took a couple of months to come back to some semblance of normality but sadly my smell hasn’t fully recovered (I can’t smell toast etc).

My taste isn’t as great either and I find myself veering towards much stronger/spicier food than I did previously.

It was around 6 weeks for both myself and my husband and even then, some smells took a lot longer to return and others like soap and some cleaning products have not returned to normal since (from April). So annoying

I had Covid over Easter and had complete anosmia for about 4 weeks. It gradually returned but still isn't as acute as it used to be. One of my colleagues who had it a couple of weeks before me hasn't got his sense of smell back at all

6 months on it hasn't come back properly for my partner - well, he can smell and taste but regularly gets a mysterious burning smell.

I'd say it took him a week or two to get any sense of smell and taste back. Like others are saying, some smells/tastes came back much quicker than others.

I wasn't tested but had high temperature, persistent cough, difficulty breathing and loss of taste and smell.

It's partially come back now after months but nothing tastes the same - I got the metallic taste for ages and some things are still hard to smell. I use essential oils and I just can't smell some of them. Some things smell much stronger as well. The other day a cheese sauce I made smelt very strongly but it didn't taste cheesy at all.

I used a deodorant and used so much that I could taste it in the air and my eyes were watering. I couldn't smell it though.

After 8 days, I was making toast with some lovely bread and I caught a scent of it as I was spreading it. Then it began to come back fairly quickly. 100% back within 2 weeks.

It’s not trivial OP btw!

DS thinks he had COVID in March 2 weeks before lockdown. His sense of taste and smell has only just returned after 7 months.

Olfactory training can help. This page gives you a good description of how to do this at home with essential oils.
www.fifthsense.org.uk/smell-training/using-essential-oils/

I had it very early on so wasn’t tested but for me taste came back in under a week, sense of smell took about six weeks.

I’m lucky that my sense of taste is only a bit affected. I tested positive last Weds and I am unbelievable exhausted. I’m so worried that I’m expected back at work on Monday.

I'm on week 5 post positive test, luckily my sense of smell only waned for about a week but it's still hit and miss on the sense of taste. Sometimes I think I remember the taste of food instead of actually tasting it IYSWM

I never lost my taste or smell when I had it, but my gran did. She had it back in March and it still hasn't returned and it's making her miserable. She's undergoing other tests because she's been having memory problems since being unwell (she's 80 and was 100% sharp and completely independent before this) and they're going to investigate the taste and smell thing, too.

I spoke too soon. Now I can’t smell a thing.

About 6 months!

Ahhhh some of these are scaring me. On the plus side I'm finally losing the lockdown pounds!

6-7 months for me now I think, sense of smell still nowhere near recovered. Some has returned but i have gone from having a very good sense of smell to a mixture of three things..

1. Some things still can't smell at all.

1. Some things I can smell but in a weak, muffled, one dimensional sort of way, nothing like before.

1. Some things that smell distorted and unpleasant, there are a few variations but lots of a kind of burnt chemical smell. This applies to a lot of things I used to like, products etc. Some things also taste a bit burnt/chemical.

I just realised though that I should say...although I suspect Covid caused the loss of sense of smell I was never tested as back then members of the public weren't.

Less than a week. That was back in March when there was no tests being done, but I did have a positive antibody test a few weeks ago.