Please tell me some positive stories of your taste and smell returning.

[MovingForwardish]

I'm finding this aspect of the infection really, really hard.
I know in the grand scheme of things I'm lucky in that I have only a mild case of covid and it could be so much worse.

But, the lack of taste and smell is making me feel SO anxious. I'm so worried it won't come back at all! Worried I won't be able to smell a gas leak, spoiled food etc. Aside from the fact it just takes all the joy away from eating. A life without smell or taste just seems intolerable.

I'm scared. Please tell me some positive stories of your sense of taste and smell coming back after covid.

I don't find onions and garlic horrible but they don't taste like they did, and I find lots of other things now smell of them. Weird!

@MovingForwardish

I guess only 6 days in I need to stop obsessing about it. I think the anxiety is being fuelled by the isolation. I cannot stop thinking about it. Constantly testing if I can smell essential oils right under my nose. And I can't AT ALL

Yes, you still have Covid so you need to give it time. I lost my sense of smell and taste on day 6 of symptoms, they both came back a week later on the same day, taste first.

Yes, I'm definitely running away with myself. Can't really expect to have the symptoms get better when I'm in the middle of the infection.

I'm healthy and have a mild case so I guess there's every reason to be positive things will be ok

Yes!

I can taste onion and garlic in a lot of things like crisp is that only have them as a minor ingredient!

Once cooked and in a dish I don’t mind the. - it’s the raw and in cooking / frying process that is just wrong

I completely lost taste and smell on day 6 of testing positive. I was so worried it wouldn't come back but about 4 days later I was able to smell certain things, definitely wasn't normal but better than nothing, over the next 2 days my taste started to come back too and within a week both had fully returned.

Google absent.org. The sooner the better.
You can train your senses back. Please don't be anxious - although Covid has made people notice it for the first time, losing smell and taste due to a virus, especially coronaviruses, isn't that rare and has always happened, so it really isn't anything to panic about.
Having said that, my smell and taste came back different and it's now about 11 months of things not smelling or tasting the same. I 'train' every day and I use memory and other senses to help me smell and taste 'properly'. It's frustrating as I am very obsessed with good food and wine, but if you start early (and I didn't - it took me 3 or 4 months to start training) you'll most likely be fine. And also, it'll probably come back without you doing anything within the next few days!

I did the smell training that afallthroughtheair mentions. It took two weeks for my taste and sense of smell to start to come back and probably a month for me to enjoy food and wine again. Lots of things did smell different for a long time though. Mangoes, for example, smelled rotten post Covid. I reckon it took 9 months for everything to go back to normal.

Sorry that should read thefallthroughtheair

I miss my sense of smell - have been without it for nearly three months now: might be time to start training it to see if I can get it back.

I have been smelling essential oils daily but I'll honest its been upsetting me more because I literally don't get a whiff of ANYTHING.
I wonder whether I should leave doing that until I'm over the infection itself?
Woken up feeling very anxious again. I keep panicking I won't be able to smell gas etc as I'm the only adult in the house.

My daughter had Covid in early December and lost her sense of taste. It came back about 5-6 weeks later.

I had covid last March. My sense of smell has been gradually returning over the last couple of months but it's still not back to normal and some days it's worse/better than others. Taste is largely ok, although I didn't lose that badly to start with.

Oh my goodness AgathaX you've had no sense of smell for 9 months? I'm so sorry to hear that. That sounds so stressful. How have you coped?

@MovingForwardish The condition is generally triggered by three things. A virus as in your cases, brain injury or chronic rhinosinusitus as in my case. I had a surgical procedure called FESS which straightens a deviated septum (very many of us have this) and clears sinuses. Unfortunately this procedure doesn't have a high success rate and wasn't in my case. One thing that restores my sense of smell is the steroid Prednisone but it's super strong and has some pretty grisly side effects if taken too often. I am able to beg one prescription a year from my GP and did so in order to taste the lovely food at my wedding last year. I do use prescription steroid nose drops which work sporadically but went out of production last year so I didn't smell or taste a thing for 8 months. Do take a look at the Abscent website for support. Good luck all of you and I'm sure it will be restored eventually.

I've just ordered a smell training kit off the website, thank you.
I think I'm going to leave using it for a couple of weeks though and see if the senses come back by themselves. I'm aware that I only had a positive test result 5 days ago so I'm still in the middle of the infection.

I think once my isolation is over I'll be able to stop obsessing about it so much. I'm making myself poorly worrying about it.

I was panicking too. All the stories of taste and smell not coming back for months. Mine returned after 4/5 days, almost as suddenly as it disappeared.

Mines been gone for 5 days so far.
And now I'm stressing that stressing will stop it from returning. Me panicking about it won't have an effect will it??

God I'm an absolute mess. I need this isolation to end to take my mind off it!

I sympathise with you. I tested positive on 6th January , I lost my sense of smell and taste completely too. I found it really distressing and worried I would never get it back! But on day 10 I started to get 'hints' of smells and then gradually bit by bit it did come back along with my taste. Hang in there, it's a nasty virus but 2 months on I would say my taste is completely back and smell atleast 95%. Try not to worry too much and just focus on getting better , I know it's hard especially in isolation. I Hope you feel better soon!

Oh @Laurenishere2105 you have no idea how much posts like yours are helping me. So thank you for taking the time to reply

A little bit of good news... I just caught a faint whiff of tea tree oil! Not strong at all, but something is there! Hopefully this is the start of things coming back, albeit quite slowly.

Op bit late to the party. Really interested to know how long yours took to come back, if at all?
I'm on day 9 and struggling!!

It is difficult, going through same thing.
Anxiety has taken over me, struggling to sleep.
It is been 2 months now but let's all stay strong together, we can do thisx

I'd like to hear more positive stories too.
Please can anyone keep posting good news on smell and taste recovery, thanksx
Is anyone going through smell returning but the smell doesn't hang about for long, just disappears?

Random question, what time of the day did smells return for you?