No smell or taste

[DoAhhDiddy]

Unsure if I've had Covid (didn't test!) but I've had various viruses since November. I've now completely lost my sense of smell and taste. It's making life pretty miserable.

Going to book an appointment with GP next week. If it's related to Covid, what can I expect? Will it come back soon?

Started worrying its something more serious like early onset dementia as I've been having memory issues lately. Thanks for any advice x

I had Covid last week and lost my taste and smell. It’s back now. I always know when it’s Covid because my taste/smell goes. Hope you feel better soon.

Thanks for your reply! Think it's been a week or so for me now too. It's driving me crazy. Just want to be back to normal again. What I thought was a small pleasure of cooking for my family and eating, is actually a massive thing. Grateful it's just those symptoms tho as I know it could have been a lot worse. Glad you are feeling better!

I lost mine for a few weeks after having Covid, started to come back gradually. I never got back to normal though, some things still taste weird, but mostly OK. Hope it all comes back for you OP!

I tested positive for covid 2 weeks ago and it was about a week before I tested negative. Noticed loss of smell a couple of days before I tested - not completely gone but very muted, maybe 20/30% of normal. I was going mad with anxiety about it, and am still finding it slightly anxiety-provoking, but it has definitely improved since I started testing negative. I would say I am now back to 70/80% of normal - maybe more, I've obsessed about it so much I've basically lost all grasp on what's normal! But it's happened very gradually and I wouldn't be surprised if, overall, it took a good few weeks for it to go back to 100%. It's so scary because you read so many stories about it never coming back and you really believe that will be you! But it's so, so rare, for most people it does come back, it can just take a few weeks. So hang on in there and just believe it will come back eventually, even if it takes longer than you're hoping.

Re worrying about illnesses other than covid - I would be willing to bet it's covid! It's everywhere at the moment and loss of smell is common with this strain, even when there are very few other symptoms.

@DoAhhDiddy How are you getting on now? I was on the mend from covid but now have a terrible cold/sinus thing and my smell has completely disappeared!! Nothing!! Argh!!

@Mattietoes Still no taste or smell! It's been nearly 6 weeks 😭 Was given antibiotics for sinus infection, but I'm full of gloop still and coughing, and now think im getting costocondritis. Went back to docs last week and they said I just have a cold and to ride it out, but 10 weeks of mucus, coughing etc seems unreasonable especially if I'm not getting inflammation pain. Going to ring docs again in morning. How are you now?