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My wife and I just came home from vacation, and after 4½ years of avoiding it, we have COVID.
(lemmy.world)
We social distance, usually wear masks in public, and stay up to date on our vaccinations. But all it took was one lady with a mean cough on a two hour flight a week ago to ruin that...or so we think.
The timing really sucks. I had plans for my weekend.
Same here - was real careful for years and got it for the first time a few weeks ago. Stuff still doesn't taste right.
After my ability to smell and taste were completely gone for 2 months I got bummed out enough to try smell training. I didn't buy the expensive kits, but did find strongly scented aromatherapy wax sticks that I sniff every day. If nothing else, going from "these all smell like nothing" to "oh that IS lemongrass or ginger" definitely brightened my mood. It's been 6 months now and I still can't taste tomato or smell lavender, but can now easily detect things like nail polish remover and eucalyptus oil. It's weird to take a strong whiff of rubbing alcohol and not notice a single thing. Good luck!
Oh wow - I got lucky then. It was a week of everything tasting like metal at first. It's still there now but like "at the edges" of the tongue if that makes any sense. There's a patch in the middle that's able to pick out ingredients / attributes well enough to enjoy some things again.
Thank you for sharing - and good luck to you too.
Exactly the same here. I tried to train my smell with essential oils like lavender, lemongrass, orange, etc. It took sooo long for me to smell anything at all. I am still just at around 70% of my ability to smell before covid, and it's been over a year now :/
Yeah I'm not 100% and it was unsettling how down I was getting about it. My boss still can't taste red meat 2 years later...I need to taste tomatoes again, they are my favorite. I hope your smell continues to return and you are fully recovered!
Do you, or have you ever had a fear from not being able to smell? Not having that in case of a fire or gas leak would freak me out but I never hear people talking about that
Funnily enough I was concerned about only my smells, I still have my wonderful husband sniff me if I'm unsure whether I warrant a shower. I'm more concerned about eating spoiled food, so he'll smell that for me as well. I guess I was also unconsciously banking on him being our gas / fire detector. And now I sound like a racoon, never showering, eating garbage, living in squalor.
Thank you, all the best for you, too :)
Hopefully you get your taste back fully in the coming months. I had COVID the first year in October, and it kicked my ass real good. It took a few months for mine to come back to what seems fully.
Man that would fucking ruin me. Sorry you went through that.
Is it still the case that not your smelling receptors are impaired, but that the virus crosses the blood-brain barrier and destroys/knocks out the brain region responsible for smelling.