We’ve addressed the agonizing, stressful, issue of anosmia in this space previously. Now, I’ve discovered there’s a new taste disorder affecting COVID survivors. Worse than not being able to taste at all…
Anosmia is the loss of the senses of taste and smell. Could anything be worse
for a food lover and cooking enthusiast? Perhaps only parosmia…
Unthinkable disgust and loathing
‘If it’s not one thing, it’s another’. ‘Two steps forward, one step back’. ‘Catch 22’. ‘When God closes a door, He opens a trap door’.
We’ve all heard the expressions of frustration that accompany aggravating issues we all have to deal with at one time or another. But I’m having a lot of trouble dismissing some news I tripped across this morning about a taste-and-smell affliction that seems to pop up in a minority of COVID19 sufferers as long as several weeks after their preliminary symptoms subside.
You’ve read about anosmia – the loss of the senses of taste and smell – in this space before. Now I am sad to report there’s another affliction that affects the same senses – but by all accounts is much worse.
I refer to parosmia, under which all tastes and smells register as ‘rotten’ in the sufferer’s brain. I can’t imagine living with that. I don’t think I could figure out how. Just the thought of it nauseates me.
Trust the good old BBC…
A BBC New story by Kristie Brewer does, however, deal very effectively with parosmia.
“Thousands of people who had Covid-19 at the start of the pandemic are still finding that certain foods, toiletries and even their loved ones smell repulsive. All the food and socialising that Christmas brings can make this time of year particularly isolating and tough for those with the condition, known as parosmia.” the preamble to the main story reads.
“This will be Milly’s second year wearing a nose peg in order to stomach a Christmas dinner around the table with her family.”
Oh, dear [insert diety of your choice here] !
‘Smells like death’
“Cheese, meat, onions and chocolate all taste and smell like death, like something rotten and horrible,” says 16-year-old Milly. One point Milly has special trouble dealing with is, her twin sister was diagnosed with COVID shortly after the was, but never suffered any of the symptoms. Much less anosmia or parosmia.
While anosmia is an absence of smell (affecting taste), parosmia is referred to as a ‘a distorted sense of smell’.
It is believed that smell receptors in the nose are sending scrambled signals to the brain. Or – and this would be much scarier – that the brain is failing to receive and process normal signals from the nose. I’ve also heard COVID can cause temporary or, in some cases, permanent brain damage. At least they think so. Which might mean those with anosmia and parosmia might never return to normal functioning.
An up side
The good news is, many anosmia sufferers do regain their normal senses of small and taste. My dear, departed step dad used to get anosmia ‘spells’. He’d lose his smell and taste senses for periods of weeks or months, then get them back for similar lengths of time. Never did we ever figure out what triggered it or, by the same token, fixed it.
So, there’s still hope for parosmia suffers.
But on balance, the news is gloomy
Officiall, it’s estimated that about 65 percent of COVID sufferers will develop anosmia, and that at least 10 percent of those will go on to develop parosmia. Some clinical studies even suggest more like 40-50 percent of those with covid-related anosmia go on to develop parosmia.
But that’s not the worst of it! A rarer condition, phantosmia, makes you smell things that aren’t there. As if you were having a stroke.
My take
Having had a spell of anosmia myself, which mysteriously cleared up a few weeks ago, I can attest to the inconvenience, frustration and depressive effects. But, as I said above, I can’t imagine having to deal with parosmia. And the fear of a stroke is something I walk around with every day. Because, uniformly, every member of my family, on both sides, who has predeceased me has done so via some sort of catastrophic cardio-pulmonary upheaval.
I’ll whimper just a touch when I say I hope you know how hard it’s been for me to write this post. But it had to be written. And I have the solace of knowing that I came back from anosmia, at least, more or less intact…
~ Maggie J.