Sense of Smell is more that we thought?

[XPan]

I lost my sense of smell last year in April due to Covid infection (with pneumonia and fever for more then 20 days) , I used Zinc before during and after the infection.. Im still using it.. Unfortunately I still do not recognise wide range of scents... Its soo anoying...

I can fully relate to that.

When i got the second infection “omikron” back around Christmas 2021 - once again my sense of smell completely disappeared, and then returned perhaps veeeery slowly to 10% of normal - but suddenly in a “screwed” manner which did not happen the first time with Delta in Aug 2021. I then had a very weird “smoky” flavor attached to a lot of things.

As of now a half year later - i may have still only 30% of my sensitivety left, some flavors I do not smell, others I do. Perfume is pretty much lost on me.

And then there is this strange “smoky” smell which is the most puzzling aspect. Everything that is cooked or friend such as meat or onions - smells similar smoky. A sort of exotic barbeque kind of smell (not sweet) but a bit rough kind if smell. And many things smell the same - which earlier had clearly different smell profiles.

Whether Tekki our dog poops, i eat cooked eggs, smell coffee beans, or sense the impregnated leather from my jacket, and especially all kinds of the meat fried in the pan… all have that “smokey” smell attached. Oh and i suspect that when i have bad breath i sometimes get a hunch of that wicked smoky smell, too.

(Is this a snake thing, perhaps ?!?)

Fresh meant on the other hand smells normal to me albeit very, very weak.

I eat zinc daily for years.

 

[Tuulikki]

When I lost my sense of smell and taste two years ago during a bad bout of covid I started smelling cigarettes all the time. No one around me was smoking at the time and mostly I was alone. This gradually reduced when my sense of smell and taste returned. It took a good three months for this to happen. Prior to this I had an incredible sense of smell. I once, correctly, told a nursing friend that she had a UTI. She was horrified. I was once caring for a patient in A & E who was being sutured for some injury to her hand. The smell around her was very offensive to me. Obviously I said nothing. She then told me she had successfully fought off cancer. It crossed my mind that the cancer had returned. Unfortunately I did not follow her up to see if I was correct. I have my sense of smell and taste back now and they seem to have fully returned thankfully. I think there is much more to the sense of smell than we realise. Perhaps it was another of those senses that our distant ancestors had in abundance which we have lost today to a great extent.

 

[Mayb]

Whether Tekki our dog poops, i eat cooked eggs, smell coffee beans, or sense the impregnated leather from my jacket, and especially all kinds of the meat fried in the pan… all have that “smokey” smell attached. Oh and i suspect that when i have bad breath i sometimes get a hunch of that wicked smoky smell, too.

Absolutely same! Some new smell arised and seems like all things that have some substance... Maybe sulfur or similar have the exact same new smell for me.. Onions, eggs, toilet or some rotten thing...

 

[Keit]

I think there is much more to the sense of smell than we realise. Perhaps it was another of those senses that our distant ancestors had in abundance which we have lost today to a great extent.

No doubt about that. Don't know if you had a chance to see these posts, but there are several threads where in the past I wrote about smell. For example, this thread. The mentioned article talks about smell in the context of romantic attraction, but the link to the immune system is very interesting.

And there is this connection to depression. And this one talks about unhealthy behaviors that trigger the same response as bad smell.

There is also this article that I saw a year ago. It shows how important it is to have clear sinuses. The brain fog could be due to a poor oxygenation of the brain, but could be due to something additional as well. Something that has to do with a sense of smell. That the brain isn't getting all the information it requires.

 

[XPan]

Absolutely same! Some new smell arised and seems like all things that have some substance... Maybe sulfur or similar have the exact same new smell for me.. Onions, eggs, toilet or some rotten thing...

Earlier lingering thoughts attached to the subject, I too thought of sulfur being a particular component responsible for the "dry" smoky smell sensations.

Plus it appears to me, that when the some nerves got damaged during the infection, that when they started to heal again, they may gotten "wrongly" re-connected? Like a translation error or something ? I should add, that I rarely lost my sense of smell entirely during earlier colds, and if it partially happened, it would always return 100% after a week, no exception.

However, the last two covid-related infections - as odd as they felt in several ways (during both times), my sense of smell disappeared entirely for several months (and both times only returned to approx. 25-30% later). I used to have an extreme sensitive nose (to a degree that it sometimes would bother me), despite I often had a runny nose, when temperatures would go below 10°C. Now I feel much more relaxed in that regard.

It's just... despite the information of possible culprits, I never got any indications or impressions during my lifetime, that my sense of smell ever been affected by things like depression, unhealthy behaviors or clogged sinuses.

I do however miss a little bit, the sensation of feeling the special scent of my partner. The only thing I can identify, is a sort of "organic" scent, but without any clear, memorable, specific associated "memory" attached to it, that would identify "that is him", or "that is her".

 

[Mrs. Peel]

I had Covid at the end of June 2021, since I had no respiratory symptoms the only way I realized it was really covid was the loss of smell and that took me a while to tune in to because I had a weak sense of smell to start with. A few months ago, I started to smell something like chlorine here and there. I've got some body lotion with a smell I like so I use that as a "test" every day to see if I can smell it. I was starting to smelling it a bit, and managed to pick up a whiff of bacon once, but then it seems to have disappeared again.

I take zinc here and there but will start to take it more regularly now. I had some zinc nasal spray I used to use that didn't help. I really don't miss the sense of smell a lot since as I said, it wasn't much to begin with. But unfortunately I can't tell when the trash starts to stink or if there would be a fire or something to smell smoke or gas leaking.

 

[Tuulikki]

@Keit thanks for the links Keit. I will check those out when I have some spare time for reading

 

[Tuulikki]

I've got some body lotion with a smell I like so I use that as a "test" every day to see if I can smell it. I was starting to smelling it a bit, and managed to pick up a whiff of bacon once, but then it seems to have disappeared again.

I take zinc here and there but will start to take it more regularly now. I had some zinc nasal spray I used to use that didn't help. I really don't miss the sense of smell a lot since as I said, it wasn't much to begin with. But unfortunately I can't tell when the trash starts to stink or if there would be a fire or something to smell smoke or gas leaking.

My everyday test was a couple of bars of highly fragranced soaps (in their paper wrappers) which I sniffed each morning to see if my sense of smell was returning. It was a case of "hmmm...think I can detect a very slight smell but not sure". Probably a bit of wishful thinking in there as well. Eventually the fragrance of the soaps came back strongly. I am quite attached to them now and they are still unused in their wrappers.

I also have been taking zinc for about six months now so hopefully that is helping also. I do need a good sense of smell in my home as I have a serious feline predator who delights in bringing home live prey. They do disappear from time to time behind furniture and I use my sense of smell to detect anything amiss in my home. I also always sniff a lot of my food prior to eating it. I think my sense of smell is often more reliable than the sell by dates used.

 

[lostinself]

To those who ended up with defective sense of smell after covid - have you tried taking iodine? It can help the body recover its lost capabilities. It also kills coronaviruses, so if you have any remnants of them in your body (microbiome), it's another way it can be helpful. I've also read you can retrain your sense of smell by sniffing aromas in a slow, mindful manner and recalling how they should smell. Essential oils are good for this, reportedly. Can confirm the efficacy to an extent.

 

[bauble]

To those who ended up with defective sense of smell after covid - have you tried taking iodine? It can help the body recover its lost capabilities. It also kills coronaviruses, so if you have any remnants of them in your body (microbiome), it's another way it can be helpful. I've also read you can retrain your sense of smell by sniffing aromas in a slow, mindful manner and recalling how they should smell. Essential oils are good for this, reportedly. Can confirm the efficacy to an extent.

I'm just getting back to iodine and will try to remember to report back. I had covid in Jan or Feb this year and my sense of smell is almost nonexistent, which is rather trying because one of my businesses is soap/essential oil products. I use it a lot in telling the health of my animals as well, so I feel much like I'm flying blind these last few months in many aspects of daily life. I hope iodine helps!

 

[Maya]

Ok, now it's easier to know I'm not alone with inoperative nose.
For 8 months I could not smell anything and recently many things have same mild flowerish scent.
Dirt, meat, shampoo, cheese, coffee, flowers, spices, veggies,....

 

[lostinself]

To elaborate more on why i think iodine can be helpful. I had "proper" covid back in December, without any significant lasting symptoms except for mild mental fog, loss of taste and smell reduced to the weird smoky odor that others have mentioned. (In my case the odor could be likened to stale ground coffee, i seriously hated it.) I used iodine inhalations at the time & they seemed to improve how i felt but the dosage was definitely too small to cause any significant difference. My senses of smell and taste came back to normal naturally after 2-3 weeks.

Fast-forward several months and one day, while having a throat infection of some kind, i felt covid-style loss of smell kicking in again, with the same peculiar smoky odor replacing other aromas. This time i just took 5-6 drops of 12% Lugol's in a glass of water, along with some vitamin D. Within 2 hours or so my senses were clear again, and i felt much better overall. I wasn't fully cured; in fact the illness had lingered for some weeks afterwards (not sure what it was) but my senses of smell and taste have remained normal ever since.

It's just piece of anecdotal not-really-evidence but i'm convinced it was iodine that actually helped me that particular time. Situation may be different with long-lasting anosmia but i would definitely give iodine a try.