January 3, 2021
"I feel alien from myself. It’s also kind of a loneliness in the world. Like a part of me is missing, as I can no longer smell and experience the emotions of everyday basic living."
Said one person quoted in "Some Covid Survivors Haunted by Loss of Smell and Taste/As the coronavirus claims more victims, a once-rare diagnosis is receiving new attention from scientists, who fear it may affect nutrition and mental health" (NYT).
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43 comments:
One of the people most prominently quoted in this article is my daughter-in-law's mother. She has never been tested positive for Covid, seems to enjoy eating food, and never possessed the remarkable culinary skills mentioned in the article. A fine example of the NYT's fact checking and selection of interviewees.
Nothing the media says about COVID is honest.
Have you seen the pictures of the New Years celebration in Wuhan?
Everything they are saying now is complete bullshit.
As a COVID "survivor" I am most haunted by the idiocy in simply not letting this thing run its course without fucking the world. We reached the limits of human government. The innumerate idiots could create a narrative to close the world to avoid one granny dying on the sidewalk for lack of a hospital bed, but STILL have proven unable to create a narrative to go back to normal. Next time we have a panic of this magnitude, I want to see piles and piles of dead people. At least a 20% reduction in the world's population, preferably Chinese.
Good Lord. I lost 90% of my sense of smell in a chemistry class "accident" in 1974. I don't miss much.
Ge'ez Louise, give it a rest. Victimhood around every corner.
From dust to dust... There is a lesson there.
Might be time to dust off a copy of 'A Natural History of the Senses' by Diane Ackerman. Reading it oddly heightened my awareness of my senses. Reviving them in a way.
But many live without a sense of smell. My brother lost his via botched sinus surgery. Perhaps it was that, but more likely the accompanying sinus pain, along with the war on prescription pain treatment leaving alcohol the only available "treatment", that drove him to drink himself to death? But he did develop a sophisticated food spicing habit, a sofrito of sort, that was livelier but tasty even with my working sense of smell. And the elderly report loss of sense of smell but I've never been able to tell whether the melancholy way it is stated is for that particular loss or just aging in general.
"Awful!"
Blogger Oso Negro said...
... At least a 20% reduction in the world's population, preferably Chinese.
1/3/21, 10:58 AM
So, what is the population 'decrease' we are currently seeing? wouldn't that be a measure of a pandemic?
In the US, 2019 numbers, there were ~3.7 million births (don't have 2020 numbers). There have been ~2.9 million deaths - including covid deaths at ~310 thousand. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US (we like bacon, what can I say?)
More jalapenos, s'il vous plait.
Worse than loss of smell is the symptom, described in the article, of a phantom bad smell.
"More jalapenos..."
You just feel the nasty hotness. Without the complexity provided by smell, the hotness is just a form of pain.
Cry me a river. My sense of smell is fair to moderate. I know this because mrs. stevew will, when sensing an odor she finds unpleasant, ask me if I smell it too. Sometimes I do, often times I do not. Works out great for foul odors but I suspect I do not experience food and drink in the same way that she does. Another indicator of my olfactory inferiority comes when we dine with some foodie friends, a few of the folks (there are 8 of us in total) can suss out most of the ingredients just from tasting and smelling the item; I usually cannot.
This is just how it is for me, I guess it would be a little jarring to no longer be able to smell and taste as you once did. Feeling alien and alone as a result is silly in the extreme.
Yes I've lost some of my sense of smell. Yes I lost it all for about a week. The week I couldn't smell anything sucked. Now apples, Pepsi, chocolate and pears among other things don't taste right. Other things like hot fast food have a weird taste especially on the mouth approach. I'd liken it to PVC primer but that's not quiet right. I think it's getting better but I'm not sure.
Some of you commenting here are jerks. This virus appears to have permanent debilitating after effects which doesn't care about your political leaning. I'm 6 months recovered from a nothing nothing little sickness and don't believe shutting down the economy is the answer. Having said that this isn't a normal cold. Some of you need to grow some compassion. There are people out there legitimately suffering from what will possibly be lifetime ailments. I personally worry about my lungs 20 years from now because they seem to have been a little bit affected.
"I can no longer smell and experience the emotions of everyday basic living."
How long before we get a vaccine against prog whining?
""More jalapenos..."
You just feel the nasty hotness. Without the complexity provided by smell, the hotness is just a form of pain."
I seem less affected by jalapenos and sometimes welcome the pain just to feel something. Some store brands of jalapeno chips now taste like cinnamon.
Becoming Ann Althouse.
fifthsense.org.uk "Based in the UK, we support people affected by smell and taste disorders across the world, "
I seem less affected by jalapenos and sometimes welcome the pain just to feel something.
https://www.pepperscale.com/jalapeno-health-benefits/
Jalapenos... Chico always said "you don't see a Mexican with the sniffles". Solved it for me. Without clear knowledge of pre-existing comorbidities, how does one assign affects of Covid-19? At this point I'd say roll of the dice. Could be wrong.
Now... Carolina Reapers... That is suffering!
I have a heightened sense of smell. Let me tell you, most of the world stinks.
One of the comments in the NYT article:
Stephen Converse
York, PA
12m ago
"@Dadof2 I suffered from anosmia for several years."
"...After several futile efforts to solve the problem, including two unsuccessful surgeries and lots of Prednisone, I found an ENT who diagnosed me immediately as suffering from sinus polyps. After a 3 hour surgery, in which he removed the rubber cement-like drainage and polyps from my upper-most sinuses, my smell and taste returned and has been wonderful ever since."
Mayo Clinic:
"Nasal polyps are soft, painless, noncancerous growths on the lining of your nasal passages or sinuses. They hang down like teardrops or grapes. They result from CHRONIC INFLAMMATION and are associated with asthma, recurring infection, allergies, drug sensitivity or certain immune disorders." [Emphasis added.]
https://tinyurl.com/y7dajn4o
COVID-19 (in people of all ages with a poorly modulated immune system -- current scientific buzzwords: inflammasome, then immunosenescence) can experience auto-immune damage to various parts of the body. To deal with this, the trick is to address low levels of anti-inflammatory polyphenols, minerals, amino acids, vitamins, and lipids by supplementation of same.
The following journal article mainly details how the auto-immune reaction develops, with a few examples of suggested supplements. There are many other articles out there with better examples, but few detailing so well how the damage occurs:
Life Sci. 2020
The pathophysiology of SARS-CoV- A suggested model and therapeutic approach
"In this paper, a model is proposed of the pathophysiological processes of COVID-19 starting from the infection of human type II alveolar epithelial cells (pneumocytes) by SARS-CoV-2 and culminating in the development of ARDS [Accute Respiratory Distress Syndrome]. The innate immune response to infection of type II alveolar epithelial cells leads both to their death by apoptosis and pyroptosis and to alveolar macrophage activation. Activated macrophages secrete proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines and tend to polarise into the inflammatory M1 phenotype.
These changes are associated with the activation of vascular endothelial cells and thence the recruitment of highly toxic neutrophils and inflammatory activated platelets into the alveolar space. Activated vascular endothelial cells become a source of proinflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species (ROS) and contribute to the development of coagulopathy, systemic sepsis, a cytokine storm and ARDS..."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7392886/pdf/main.pdf
Leon said...
Yes I've lost some of my sense of smell. Yes I lost it all for about a week. The week I couldn't smell anything sucked. Now apples, Pepsi, chocolate and pears among other things don't taste right. Other things like hot fast food have a weird taste especially on the mouth approach. I'd liken it to PVC primer but that's not quiet right. I think it's getting better but I'm not sure.
Some of you commenting here are jerks. This virus appears to have permanent debilitating after effects which doesn't care about your political leaning. I'm 6 months recovered from a nothing nothing little sickness and don't believe shutting down the economy is the answer. Having said that this isn't a normal cold. Some of you need to grow some compassion. There are people out there legitimately suffering from what will possibly be lifetime ailments. I personally worry about my lungs 20 years from now because they seem to have been a little bit affected.
*************************
I certainly wouldn't minimize the genuine suffering that loss of taste or smell results in. Ditto any other lingering or permanent medical issues that covid causes.
But I wonder: how much worse it must have been for someone in the past to survive smallpox and be horribly scarred for life, a condition visible to all? Were such people shunned?
I always taste Jalapeños twice.
I didn't lose my sense of taste but it did change. Many foods I used to like no longer appeal to me, or taste downright bad. My palette has become more limited. I also developed a craving for fruit smoothees made with cantalope. When I was sick and my fever was raging, that's all I could eat.
Early, inexpensive, low-risk treatments would have reduced hospitalization and deaths by 80 to 90% or more. Mitigating progress would have reduced social contagion and collateral damage, and development of anosmia, too. These treatment are likely to be effective for the diverse range of corona viruses spread in the wild. Closing Planned Parent/hoods, controlling spread in medical facilities, and improving hygienic and dietary habits would have improved the outcomes. Less than 3,000 deaths attributed to the virus in Japan.
A lot more Americans are more than haunted by Covid. They are ruined by the unscientific response to it. Far more and far worse, millions of them. They didn't survive with a loss of taste or smell. They lost their livelihood, their dreams, and years of hard work, and for nothing. None of that saved lives in the end, but cost lives instead.
How long before we get a vaccine against prog whining?
From your lips to God's ears...
I lost my sense of smell, and taste was only sweet, salty or sour. Nothing in between, including spices. I opened a jar of minced garlic and took a long inhale through my nose - couldn't smell a thing. All of this lasted about 2 weeks, and the smell is taking longer, but improving daily.
That said, the only reason to even print this story is to keep the panic pr0n going. What Leon seems to miss is that lockdowns are being justified PRECISELY because of stories like this.
Leon said...
Yes I've lost some of my sense of smell. Yes I lost it all for about a week. The week I couldn't smell anything sucked. Now apples, Pepsi, chocolate and pears among other things don't taste right. Other things like hot fast food have a weird taste especially on the mouth approach. I'd liken it to PVC primer but that's not quiet right. I think it's getting better but I'm not sure.
Some of you commenting here are jerks. This virus appears to have permanent debilitating after effects which doesn't care about your political leaning. I'm 6 months recovered from a nothing nothing little sickness and don't believe shutting down the economy is the answer. Having said that this isn't a normal cold. Some of you need to grow some compassion. There are people out there legitimately suffering from what will possibly be lifetime ailments. I personally worry about my lungs 20 years from now because they seem to have been a little bit affected."
Appears? It does. Not so much for people who get it. Almost all will have no long term effect. But certainly for the millions affected by the idiotic economic shutdowns.
I wonder if that is from brain injury from the virus? A lot of TBI patients report having to relearn their sense of smell.
In his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sachs describes a medical student who had a sudden magnification of his senses after extensive drug use (PCP, cocaine, amphetamines). The student described his newly-sensitive olfactory capacity:
"...I awoke to an infinitely redolent world--a world in which all other sensations, enhanced as they were, paled before smell."
He found he could distinguish all his friends--and patients--by smell...'each had his own olfactory physiognomy, a smell-face, far more vivid and evocative, more redolent, than any sight face.'
--Of course, this had a sort-of down side, as he felt the impulse to sniff and touch everything. Further, whereas before he had been intellectual and reflective, "he now found thought, abstraction and categorisation, somewhat difficult and unreal, in view of the compelling immediacy of each experience."
Sachs says this hyperosmia may be related to dopamine surges.
Whatever happens to the sense of smell in CoVid patients may be at the level of the olfactory cranial nerve, or it may be deeper in the brain. Wonder if a hit of L-dopa would restore the sense, if only temporarily?
As someone who might possibly be really inconvenienced by COVID-19 if I contracted it (I'm in my 50s, with well-controlled Type II diabetes among various other things, none of them super-pleasant), I admit to "checking" for anosmia constantly. Mostly that means making highly aromatic dishes and seeing whether they taste the same. Or taste at all. So far, everything is just as usual, which is heartening as, for many people, anosmia is the first (and often the only) symptom of COVID-19.
It's a highly unscientific test, I know (despite all the scientism surrounding it), but better than many. And of course it's an excuse for making the things I wanted to make anyway, mostly curries of various kinds. One involving lamb, fenugreek (methi) leaves, and a lot of dairy is up tonight, and if I can't smell that, I'll assume I'm already dead.
Ann, it's nice of you to refrain from inserting yourself into this story, but . . . what's your take? As the only declared pre-COVID anosmiac among us?
The smell sense varies widely between people. And what people are sensitive to varies widely. For example I am especially sensitive to mercaptan. In one job I had the midnight watch on Sunday night had to walk around outside on the campus to make a list of lights that were out for electricians to change the next day. One night I smelled gas. The wind was blowing from across the street where there was an apartment complex. Walked across, following the smell right to the leak source. Pre cell phone days, went back to the “office “ and called the gas company and gave a location and went back outside to the corner where I smelled it. When their crew showed up I led them right to it. Before they fixed it they took their electronic sniffer to where I had picked it up. The sniffer couldn’t pick it up there, one of the 3 man crew caught an occasional whiff.
OTOH, I can’t smell BO unless it’s really really REALLY bad. On one ship I was on it became my job to tell one of the sailors to take a shower after every other watch. The rest of the division was complaining about his smell and asked how I could stand it. Easy, I didn’t smell it. The first time I told him he asked why. I replied simply because I’m senior and I told you to.
My wife lost her sense of taste and smell back in February, but it obviously wasn’t the dreaded covid because it wasn’t here yet. (Insert raucous laughter here) subsequently 2 of children lost it, both diagnosed with the dreaded covid. Only one was tested- twice. Dictator Cuomo’s, noted medical expert, forbade NY doctors from giving a third. Red Cross says he has covid antibodies. He took the longest to recover, but they all recovered with no lasting effects.
And FYI, I fed them all supplements at the beginning stages. Including zinc. The body rapidly depleted zinc and Vitamin D when fighting infections. And turns out zinc is essential to maintain a sense of smell. Those of you here suffering still from smell/taste loss- are you taking zinc, D, and quercetin to help help upload that zinc?
On New Years Day I gave blood for the 3rd time since the covidiocy started. I’ve had no symptoms with multiple exposures. So I probably won’t have antibodies. I would be interested in knowing what percentage of donors have dreaded covid antibodies and I wonder why the Red Cross doesn’t publicize that number.
The smell sense varies widely between people.
I had a roommate in NYC who got paid to walk the subway tunnels and sniff. He had an unusually good sense of smell. There is also the story of a maid in India sorting the laundry by smell after it was washed.
Here is a sniffer story.
I have always had a very minimal sense of smell. Pretty handy when changing diapers but otherwise I probably miss a lot. However, it does not FEEL like I miss a lot because I never had it. I know toast is burning before I am aware of the smell, before I can smell it per se. Sometimes a smell will penetrate and it is always a surprise. I'm not sure what pepper tastes like for example. Cannot taste saffron unless it is loaded on. The only taste I get from eggplant is bitterness, which is a tongue thing not a flavor.
So, I know how these people now experience the world but I don't know what they are missing.
What Is Anosmia?
* Irritation to the mucus membranes lining the nose
* Blockage of the nasal passages
* Brain or nerve damage
After ruling out congenital and environmental causes, check the air where you are sequestered. Your general health for malnutrition, which is also known to normalize progress. Check your mask if it is a petri dish and concentrator.
Yup! Wuhan Flu is the only condition that causes lack of taste or smell and has to be give special status because over 300,000 died out of almost 3,000,000 WITH its.
"Yup! Wuhan Flu is the only condition that causes lack of taste or smell and has to be give special status because over 300,000 died out of almost 3,000,000 WITH its."
Yup! In only nine months, it has killed more Americans than were killed in the whole of World War II. What will the mark be at one year?
I realize this thread is dead properly by now but I feel I should come back and comment again.
I'm in no way advocating for the shutdowns we've had. I think they're pretty stupid. However I was sick with cold like symptoms and a temperature of 99.6F for about 18 hours. It wasn't till 2 days later that I lost my smell and 2 and 1/2 months later before the phantom false smells started.
Some of you are commenting that you don't have a very good sense of smell which is all fine and well. It's the craziness of having a strong body odor smell of rotten onions and your urine smelling like stale buttered popcorn.
I did have some slight twinges in my chest. It wasn't until I was climbing onto roofs to change commercial air conditioning filters that I realized I was having lung problems. Those seem to be better but how much better I can't really say.
My point is that some of you think the whining is coming from progressives and are being very demeaning about it. And I'll grant there is quite a bit of that you do have a point but being conservative liberal hating clear thinking doesn't keep you from getting what might be a disease that affects you for the rest of your life. There is some room to be circumspect.
If you are in the high risk demographic I think isolation makes a lot of sense. If you aren't there needs to be some at least rational view about how to treat this disease. I'm not sure that lines being very well taken. I will look into taking zinc and vitamin D. Thanks for the suggestion.
"Yup! In only nine months, it has killed more Americans than were killed in the whole of World War II. What will the mark be at one year?"
Yup - and only a fraction that were killed in a similar time frame by the Spanish Flu. And only a fraction of the Russians killed in WWII in 9 months. All depends on what you wish to compare it to.
With the weird smells, are any of these people being checked for sinus infections? Not unusual with viral infections and very often the cause of odd, pervasive "odors" post-virus.
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