From "The Stench of Living (and Working) With Parosmia" (NY Magazine).
[21-year-old Lindsay] Davis... had parosmia, a neurological disorder that affects [perhaps 11%] of COVID-19 survivors... Unlike anosmia, which is the complete loss of taste and smell, or phantosmia, an olfactory disorder that causes people to smell phantom odors that are not actually present, parosmia distorts smells.
[For another woman with parosmia, a]t first, everything she encountered smelled like burnt hair or rancid patchouli. Her food tasted like someone had dripped garbage juice on top before serving it. Then her trigger smell, singed hair, morphed into a bouquet of stale cigarettes, spoiled maple syrup, and cheap cologne.... and chicken tastes like “if you had cat food and left it out for three days.”...
The good news for long-haulers is that the significant bump in people with smell disorders will provide much-needed data for scientists to better understand the olfactory system and develop potential remedies.
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14 comments:
and here we thought, that loss of smell was bad!
At night, the sensation of sleeping in a 'heap of bodies' kept her awake. She considered shaving her head to stop smelling her hair." ...everything she encountered smelled like burnt hair or rancid patchouli. Her food tasted like someone had dripped garbage juice on top before serving it. Then her trigger smell, singed hair, morphed into a bouquet of stale cigarettes, spoiled maple syrup, and cheap cologne...
By chance, did any of these women at some point spend a weekend with Hunter Biden?
That 11% number: it is the total of all sufferers of this malady, not those who suffer the worst, like the woman in the article. Most, almost all, resolve the malady within weeks to months of recovering from COVID, which kinda indicates the problem is some sort of temporary damage to certain cells. Phantosmia, like anosmia, from COVID is usually not a life sentence. I think that is important to note, as the idea that this many people have lifetime problems - even if only sensory - from COVID is just absolutely incorrect.
I apologize for making light of what must surely be a difficult syndrome to deal with.
But that initial description sounds like the beginning of a mystery/horror novel.
"Ma'am, there's a corpse in your attic. Now,we need to know,where is your husband?"
Burning skin kinda smells bad.
Burning hair for some reason smells much worse.
The body naturally dims out smells that hang around. I wish I didn't have to be cynical about this story. But pretty much everything the media has told us about COVID is a lie.
what an awful result from getting over Covid. best to get vaccinated.
My son who got the 'rona in NOV 2020 has experienced most of the parosmia symptoms described here. For a while, any warm food tasted like it was rotten garbage. He had to eat only refrigerator food for a while. It has gotten better, but slowly.
I got sick at the same time and completely lost my sense of smell for about 3 mos. Even now, I have days when everything smells bizarre. One day last week everything smelled like the perfume in Lysol for the entire waking day, even while cleaning out a house that flooded during Ida! Very bizarre and very real.
https://covidlonghaulers.com/
cubanbob said...
what an awful result from getting over Covid. best to get vaccinated.
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Repeatedly..
Don't fall for that vaccine bullcrap guys. You'll be much better off if you gain immunity through natural infection. The 'Rona only weeds out the weak people that God has determined must die for our sins. It's time to step up and take one for the team.
All kidding aside these Long haul symptoms may just be the only obvious ones. It very well could be a proxy for damage from multi system clot festival that Corona rains down on the long haulers. I wager we're going to see increases in dementia and Alzheimer's among long haul folks who's only complaint now is lack of smells or inappropriate smells.
When you choose to become a covid skeptic this covid porn jumps out at you.
Covid both kills your sense of smell and makes you smell bad things.
When the numbers look scarier raw, give the raw numbers. When the numbers look scarier as percentages, give percentages.
People who choose not to be vaccinated are cast as wicked spreaders of a disease that cripples and kills children.
Use anecdotes when neither the raw numbers nor the percentages are frightening.
Last month the county I live in had 2 active cases of covid. The official covid dashboard for the county listed the covid case load as "high." Over 40,000 people live in my county.
I have regular anosmia, almost no sense of smell at all. And I have not smelled a bad smell in many years. It’s hard for me to remember what a nasty smell is. It just doesn’t exist in my world.
Howard said...
Don't fall for that vaccine bullcrap guys. You'll be much better off if you gain immunity through natural infection. The 'Rona only weeds out the weak people that God has determined must die for our sins. It's time to step up and take one for the team.
Are you trying to make democrats look stupid by posting these things?
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