Covid loss of taste and smell..share your experiences

midlomel1971
midlomel1971 Posts: 1,283 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I was diagnosd with Covid this past Monday. I feel totally fine and I feel very fortunate about that, but last night I lost all of my ability to taste and smell and I'm freaking out. Seriously, you don't know how something like that will impact you until it's gone. And of course I'm freaking myself out even more reading all of these articles about people who never get it back and how negatively it affects your quality of life. On the bright side, at least I'm not on a ventilator and maybe this will make it easier to drop a few lbs.

If you lost your smell and taste, how long was it gone? Did you regain all of it? How did affect your fitness goals?

Replies

  • jennacole12
    jennacole12 Posts: 1,167 Member
    Ugh I tested positive Sunday symptoms started Friday.... everyone keeps saying it’ll happen but it hasn’t just yet. Worst symptoms so far is the back pain, it’s unbearable. Feel better and hope you get your taste ASAP!
  • midlomel1971
    midlomel1971 Posts: 1,283 Member
    edited February 2021
    jennacole12 wrote: »
    Ugh I tested positive Sunday symptoms started Friday.... everyone keeps saying it’ll happen but it hasn’t just yet. Worst symptoms so far is the back pain, it’s unbearable. Feel better and hope you get your taste ASAP!

    My symptoms started Sunday. My husband tested positive for it the Friday before, so I knew it was only a matter of time. My back has been killing me, too! I just chalked it up to my crappy back and my desk chair, but maybe it's related? Interesting. The doc said to take Tylenol and that zapped the back pain away pretty well.
  • midlomel1971
    midlomel1971 Posts: 1,283 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Lost both for about 4 days. Regained it all back. I didn’t workout for about two weeks (I was pretty sick. Not hospitalized, but bad flu-ish), took about 2 months at the gym to get back to feeling normal.

    I'm so glad you are feeling better!
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,093 Member
    edited February 2021
    Not something I've experienced personally, but I had an uncle who lost taste/smell as a young adult from a laboratory chemical exposure, and he ended up eating mostly for textures that he liked (and obviously for energy/nutrition -- but I'm talking about what limited enjoyment he had in eating).

    Also, just a thought, but if this does turn out to last for a while, and your husband doesn't get that particular effect from his covid bout, you might want to only eat what he eats, or asking him be a "food taster" "food smeller" for you if you eat something different, given that the main clues we have that food is spoiled are from smell (and taste, but much better not to even taste something that is spoiled).

    I hope you feel better soon.
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
    Not me, but my youngest daughter (22). She had Covid back in October and lost her smell and taste immediately. She’s still not back to normal although there are signs of improvement. It seems that she has days where she can smell some scents but not others, she also has a degree of Parosmia along with the Anosmia - where things just smell ‘wrong’ - coffee smells like egg, lots of things just smell of smoke etc.

    She’s developed a liking for hot sauce (something she wouldn’t have touched before), vinegars, but basically she’s just eating the things she liked before and putting up with the lack of taste and smell.

    She’s also been doing ‘scent training’ with essential oils - there’s a lot of info about that around currently, not surprisingly! If she’s diligent about doing it every day it does seem to help to retrain the nerve pathways as they regenerate.

    Wishing you a speedy recovery.
  • alung2k3
    alung2k3 Posts: 81 Member
    Had it approx 2 months ago. Took approx 2 weeks for my smell/taste to return. Food during that time was very boring. I wouldn't panic, it's extremely rare to not have your senses come back
  • 1chesc
    1chesc Posts: 176 Member
    I also lost my sense of smell and taste with covid. Mine loss of taste lasted about a 4 days and when it started it come back everything tasted weak. My sense of smell took about a week to come back.

    During this time I ate too much as I decided to keep eating test if I could taste. We had a very hot Curry one evening, I couldn't taste it at all. My husband couldn't eat it because it was too hot.
  • COGypsy
    COGypsy Posts: 1,353 Member
    My boss had COVID last March, just when everything closed down and still has no sense of taste or smell. He says he misses the smell of coffee most.

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