Many Covid-19 patients temporarily lose their sense of smell. When they get well, their sense of smell usually returns, but some will notice that things smell different. Things that are supposed to smell good, such as Food, soap and their loved ones, smell offensive.
The number of people with this condition, called olfactory inversion (parosmia), is growing, but scientists are unsure why it happens or how to cure it.
Clare Freer cries every Time she tries to cook for her Family of four. “The smell makes me dizzy. As soon as you turn on the oven, the house is filled with the smell of decay and it’s just unbearable. “Claire, 47, from Sutton Coldfield, England, has been suffering from olfactory inversions for seven months.
Onions, coffee, meat, fruit, alcohol, toothpaste, cleaning products and perfume all make her want to vomit. Tap water has the same effect (although the water is not filtered), which makes doing laundry difficult.
“I can’t even kiss my partner anymore. ” she says.
Claire contracted the new coronavirus last March, and like many people, she lost her sense of smell as a result.
The sense of smell returned briefly last May. But by June, Claire rejected her favorite take-out meals because they smelled badly of perfume and she smelled a strong chemical or burning odor every time she put something in the oven.
Since last summer, she has been eating only bread and cheese because that’s all she can tolerate. I have no energy at all and I’m sore,” she says. “It also affects her emotionally, and she says she cries most of the time.
Claire’s doctor said he had never encountered this before. Scared and confused, Claire searched for answers online and found a Facebook group set up by AbScent, a charity for people with olfactory loss. The group has 6,000 members.
Almost all of them had lost their sense of smell due to the new coronavirus, and all of them ended up with olfactory inversions. “Common descriptions of different smells include: death, decay, rotting meat, feces,” says AbScent founder Chrissi Kelly) said.
She created the Facebook group in June after what she called a high number of cases of neocoronavirus olfactory inversions.
About 65 percent of people infected with the new coronavirus lose their sense of smell and taste, and it is estimated that about 10 percent of them will develop “qualitative olfactory disorder,” or olfactory inversion, or a rarer form of the disease: phantom sniffing. disease: phantom sniffers.
If the numbers are correct, as many as 6.5 million of the 100 million people infected with the new coronavirus worldwide may now be suffering from olfactory inversion.
One theory suggests that people with this disorder smell terrible odors because they perceive only some of the volatile compounds contained in substances that smell worse in isolation, and they can even increase in intensity.
For example, coffee contains sulfides, and these compounds smell great in combination with other molecules, but don’t smell so good alone.
Jane Parker, a scientist at the University of Reading in England, and some people in the AbScent Facebook group collaborated to find that meat, onions, garlic and chocolate, as well as coffee, vegetables, fruit, tap water and wine, usually caused adverse reactions.
To some volunteers, most everything else smelled bad, and nothing smelled good to them, “except maybe almonds and cherries.”
Parker said volunteers and other patients with olfactory inversions repeatedly described several unpleasant smells, one chemical and smoky, one sweet and nauseating, and one “vomit smell “.
Her research also found that unpleasant odors may linger for an unusually long time in patients with anosmia. For most people, the smell of coffee only lingers in the nostrils for a few seconds. For people with inversion of smell, it can linger for hours, even days.
Another surprising finding is that for some people, the smell of diapers and sanitary napkins becomes pleasant, “just as human excrement smells like food, and food now smells like human excrement,” said Professor Barry Smith, head of the Global Chemosensory Research Association in the United Kingdom. smells like human excrement. “
What causes olfactory inversion? The common hypothesis is that it is caused by damage to nerve fibers.
Nerve fibers carry signals from the receptors in the nose to the end of the olfactory bulb in the brain. When these fibers regrow – whether the damage is caused by damage from a car accident or by a viral or bacterial infection – it is thought that the fibers may be reconnected to the wrong end, Parker said.
“They’re in the wrong conference room! This is known as ‘cross-wiring,’ which means the brain doesn’t recognize the smell and it may be identified as dangerous. “
In theory, in most cases, the brain will correct the problem over time, but Parker would not say how long it would take.
“Because very few people suffered from olfactory inversion before the New Coronavirus Epidemic, not much research has been done on it, and most people don’t know what it is, so we don’t have historical data. We don’t have data for New Coronavirus because it can take years,” she said.
There is no treatment other than waiting for the brain to adapt, but AbScent thinks “smell training” may help, which involves regularly sniffing a batch of essential oils. Other patients have adapted their diets to cope.
Two sisters, Kirsty, 20, and Laura, 18, from Keathley, England, have taken this approach. They found that plant-based foods tasted best.
“Meat is one of the trigger foods we avoid now. Finding delicious recipes that we like makes it easier for us to cope with the situation,” said Kirstie, “We have to adapt and change our mindset because we know it could be many years of living in this situation. “
Parker noted that loss of smell is not as valued in response to the new crown epidemic, but she and Barry Smith said loss of smell often affects mental health and quality of Life.
“It’s only when you lose your sense of smell that you realize it’s part of your experience,” Smith said. He notes that human connection, happiness and memories are closely tied to smell.
How to deal with olfactory inversions?
Eat room temperature or refrigerated foods
Avoid fried foods, grilled meats, onions, garlic, eggs, coffee and chocolate, all of which are the least suitable foods for people with olfactory inversions
Try lighter foods such as rice, noodles, unbaked bread, steamed vegetables and plain yogurt
If you can’t swallow food, consider a protein shake with no flavor
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