My Side Effect of Covid-19

A Pleasure That Might Gone Forever

I was infected with covid-19 last March 15, 2021, I had experienced many symptoms. On the first day, I feel nothing until the second day I thought I am asymptomatic it was the third day when I experienced soar trout. The fourth day is a runny nose and fever. On the fifth day, I had a headache; a fever, muscle pain, and my sense of smell faded.  A week after, symptoms disappeared except I still can't smell. I started thinking about what to do I watched YouTube videos about covid-19 survivors who lost their smell and some of the suggestions I'd tried was to train my nose to smell of garlic and ginger and I also tried 'suob' (steam inhalation) about four times; twice a day morning and evening. Eventually, after a week I smell the garlic when it was near in the hole of my nose I feel like I was in recovery already at those time because I was able to smell the garlic. A month after I notice a few improvements at least things are not "static" and I was able to smell the perfume.

At the end of May when sudden changes happened, I tasted and smell the rice like rusty … something that I couldn't explain at first I thought there is something wrong with the rice. Then I notice that the smell & taste is constantly the same every day and it worsens, almost all things that have a strong smell are more likely to smell rusty metal. The first week of June when I tasted a coke intolerable.

I research what happing to me then I found this article 'Wine' tasted like gasoline': How Covid-19 is changing some people's sense of smell' written on November 10, 2020. It was Jennifer Spicer a 35 years old physician who experienced changes in taste and smell after post-infection of Covid-19. According to that article; "The condition in which a person's sense of smell is altered, known as parosmia, is typically unpleasant," Richard Doty, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Smell and Taste Center.

"Parosmia is a term used to describe health conditions that distort your sense of smell. If you have parosmia, you may experience a loss of scent intensity, meaning you can’t detect the full range of the scents around you. Sometimes parosmia causes things you encounter every day to seem like they have a strong, disagreeable odor." Seunggu Han, M.D. (2018) 

"Parosmia is different because people who have it can detect an odor that’s present but the scent smells “wrong” to them. For example, the pleasant odor of freshly baked bread might smell overpowering and rotten instead of subtle and sweet" Han added 

Fast forward: as of this writing my sense of smell and taste is still the same, I was experiencing parosmia. I don't even know when my senses will be back, and it is sad that the pleasure of having the taste of my favorite food and the beautiful scent of the beach might be gone on me forever.