As the world is slowly recovering from the COVID 19 pandemic, many people have been reporting different after COVID symptoms such as loss of smell, fatigue, breathing issues and even joint pains.
While some smell loss on and afterwards due to COVID recovers quickly (about four weeks in common cases, which is about 89% of the population) the rest, 11%, report that they face a continuous smell loss or wrong something equally troubling.
The most lesser-known and confusing of the symptoms is smell distortion, which is in medical terms known as Parosmia.
Most patients who recover from COVID have reported that they keep experiencing different smells over specific foods.
Parosmia is a condition where otherwise normal smells now smell unpleasant or even disgusting. For example, to someone with parosmia, coffee is said to smell like burnt bread or garlic smells similar to garbage, rotten meat or even eggs.
How long does it last?
The connection between COVID 19 and Parosmia is not exactly understood and it’s believed that most people do not experience this symptom early on at the start of the recovery period.
It’s believed that most people who experience this symptom also tend to experience a loss of taste and smell initially when they are sick. And the period to how long it will last.
One such study suggests that these conditions can mostly last up to 3-6 months.
How does it affect those who recover
Parosmia occurs only with those suffering from COVID-19-related symptoms and it occurs later on in the recovery course during the aftermath of COVID.
Recent research on the condition showed that during the infection period, the virus directly impacts the sensory nerves of the respiratory system and in some cases the sensory system gets affected long after recovery.
It is believed that this is due to an impact of the COVID virus on the olfactory nerves’ capability to detect odors and pleasant aromas, and in other viral infections this symptom is minor and doesn’t last for long. But with the COVID 19 virus this isn’t the case.
Available treatments for parosmia
Can Parosmia be treated?
According to doctors and reports available so far on the condition, recovery of the senses used in smelling and sensing smells depend to some extent in the nerves of the sensory system and that the recovery depends on the nerve growth.
This process cannot be accelerated and little can be done manually to support the system.
As of now no significant treatments are available to treat COVID related smell recovery or olfactory loss.
The only well know information states that the effective way to treat this disease is to treat your nerves using olfactory training.
Controlled trails done on people with the condition showed that when shocked with various smells people have showcased signs of recovery.
Also, those with Parosmia are adviced to stay away from those triggering smells such as coffee, eggs or other bad odour inducing foods. Doing this is said to help the sensory nerves forget those triggering smells for a period of time, long enough to make it a new smell.
People are advised to expose their nose to a range of different odors and aromas using essential oil smells like rose, lemon, cloves, and eucalyptus. Sniffing each of these odorants twice a day for a period of 15 seconds, for three to six months is reportedly showed recovery.
