- The sudden loss of smell and taste is one of the strangest COVID-19 symptoms infected people report.
- Most people recover the senses within a few weeks or months, but there are COVID-19 survivors who may regain their lost senses even longer.
- Now a new study suggests some people regain their sense of smell or taste after surviving COVID-19.
The clinical presentation of COVID-19 is not sufficient for a definitive diagnosis, because the vast majority of the symptoms that can occur with an infection are not unique. But there is one sign doctors noticed early in the pandemic that is more likely to be related to COVID-19 than anything else. That’s the sudden loss of smell and taste that many COVID-19 patients have experienced. The phenomenon has been studied in recent months and while it is indeed quite bizarre, we now have an explanation as to why it occurs. The virus infects cells in the nose, causing local inflammation that can block the smell of olfactory neurons. That, in turn, can cause the sense of taste to disappear at the same time.
Most people will recover the two senses within a few weeks or a few months after the infection clears. It may take some retraining, but the senses eventually return. However, there are some COVID-19 patients who will have to wait much longer to regain their sense of smell and taste – and some of them will never regain those senses at all.
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A recent study found that most people who lost their sense of smell and taste developed mild COVID-19 cases. This seemed to be a good thing, as the symptom could act as a sort of marker of COVID-19 severity.
Subsequently, another study was published in the Journal of Internal Medicine (JIM) showed that it took many of the volunteers several months for the senses to return. About 15.3% of the patients did not recover their senses after 60 days. The percentage dropped to 4.7% after six months, but that still leaves people who couldn’t smell odors or taste food long after recovering from COVID-19.
Per Yahoo Livean April study showed that many COVID-19 patients still experienced these symptoms long after other symptoms disappeared. The European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology found that only about a quarter of the participants recovered their senses within two weeks.
Dr. Jessica Grayson explained the lingering symptoms to the University of Alabama in Birmingham in August and said hope is not lost for those who still couldn’t taste or smell. “Patients with post-viral odor loss have about a 60 to 80 percent chance of regaining some of their odor function after one year,” she said. But cognitive and neurological expert Leo Newhouse spoke of the same issue Harvard Health mid-August. “Some of us may never regain our sense of smell or taste,” Newhouse wrote, citing the same chances of recovery one year after the illness.
That can be long and tedious. The Yahoo report notes that a 2016 study in Chemical senses found that “patients with olfactory dysfunction have symptoms of depression that worsen with severity of odor loss.”
A significant percentage of COVID-19 survivors continue to experience various symptoms for months after infection. A ABC news report detailed a case a few days ago. One survivor who conquered the disease more than nine months ago said she still hasn’t fully recovered her smell and taste, and she still suffers from brain fog. It is unclear from these studies and reports whether COVID-19 survivors who cannot smell or taste after more than six months have other lung COVID symptoms.
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Chris Smith started writing about gadgets as a hobby and before he knew it, he shared his thoughts on tech matters with readers around the world. If he doesn’t write about gadgets, he sadly fails to stay away from them, although he desperately tries. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.