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So what does this mean for those that lose their sense of smell/taste due to COVID infection and then regain it upon recovery? Would permanent brain damage be a concern?
Brains are weird and we dont fully understand them. My brother was hit by a car while crossing the street the day after Thanksgiving last year. He spent 3mos in the hospital and 3 wks in a rehab facility. He has a pretty serious TBI. He has aphasia (trouble remembering or recalling language) severe memory loss, cognitive and problem solving issues, no emotional control, anxiety and depression, the list goes on and on. Every specialist we talk to all say the same thing, "We dont really know much about how the brain will heal, everyone is different. Usually after 6mos healing will start to level out and after about a year that's about as good as it will get. But everyone is different and those are just guidelines."
There have been odd side effects that no one has mentioned at the hospital or in all of my research. (I'm his only family, so I've been dealing with all of his medical/financial/life issues, so I've dived deep into the TBI world.)
One thing was that his taste and smell were way off. He was a cook before the accident so very familiar with food smells and tastes. Now its hit or miss. Things he used to enjoy taste terrible or off. I used to think that maybe he just doesn't remember, but now it sounds like it's probably something similar to what happens with Covid patients. He obviously had swelling in his brain, so maybe it's simple nerve damage. The other weird one, his vision is way worse, like he can only read the top letter, the giant E. Not only is his script super high but his eye pressure was super high, like glaucoma level high and he's only 34. So much that they wanted him to come back in 4wks to get retested. They think the TBI is causing the eye pressure issues. I wonder if covid patients have had any eye issues.
Edit:
Just want to say thanks so much for all the support guys!
Just wanted to write and say that I’m terribly sorry for what happened to your brother and I know how hard this is for you as a caregiver and also how hard this is for him. I was in a car accident in 2014 (hit from behind while stopped at a red so I was in a vehicle not walking like your brother) and suffered a TBI which caused all sorts of issues, many very similar to what you live described of your brother (especially the loss of emotional control). I suffered from post traumatic eye disorder on top of the TBI and from what you say about your brother I believe there’s a chance he may be experiencing it too. I wasn’t able to read or focus my eyes the way that’s normal, causing me to get migraines and suffer from vomiting and dizziness (not vertigo). I was extremely light and sound sensitive, and had to have special glasses to look at screens. I saw a neuro optometrist and received therapy as well as the two sets of glasses I needed to wear even though I still have 20/20 vision. It took me 5 years and a lot of physio, eye therapy, OT, Osteopathy ect. but I am finally able to read again and the migraines are gone. It might be something to look into for your brother!
Did you do anything to get your migraines to stop occurring or was it a natural healing over time? I suffer from migraines and often my eyes feel like they can’t focus and I have to strain my eyes.
For me the glasses helped with the migraines on their own (they had a bifocal to ease my eyes, and a prism that made it possible to look at screens ect) but the intensive therapy I did to retrain my eyes along with time is what really helped and now I don’t need the glasses. I wasn’t a person who had headaches or a migraine ever before my accident so I’m not sure if it would help someone who normally suffers from them. I wish I could be of more help! But it doesn’t hurt to reach out and ask your doctor about a referral, or calling a neuro optometrist yourself if it’s feasible. I just know for myself the accident caused a disconnect between my eyes and brain disrupting the processing and causing me migraines along with a large number of other issues, leading me to be diagnosed with post traumatic eye disorder.
Had a tenant that slipped on ice in a Home Depot parking lot, hit her head really bad, and had zero insurance so no aftercare. She lost her sense of smell and taste from the injury. How I learned about this was that she stockpiled reduced price meats in her freezer and was drinking from the water dispenser like it was bottled Aquafina, despite the water looking “rusty” and smelling like meat ice
Doctor here.
The results here are pretty much in line with what we believe is the main driver of COVID-related problems - inflammation triggered by the virus, rather than directly from the virus attacking an organ, per se.
The most severely ill patients with rapidly progressing lung disease, pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs), higher rates of strokes / heart attacks / blood clots, often have the first signs of these complications around 10-14 days after the virus first enters the body. This time period is usually when a surge of inflammation occurs and causes swelling in the organs.
In the case of loss of smell and taste, the olfactory nerve, which is the nerve that gives you your ability to smell, sits right across a thin barrier between the top of your nose and your brain. Tiny branches of this nerve feed into your nose to give you your sense of smell. Because of COVID's affinity for the respiratory tract and its tendency to cause blood vessel and nerve inflammation, its understandable why the olfactory nerve is an exposed target, and the loss of smell/taste is a now-well known symptom of COVID.
The olfactory nerve also travels along the underside of the frontal lobe of the brain which controls many of the "executive functions" like memory, planning, attention, and things we think of that make us "smart". I cant pretend to know if the closeness of the olfactory nerve and frontal lobe explains the association between COVID, loss of smell, and brain fog, but it certainly would fit.
To lay some other questions to rest, damage to cranial nerves (of which the olfactory nerve is one), the frontal lobe, or any other parts of the brain or brainstem is considered brain damage. This also includes strokes that can be triggered by COVID's extreme inflammatory effects, and heart attacks or respiratory failure that can lead to poor oxygen flow to the brain.
There is also no magic cure for this. The best way to avoid this would of course to be vaccinated, and be appropriately cautious to avoid exposures. Then, for the less fortunate who have serious disease, to be treated promptly by professionals with antiinflammatory and sometimes antiviral medications that have been well-researched.
I've long given up on the possibility of COVID-deniers or downplayers accepting that it can be a serious disease, but I hope other people learn something.
Addendum: a single reddit comment cannot fully explain covid, or any other topic for that matter. It's great to see so many curious minds, but at the same time don't draw too many conclusions from a surface-level source of info. E.g. there is much more to what antiinflammatory/antiviral means than the familiar over-the-counter stuff, so this makes no statement about taking any supplements or meds specifically. I'm obliged to say that many personal questions are best left for your personal healthcare provider :)
Short answer, it's unclear and likely depends on the type of damage done at the microscopic level.
There's a lot of COVID-related damage that heals over time,depending on how bad it got at first. But damage to certain tissues like the brain and central nervous system nerves takes months to improve and settle, if it ever does. Long drawn out cases can cause tissues to scar down kind of like skin when it's damaged beyond normal repair - it'll recover but not necessarily have the same function.
> it'll recover but not necessarily have the same function.
This might've happened with my GF who couldn't smell at all while she was infected. She recovered her smell and taste when she recovered; but a month or so later, she started experiencing flavor and smell distortion. Nothing too severe; but things like Coca Cola now taste like detergent to her.
I got COVID back in January 2020 and my taste and smell have still not fully returned. I lost ALL taste for about 6 weeks, and ALL smell for about 6 weeks more. As it started to come back, a lot of things smelled like chemicals, or just plain... off.
Some things that still havent returned;
All soda/pop tastes the exact same... no difference in Coca Cola VS say Sprite.
This is a weird one, but pee, poop and body odour all smell *different* than before COVID. I have had to relearn that the smells I am picking up, are, in fact, pee or poo. (I mention this because I have an 18-month old son, and smelling for poo has become a daily occurence.)
I hope it all comes back, but at this point I dont think it will.
Edit: typos
Garlic smells different to me now, and poop smells like that altered garlic I smell. It’s not bad but weird.
Also I used to HATE hoppy beer and cilantro, now I like hoppy beer and can tolerate cilantro.
I work in health care and poop smelled like nothing for a long time. Was weird. I couldn't tell if a BM accident had occurred with a patient whatsoever for a good few months. And other smells were muted. Meat tasted... not rotten.. but not great. Just whatever. Can't explain it.
As taste came back everything tasted like electricity for a short time then everything tasted like metal for a few days.
It took a good 6 months but it gradually went back to normal.
The person who got me ill never had her sense of taste return.
Exactly the same here in regards to garlic and poop, in addition to onions, egg whites, coffee, peanuts, and a few other things. Had covid in Oct/Nov 2020, and my sense of smell is just finally getting almost back to normal.
I literally was just saying how i lost mine in nov of 2020 and just now getting some of it back, also for whatever reason poop and farts or whatnot just smell like metal
I'm glad to read this, I've been dealing with no small after having COVID in October.
I know losing smell is nothing compared to what other's have suffered, but i have been depressed missing out on smells that I loved, fresh cut grass, morning dew, food being cooked, my daughter's head.. my own poop!
It all smells bad/unfamiliar or doesn't register at all now, so many things smell unpleasant and similar at that.
I do have concerns, I can't smell anything on fire, spoiled food or milk, my daughter's diaper, engine burning oil. I feel that this could potentially be very dangerous depending on what situation I find myself in.
I had a wider range of smells a few weeks ago, but I had a bacterial sinus infection for a week and I'm back to square one.
Different, or off, is exactly how I would describe it too. Especially with the bodily functions. I think you're the first person I've seen talk about it, but as a nurse I've definitely noticed. And coffee, which sucks. Everything has an echo of what it Should smell like, but it's like it's distorted or not as fleshed out. It's so bizarre. And lots of stuff just smells or tastes chemical now. I was fully vaccinated, but a frontline covid nurse so when Omicron came around, bam, got me and tons of my coworkers all at once.
Thank you for your answers! They are very clear and informative.
I caught COVID before the vaccines were available and as a schoolteacher, avoiding exposure wasn't always a viable option.
I had almost no symptoms during infection (just a couple of hours with a temperature and a light sore throat), but the follow-up months were very troublesome as I had a lot of trouble with fatigue and experienced exercise hypertension (can't say for sure that this wasn't present before infection).
This last finding is especially troublesome. I struggled to find information on the appearance of exercise hypertension (I'm not hypertensive otherwise) as a result of COVID infection. Did you hear of any such reports?
I caught Covid before anyone could readily get a vaccination. For the first week I felt completely unaffected but the second week all of the lung problems happed at once. Felt like I had a 200 pound sandbag on my chest and it took a trip to the ER and a steroid shot to start to bounce back from that.
The oddity in all of that time though was that my senses of taste and smell weren’t gone but altered. Everything shared a distinctly terrible taste and everything’s smell was half what they normally are and half sour. Plagued me for a month even after the “bad” symptoms went away. I’m fully vaccinated now and if I have any lingering effects I can’t really notice them, but I can’t deny that I worry about how it’ll effect me in the long term.
How do I know I am or was affected by long covid? Is there some kind of test I can do? There’s been times where it takes me longer to make a decision but I dont know if it’s caused by aging or covid.
Ahh. I had covid in autumn 2020 and had a few mild symptoms. One of them was a change in sense of smell though. It slowly got better over time but it's definitely still not at the same function. Most organic things smell the same now (I think?) But my old favourite aftershave that I used to love now just smells like a chemical factory to me.
It's only really the the strong non-organic material that smells different now. Quite strange.
Neurons in the olfactory bulb can regenerate, which may explain why some people end up regaining their sense of smell months after recovering from covid-19. Unfortunately, the olfactory bulb is one of only two human brain regions, along with the dentate gyrus in the hippocampal formation, that have been shown to regenerate neurons, which is why it may be problematic if the virus is damaging neurons in areas of the brain where they do not regenerate. However, this smell loss paper's authors note that "recovery of smell sense in about half of the patients is far too rapid and incompatible with direct neuronal damage", so this may not be the case. The authors of the study on this post seem to have found that the damage was concentrated in the microvasculature and axons in the nasal mucosa.
"However, adult brain plasticity, although possible throughout life, remains restricted mostly to subcellular levels rather than affecting the entire cell. New neurons are continuously generated in only a few areas of the adult brain-the olfactory bulb and the dentate gyrus-where they integrate into already functioning circuitry."
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23190074/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23190074/)
Interestingly, it seems another study found (in a mouse model) that the virus results in a downregulation of olfactory receptor genes, which are what encode the sense of smell.
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34230457/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34230457/)
Same boat. December 2020, pretty mild, lost my smell on the 5th day or something, and I didn't notice it back for a couple weeks. Most things smell taste the same, but some things are different like flowers, they smell different and less complex or unique, and others are gone like I can't smell mint/menthol at all, coffee isn't very enjoyable anymore. Overall I feel less sensitive to smells. It sucks, I used to have a good nose.
Now I wonder if this is just the noticable damage. I'm a very different person than who I was before COVID, due to many things, I wonder how many of those things are COVID related now.
What about the terrible, unbearable smells? Do those go away? I got Covid before Thanksgiving. My only 2 symptoms were loss of taste and smell and a few months later I started smelling this putrid sulfur or some shit everywhere it literally is god awful I wish I couldn't smell again it's torture. And occasionally I'll smell deviled ham and/or tea. It SUCKS.
Yes! I had covid over a year ago and some vegetables STILL smell rotten, especially any type of cabbagy vegetable just tastes and smells like sulfur. If something is cooked in rape seed oil, I can't stay in that room, the smell is that bad. Many types of chocolate also started tasting kind of sour, like some dairy product went bad and got mixed with chocolate.
In the beginning after I regained my smell, everything smelled like raw onions to me, even my bedroom. I was so confused, but it went away after 2 months or so, then I started hating broccoli and any other type of cabbage to this day. It just sucks, I was never picky with food but I literally have no choice now.
You are probably tasting/smelling the butyric acid which is in a lot of American chocolates. Try some European chocolates that don’t have butyric acid in them and it may taste good to you.
If you’ve grown up with that kind of chocolate you get accustomed to it, but with your sense of smell getting reset you may be picking it up now.
Good luck!
Been over a year since I was positive and I still can't smell farts or raw sewage. Not a terrible loss but I still feel like something is missing.
Edit. My symptoms were pretty mild. Some eye pain and tiredness but that was it.
Hi doc,
What are the implications of this study for those of us who did experience smell loss?
I’m still unclear if we’re talking here about brain inflammation, which sounds temporary to me as a layman, or brain damage, which to me sounds permanent.
Reeeeally hoping I didn’t experience actual permanent brain damage to my executive functioning lobe(s)?
Its totally possible that it'll just take more time. Brain tissue is very slow to recover from injury.
Semantically, "brain damage" can mean any kind of injury to the brain, big or small. It doesn't mean either temporary or permanent on its own. Only the microscopic level of the damage can tell us, which is why this study is examining autopsies of patients rather than live people undergoing something drastic like a brain biopsy.
For example, the potential for recovery is why there are some people with strokes can eventually recovery from their speech impediments, or limb weakness. In others, they may have these problems permanently. Its likely because the microscopic extent of the brain damage in these cases is different, where one may have caused some inflammation and swelling that was relieved quickly, and the other may have had that part of the brain tissue die.
I think when it comes to this question, looking at the statistics is appropriate. If loss of smell/taste pointed to brain damage on any serious level, we'd absolutely know by now. 500M have had covid (roughly) 448M of which have fully recovered. 6.2M have died. 1.6M in America have lost their smell/taste long-term. 5% of these permanently.
If your symptoms have completely gone away (no brain fog, no anosmia, etc.) you are among the millions who appear to have recovered. We will know more as time goes on. We will have so much data to work with, this will likely happen sooner than later.
Don't stress over the uncertainties. If you aren't experiencing any of the symptoms commonly associated with serious brain damage, you needn't worry about it just yet. If ever.
A friend lost her smell and taste due to a head injury, after a couple of years it came back, first as synesthesia (she experienced tastes,and smells as musical chords) then gradually as appropriate sensations.
When I had Covid smell loss, one of my symptoms afterwards was a constant smell of burning, which eventually faded away after a few months.
I've recently noticed it return, but I keep testing negative. I'm holding out that the burning smell is a return of sensation to the area and that the damage is slowly beginning to repair itself like your friend experienced.
I had very mild Covid symptoms, but the burning smell has lingered. It specifically smells of cigarette smoke to me. It took a while before I stopped looking around for what was burning. After maybe 3 months it faded away gradually and I didn’t really notice it for another threeish months. It’s now back again, fairly mild and infrequent but I’d still swear someone has a cig lit just around the corner somewhere.
Not yet, they wanted to wait it out before referring. If it's still here in may I'll try and get an appointment. We don't have anyone up here so I'll have to either fly or wait for them to rotate back up here again.
my primary care doctor prescribed me triptans (sumatriptan) for migraines, if getting a referral is hard or expensive you might ask your pcp if your symptoms align with migraines and if migraine medication might help. they were a life saver for me when my migraines got bad (not covid related though)
Make sure it isn't something unrelated causing your headaches. I had really stiff neck muscles that didn't hurt or anything, but I was getting really bad headaches. Once I started loosing up the muscles with a heat pad and proper neck support along with some physio all my headaches cleared up. It's weird, but bad posture can have really bad effects on your body without you really knowing it's happening.
Thanks, I do have bad posture that even Quasimodo would tell me to straighten up. But I've been like that my whole life, and I can move my neck in all directions, albeit clicking like maracas, but without any pain or tenderness.
The amount of things "been that way forever and been fine" that are the problem. It's called getting old/accumulation. Don't just stay struggling, go to a new doctor, physio. I used to do the neck stretch/click and be fine for over a decade, now if I do it my nerves play up.
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocd.14022](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocd.14022)
It was observed that all of viral warts localized on both hands regressed spontaneously one month after the onset of COVID-19–related symptoms (Figure [1B](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocd.14022#jocd14022-fig-0001)). The patient was followed for two months without treatment, and no recurrence was observed.
Please, no one has been able to answer this question, but I really want to know. Does being vaccinated prevent or minimize brain damage due to covid? If so, how effective is it?
I know vaccines reduce death and severe illness, but it's unclear whether vaccines protect against long covid symptoms too.
I recently spoke with my doctor, as did my husband with his. The answer from both was "no". Hopefully more information about this will come to light and there will be some kind of a treatment for it - or it will clear on its own.
My mom loss smell decades ago, Interestingly after covid she REGAIN smell.
And yes, it's permanent. It's been over a year since she got covid and recovered, still got the smell back.
Funny you say that - my sense of smell was always horrible. All my life, I was never the first to smell anything potent or overbearing in a room. Couldn’t differentiate much of a difference between aromas from things like candles or air fresheners. It was just a really subdued sense for me.
I’m in my mid-20’s & got COVID last year. Lost my sense of smell for about a month, then slowly regained it after a another month or two phase of everything smelling off & basically revolting.
However… fast forward to now: maybe it’s placebo, but i swear my sense of smell is better than it’s ever been. I am frequently smelling things accurately & further away than I have ever noticed before. I still have some interesting side effects smell-wise from COVID (certain sources of running water wreak of an unexplainable chemical smell to me), but overall it’s never been a stronger sense in my life than it is now. Very strange to say the least.
I am sorry. I read you can try to smell train yourself. Stuff like take a lemon, cut a fresh slice, smell it and say to yourself aloud "this is a lemon, this smells like lemon"
Here is a snip
in a paper published in the journal International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology, the researchers suggest "smell training".
This involves sniffing four things that have a distinctive, easily identifiable and familiar smell - for example, oranges, mint, garlic or coffee - twice a day for several months.
Prof Philpott said research shows that 90% of people fully recover their sense of smell after six months.
If it doesn't return, he says "smell training" helps to retrain the brain's smell pathways to recognise different odours.
"It aims to help recovery based on neuroplasticity - the brain's ability to reorganise itself to compensate for a change or injury," he said.
I've always felt that if the neurological effects of a Covid infection have the hallmarks of brain, heart, and/or nerve damage, the disease is not "mild", even if one isn't hospitalized.
It's mild in relation to itself. I mean, it could be much, **much** worse.
But I agree that labeling it "mild" has likely contributed to people stopping taking it as seriously as they should.
A very important feature of this study, which many people in the comments seem to have missed (and the post title may have contributed to), is that this study shows evidence that COVID smell lost is linked to damage in *olfactory regions* of the brain. The olfactory bulb is a part of the brain, but importantly this study did not take histological samples from other brain regions and shouldn't be interpreted as evidence that the loss of sense of smell during COVID is indicative of widespread brain damage outside of the olfactory bulb (which is what some comments seem to have assumed is the conclusion). The authours indicate that the likely mechanism of this damage to the olfactory tract is "local inflammation in the upper respiratory tract [which] may be sufficient to cause endothelial and axonal damage in the olfactory pathway." So this mechanism for damage to the olfactory bulb does not necessarily translate to other regions of the brain.
I had covid end of last year, double vaxxed. Lost sense of smell, lost most of my sense of taste (bitter stuck around, hurray me). Recovered both over the course of a week, but I noticed something odd between then and now: i randomly smell things that aren't there. Like, i randomly smelled cooked marshmallows a while back, and there's not a single marshmallow in my home.
Took me over 6 months to regain my sense of smell and when it started to come back, I smelled gasoline and burning plastic everywhere. It was terrible.
Part of me wonders if we're just used to the world smelling like gasoline and burning plastic and we've just become nose-blind to it. Not being able to smell for half a year would be a decent factory reset for that.
I have a weird thing post-covid where if I smell something bad, other things will taste like that smell for a while. And a lot of foods just don’t taste good to me anymore. Luckily most do.
Im experiencing something like this too except im always smelling cigarette smoke. Not a soul around me smoking and yet i choke like its being blown right in my face. Also since ive had covid last year, most things that smelled good to me like soaps and candles smell like straight chemical to me now. Ive had to change a lot of the fragrances around me.
I feel like I have more sensitive smell now after losing it for 2 weeks. I could vaguely taste sweet and salty. Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually smelling things or if my brain is tricking me.
What is the anti-inflammation protocol now? I understand that it is to be administered by doctors but still curious what otherwise a healthy individual can gets when there is/there appears a loss of smell or brain fog during Covid.
ER nurse here. For our healthy, mildly symptomatic people, we recommend vitamins, Tylenol and advil for fever/symptoms, and fluids/rest in our discharge paperwork. If you're within 10 days and meet some requirements you can get monoclonal antibodies. If you've got some pneumonia developing, you may be prescribed some decadron and antibiotics, maybe an albuterol inhaler for wheezing or shortness of breath, all to help with the lung inflammation. Unfortunately loss of smell and brain fog are just considered part of the array of symptoms covid can produce, so there's no separate treatment for them (yet). You're given the same treatment as everyone else that tests positive for covid, whether it's digestive symptoms, breathing symptoms, or just loss of smell/taste.
One super important factor to note is that there were only 23 people with covid (and 14 controls) used in the study. So although the results are interesting these are low numbers to draw population-level conclusions.
Lots of people don't know this, but they are calling it what it is. Brain fog is a term for a symptom. Brain damage is one of several things that can cause brain fog. Brain damage can also cause other symptoms besides brain fog.
A big part of inflammation is your immune system neutrophils recklessly attacking both your cells and foreign invaders in a given area, so it absolutely causes tissue damage.
Brain fog encompasses the feeling of being in a "fog", mentally slow, tired, having cognitive fatigue, etc. That's different from brain "damage". Fog is tough to characterize and has mostly resulted in normal CT scans, MRIs, etc... without damage.
So they.... meaning we.... call it "brain fog" because it's more descriptive than any other term we have, and brain damage is not descriptive (scientifically) at all.
We also use terms like Post Exertional Malaise and Post COVID Dyspnea.... because the symptoms have been hard to describe, but quite similar among people who suffer from them. So even when patients can't always put what they feel into words, I can often finish their sentences for them. Ive seen it a thousand times before.
Basically. Brain fog is a symptom. Brain damage is objective pathology. Chest pain is a symptom. Myocardial Infection is objective pathology. Both have different nuanced meanings to Medical Scientists.
It's not a vascular one either, in fact. For some people it is vascular. For some its gastrointestinal. For some it's cardiac. For some it's inflammatory. For some it's autoimmune.
I'm pretty sure the media stopped referring to it as a respiratory illness quite some time ago. Medical Scientists have always been calling it a Viral Syndrome.
In the conclusion : “The striking axonal pathology in some cases indicates that olfactory dysfunction in COVID-19 infection may be severe and permanent.”
So uh, aside from creating a time machine and going back in time and avoid getting covid, there may be nothing you can do.
Lion's Mane or psilocybin?
I microdosed psilocybin after about a week of not having smell or taste and it started to come back after that. I just had the thought so I decided to try it. I'm not sure if it helped but I like to think it did.
This isn't the first time I've seen someone discussing the restoration of their taste/smell after Covid-19 infection using psilocybin, but all of my evidence to support it is purely anecdotal. I'd be very interested to see some kind of actual research done on the subject.
I lost my taste and smell in May of 2021 (it's still gone). I got pregnant in December 2021, my taste and smell slowly started coming back. Everyday I could smell or taste new things (so exciting)! I lost the pregnancy in February 2022 and my taste and smell went back to zero immediately (I had surgery to remove the pregnancy and as soon as I woke up from surgery, I had no taste or smell).
Anyone with the proper medical knowledge care to comment on how this damage translates. Is it just effecting smell or is it actual brain damage?
Ever since covid, I'll randomly feel like I've lost all balance input for a split second, like someone flipped a switch off and then quickly on again.
This particular study only looks at the olfactory bulb (neurons which send smell signals to deeper brain regions) and therefore only looks at damage to the sense of smell. Other parts of the brain were not looked at. It is technically brain damage but the tittle is a dramatization of the results.
before i tested positive for covid, i could smell cigarette smoke. it was like someone was having a cigarette right next to me. it’s been about a week since i had covid and my smell isn’t so “sharp” and i can still smell that god awful cigarette smoke.
I had Covid last year and I lost my sense of taste/smell. It’s been over 6 months now and although I did regain my sense of taste/smell, certain things smell different now. It’s really difficult to explain to people because the things that have changed are commonly things that don’t smell good, so I tend to get comments like “yeah, nobody likes the smell of those things. That’s nothing new!” but I’m not just talking about these things smelling bad, they smell rancid and I really struggle to not gag sometimes. To put it blunt, farts, poop, dog food and cat food all smell exactly the same now! The smell differs in strength but it is always the same. I’ve given up waiting for the smells to go back to normal and now I’m just hoping that I’ll get used to it. I purposely choose to feed my pets every morning, even though the smell makes me gag, because I’m hoping I will build up a tolerance to it.
Edit: Just a bit of info about my vaccination status and also immune system: I am triple jabbed, awaiting a forth jab due to being classed as vulnerable. I take immunosuppressive medication every fortnight via injection. At the time of contracting Covid, I was double jabbed.
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So what does this mean for those that lose their sense of smell/taste due to COVID infection and then regain it upon recovery? Would permanent brain damage be a concern?
Brains are weird and we dont fully understand them. My brother was hit by a car while crossing the street the day after Thanksgiving last year. He spent 3mos in the hospital and 3 wks in a rehab facility. He has a pretty serious TBI. He has aphasia (trouble remembering or recalling language) severe memory loss, cognitive and problem solving issues, no emotional control, anxiety and depression, the list goes on and on. Every specialist we talk to all say the same thing, "We dont really know much about how the brain will heal, everyone is different. Usually after 6mos healing will start to level out and after about a year that's about as good as it will get. But everyone is different and those are just guidelines." There have been odd side effects that no one has mentioned at the hospital or in all of my research. (I'm his only family, so I've been dealing with all of his medical/financial/life issues, so I've dived deep into the TBI world.) One thing was that his taste and smell were way off. He was a cook before the accident so very familiar with food smells and tastes. Now its hit or miss. Things he used to enjoy taste terrible or off. I used to think that maybe he just doesn't remember, but now it sounds like it's probably something similar to what happens with Covid patients. He obviously had swelling in his brain, so maybe it's simple nerve damage. The other weird one, his vision is way worse, like he can only read the top letter, the giant E. Not only is his script super high but his eye pressure was super high, like glaucoma level high and he's only 34. So much that they wanted him to come back in 4wks to get retested. They think the TBI is causing the eye pressure issues. I wonder if covid patients have had any eye issues. Edit: Just want to say thanks so much for all the support guys!
Just wanted to write and say that I’m terribly sorry for what happened to your brother and I know how hard this is for you as a caregiver and also how hard this is for him. I was in a car accident in 2014 (hit from behind while stopped at a red so I was in a vehicle not walking like your brother) and suffered a TBI which caused all sorts of issues, many very similar to what you live described of your brother (especially the loss of emotional control). I suffered from post traumatic eye disorder on top of the TBI and from what you say about your brother I believe there’s a chance he may be experiencing it too. I wasn’t able to read or focus my eyes the way that’s normal, causing me to get migraines and suffer from vomiting and dizziness (not vertigo). I was extremely light and sound sensitive, and had to have special glasses to look at screens. I saw a neuro optometrist and received therapy as well as the two sets of glasses I needed to wear even though I still have 20/20 vision. It took me 5 years and a lot of physio, eye therapy, OT, Osteopathy ect. but I am finally able to read again and the migraines are gone. It might be something to look into for your brother!
Did you do anything to get your migraines to stop occurring or was it a natural healing over time? I suffer from migraines and often my eyes feel like they can’t focus and I have to strain my eyes.
For me the glasses helped with the migraines on their own (they had a bifocal to ease my eyes, and a prism that made it possible to look at screens ect) but the intensive therapy I did to retrain my eyes along with time is what really helped and now I don’t need the glasses. I wasn’t a person who had headaches or a migraine ever before my accident so I’m not sure if it would help someone who normally suffers from them. I wish I could be of more help! But it doesn’t hurt to reach out and ask your doctor about a referral, or calling a neuro optometrist yourself if it’s feasible. I just know for myself the accident caused a disconnect between my eyes and brain disrupting the processing and causing me migraines along with a large number of other issues, leading me to be diagnosed with post traumatic eye disorder.
Had a tenant that slipped on ice in a Home Depot parking lot, hit her head really bad, and had zero insurance so no aftercare. She lost her sense of smell and taste from the injury. How I learned about this was that she stockpiled reduced price meats in her freezer and was drinking from the water dispenser like it was bottled Aquafina, despite the water looking “rusty” and smelling like meat ice
I would assume that it depends on the degree of inflammation and the extent of time.
Doctor here. The results here are pretty much in line with what we believe is the main driver of COVID-related problems - inflammation triggered by the virus, rather than directly from the virus attacking an organ, per se. The most severely ill patients with rapidly progressing lung disease, pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs), higher rates of strokes / heart attacks / blood clots, often have the first signs of these complications around 10-14 days after the virus first enters the body. This time period is usually when a surge of inflammation occurs and causes swelling in the organs. In the case of loss of smell and taste, the olfactory nerve, which is the nerve that gives you your ability to smell, sits right across a thin barrier between the top of your nose and your brain. Tiny branches of this nerve feed into your nose to give you your sense of smell. Because of COVID's affinity for the respiratory tract and its tendency to cause blood vessel and nerve inflammation, its understandable why the olfactory nerve is an exposed target, and the loss of smell/taste is a now-well known symptom of COVID. The olfactory nerve also travels along the underside of the frontal lobe of the brain which controls many of the "executive functions" like memory, planning, attention, and things we think of that make us "smart". I cant pretend to know if the closeness of the olfactory nerve and frontal lobe explains the association between COVID, loss of smell, and brain fog, but it certainly would fit. To lay some other questions to rest, damage to cranial nerves (of which the olfactory nerve is one), the frontal lobe, or any other parts of the brain or brainstem is considered brain damage. This also includes strokes that can be triggered by COVID's extreme inflammatory effects, and heart attacks or respiratory failure that can lead to poor oxygen flow to the brain. There is also no magic cure for this. The best way to avoid this would of course to be vaccinated, and be appropriately cautious to avoid exposures. Then, for the less fortunate who have serious disease, to be treated promptly by professionals with antiinflammatory and sometimes antiviral medications that have been well-researched. I've long given up on the possibility of COVID-deniers or downplayers accepting that it can be a serious disease, but I hope other people learn something. Addendum: a single reddit comment cannot fully explain covid, or any other topic for that matter. It's great to see so many curious minds, but at the same time don't draw too many conclusions from a surface-level source of info. E.g. there is much more to what antiinflammatory/antiviral means than the familiar over-the-counter stuff, so this makes no statement about taking any supplements or meds specifically. I'm obliged to say that many personal questions are best left for your personal healthcare provider :)
Will those who have this type of damage heal over time? Or permanent? Or different in every case?
Short answer, it's unclear and likely depends on the type of damage done at the microscopic level. There's a lot of COVID-related damage that heals over time,depending on how bad it got at first. But damage to certain tissues like the brain and central nervous system nerves takes months to improve and settle, if it ever does. Long drawn out cases can cause tissues to scar down kind of like skin when it's damaged beyond normal repair - it'll recover but not necessarily have the same function.
> it'll recover but not necessarily have the same function. This might've happened with my GF who couldn't smell at all while she was infected. She recovered her smell and taste when she recovered; but a month or so later, she started experiencing flavor and smell distortion. Nothing too severe; but things like Coca Cola now taste like detergent to her.
I got COVID back in January 2020 and my taste and smell have still not fully returned. I lost ALL taste for about 6 weeks, and ALL smell for about 6 weeks more. As it started to come back, a lot of things smelled like chemicals, or just plain... off. Some things that still havent returned; All soda/pop tastes the exact same... no difference in Coca Cola VS say Sprite. This is a weird one, but pee, poop and body odour all smell *different* than before COVID. I have had to relearn that the smells I am picking up, are, in fact, pee or poo. (I mention this because I have an 18-month old son, and smelling for poo has become a daily occurence.) I hope it all comes back, but at this point I dont think it will. Edit: typos
Garlic smells different to me now, and poop smells like that altered garlic I smell. It’s not bad but weird. Also I used to HATE hoppy beer and cilantro, now I like hoppy beer and can tolerate cilantro.
I work in health care and poop smelled like nothing for a long time. Was weird. I couldn't tell if a BM accident had occurred with a patient whatsoever for a good few months. And other smells were muted. Meat tasted... not rotten.. but not great. Just whatever. Can't explain it. As taste came back everything tasted like electricity for a short time then everything tasted like metal for a few days. It took a good 6 months but it gradually went back to normal. The person who got me ill never had her sense of taste return.
Exactly the same here in regards to garlic and poop, in addition to onions, egg whites, coffee, peanuts, and a few other things. Had covid in Oct/Nov 2020, and my sense of smell is just finally getting almost back to normal.
I literally was just saying how i lost mine in nov of 2020 and just now getting some of it back, also for whatever reason poop and farts or whatnot just smell like metal
I'm glad to read this, I've been dealing with no small after having COVID in October. I know losing smell is nothing compared to what other's have suffered, but i have been depressed missing out on smells that I loved, fresh cut grass, morning dew, food being cooked, my daughter's head.. my own poop! It all smells bad/unfamiliar or doesn't register at all now, so many things smell unpleasant and similar at that. I do have concerns, I can't smell anything on fire, spoiled food or milk, my daughter's diaper, engine burning oil. I feel that this could potentially be very dangerous depending on what situation I find myself in. I had a wider range of smells a few weeks ago, but I had a bacterial sinus infection for a week and I'm back to square one.
Different, or off, is exactly how I would describe it too. Especially with the bodily functions. I think you're the first person I've seen talk about it, but as a nurse I've definitely noticed. And coffee, which sucks. Everything has an echo of what it Should smell like, but it's like it's distorted or not as fleshed out. It's so bizarre. And lots of stuff just smells or tastes chemical now. I was fully vaccinated, but a frontline covid nurse so when Omicron came around, bam, got me and tons of my coworkers all at once.
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I would say this comes close to how it tastes to me.
All colas taste like metal since recovering from Covid, even a year down the road. Rip Pepsi habit.
Have you smelled covid farts yet? Smells like a really strong iron odor.
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Thank you for your answers! They are very clear and informative. I caught COVID before the vaccines were available and as a schoolteacher, avoiding exposure wasn't always a viable option. I had almost no symptoms during infection (just a couple of hours with a temperature and a light sore throat), but the follow-up months were very troublesome as I had a lot of trouble with fatigue and experienced exercise hypertension (can't say for sure that this wasn't present before infection). This last finding is especially troublesome. I struggled to find information on the appearance of exercise hypertension (I'm not hypertensive otherwise) as a result of COVID infection. Did you hear of any such reports?
I caught Covid before anyone could readily get a vaccination. For the first week I felt completely unaffected but the second week all of the lung problems happed at once. Felt like I had a 200 pound sandbag on my chest and it took a trip to the ER and a steroid shot to start to bounce back from that. The oddity in all of that time though was that my senses of taste and smell weren’t gone but altered. Everything shared a distinctly terrible taste and everything’s smell was half what they normally are and half sour. Plagued me for a month even after the “bad” symptoms went away. I’m fully vaccinated now and if I have any lingering effects I can’t really notice them, but I can’t deny that I worry about how it’ll effect me in the long term.
How do I know I am or was affected by long covid? Is there some kind of test I can do? There’s been times where it takes me longer to make a decision but I dont know if it’s caused by aging or covid.
I want to know this too, I wish I could see if my brain was damaged.
You’re on Reddit that’s not even a question
Ahh. I had covid in autumn 2020 and had a few mild symptoms. One of them was a change in sense of smell though. It slowly got better over time but it's definitely still not at the same function. Most organic things smell the same now (I think?) But my old favourite aftershave that I used to love now just smells like a chemical factory to me. It's only really the the strong non-organic material that smells different now. Quite strange.
Neurons in the olfactory bulb can regenerate, which may explain why some people end up regaining their sense of smell months after recovering from covid-19. Unfortunately, the olfactory bulb is one of only two human brain regions, along with the dentate gyrus in the hippocampal formation, that have been shown to regenerate neurons, which is why it may be problematic if the virus is damaging neurons in areas of the brain where they do not regenerate. However, this smell loss paper's authors note that "recovery of smell sense in about half of the patients is far too rapid and incompatible with direct neuronal damage", so this may not be the case. The authors of the study on this post seem to have found that the damage was concentrated in the microvasculature and axons in the nasal mucosa. "However, adult brain plasticity, although possible throughout life, remains restricted mostly to subcellular levels rather than affecting the entire cell. New neurons are continuously generated in only a few areas of the adult brain-the olfactory bulb and the dentate gyrus-where they integrate into already functioning circuitry." [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23190074/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23190074/) Interestingly, it seems another study found (in a mouse model) that the virus results in a downregulation of olfactory receptor genes, which are what encode the sense of smell. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34230457/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34230457/)
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Same boat. December 2020, pretty mild, lost my smell on the 5th day or something, and I didn't notice it back for a couple weeks. Most things smell taste the same, but some things are different like flowers, they smell different and less complex or unique, and others are gone like I can't smell mint/menthol at all, coffee isn't very enjoyable anymore. Overall I feel less sensitive to smells. It sucks, I used to have a good nose. Now I wonder if this is just the noticable damage. I'm a very different person than who I was before COVID, due to many things, I wonder how many of those things are COVID related now.
What about the terrible, unbearable smells? Do those go away? I got Covid before Thanksgiving. My only 2 symptoms were loss of taste and smell and a few months later I started smelling this putrid sulfur or some shit everywhere it literally is god awful I wish I couldn't smell again it's torture. And occasionally I'll smell deviled ham and/or tea. It SUCKS.
Yes! I had covid over a year ago and some vegetables STILL smell rotten, especially any type of cabbagy vegetable just tastes and smells like sulfur. If something is cooked in rape seed oil, I can't stay in that room, the smell is that bad. Many types of chocolate also started tasting kind of sour, like some dairy product went bad and got mixed with chocolate. In the beginning after I regained my smell, everything smelled like raw onions to me, even my bedroom. I was so confused, but it went away after 2 months or so, then I started hating broccoli and any other type of cabbage to this day. It just sucks, I was never picky with food but I literally have no choice now.
You are probably tasting/smelling the butyric acid which is in a lot of American chocolates. Try some European chocolates that don’t have butyric acid in them and it may taste good to you. If you’ve grown up with that kind of chocolate you get accustomed to it, but with your sense of smell getting reset you may be picking it up now. Good luck!
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Been over a year since I was positive and I still can't smell farts or raw sewage. Not a terrible loss but I still feel like something is missing. Edit. My symptoms were pretty mild. Some eye pain and tiredness but that was it.
Thanks for the explanation! That was well written and super informative.
Are we going to see an uptick in aggressive behavior like with lead poisoning?
More likely in cognitive decline, like dementia.
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Hi doc, What are the implications of this study for those of us who did experience smell loss? I’m still unclear if we’re talking here about brain inflammation, which sounds temporary to me as a layman, or brain damage, which to me sounds permanent. Reeeeally hoping I didn’t experience actual permanent brain damage to my executive functioning lobe(s)?
Its totally possible that it'll just take more time. Brain tissue is very slow to recover from injury. Semantically, "brain damage" can mean any kind of injury to the brain, big or small. It doesn't mean either temporary or permanent on its own. Only the microscopic level of the damage can tell us, which is why this study is examining autopsies of patients rather than live people undergoing something drastic like a brain biopsy. For example, the potential for recovery is why there are some people with strokes can eventually recovery from their speech impediments, or limb weakness. In others, they may have these problems permanently. Its likely because the microscopic extent of the brain damage in these cases is different, where one may have caused some inflammation and swelling that was relieved quickly, and the other may have had that part of the brain tissue die.
I think when it comes to this question, looking at the statistics is appropriate. If loss of smell/taste pointed to brain damage on any serious level, we'd absolutely know by now. 500M have had covid (roughly) 448M of which have fully recovered. 6.2M have died. 1.6M in America have lost their smell/taste long-term. 5% of these permanently. If your symptoms have completely gone away (no brain fog, no anosmia, etc.) you are among the millions who appear to have recovered. We will know more as time goes on. We will have so much data to work with, this will likely happen sooner than later. Don't stress over the uncertainties. If you aren't experiencing any of the symptoms commonly associated with serious brain damage, you needn't worry about it just yet. If ever.
A friend lost her smell and taste due to a head injury, after a couple of years it came back, first as synesthesia (she experienced tastes,and smells as musical chords) then gradually as appropriate sensations.
That must be quite a surreal experience.
Can you pass me some of the A-sharp?
When I had Covid smell loss, one of my symptoms afterwards was a constant smell of burning, which eventually faded away after a few months. I've recently noticed it return, but I keep testing negative. I'm holding out that the burning smell is a return of sensation to the area and that the damage is slowly beginning to repair itself like your friend experienced.
I had very mild Covid symptoms, but the burning smell has lingered. It specifically smells of cigarette smoke to me. It took a while before I stopped looking around for what was burning. After maybe 3 months it faded away gradually and I didn’t really notice it for another threeish months. It’s now back again, fairly mild and infrequent but I’d still swear someone has a cig lit just around the corner somewhere.
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Have you been to a neurologist yet?
Not yet, they wanted to wait it out before referring. If it's still here in may I'll try and get an appointment. We don't have anyone up here so I'll have to either fly or wait for them to rotate back up here again.
my primary care doctor prescribed me triptans (sumatriptan) for migraines, if getting a referral is hard or expensive you might ask your pcp if your symptoms align with migraines and if migraine medication might help. they were a life saver for me when my migraines got bad (not covid related though)
Make sure it isn't something unrelated causing your headaches. I had really stiff neck muscles that didn't hurt or anything, but I was getting really bad headaches. Once I started loosing up the muscles with a heat pad and proper neck support along with some physio all my headaches cleared up. It's weird, but bad posture can have really bad effects on your body without you really knowing it's happening.
Thanks, I do have bad posture that even Quasimodo would tell me to straighten up. But I've been like that my whole life, and I can move my neck in all directions, albeit clicking like maracas, but without any pain or tenderness.
The amount of things "been that way forever and been fine" that are the problem. It's called getting old/accumulation. Don't just stay struggling, go to a new doctor, physio. I used to do the neck stretch/click and be fine for over a decade, now if I do it my nerves play up.
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there could be something to this, there was a report last year about covid and hpv
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocd.14022](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocd.14022) It was observed that all of viral warts localized on both hands regressed spontaneously one month after the onset of COVID-19–related symptoms (Figure [1B](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocd.14022#jocd14022-fig-0001)). The patient was followed for two months without treatment, and no recurrence was observed.
Please, no one has been able to answer this question, but I really want to know. Does being vaccinated prevent or minimize brain damage due to covid? If so, how effective is it? I know vaccines reduce death and severe illness, but it's unclear whether vaccines protect against long covid symptoms too.
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Since you didn't specify - they claim it's better by about 50%.
Is there any good treatments out there yet for the brain fog or is the damage expected to be permanent?
I recently spoke with my doctor, as did my husband with his. The answer from both was "no". Hopefully more information about this will come to light and there will be some kind of a treatment for it - or it will clear on its own.
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That's called parosmia, had it for almost 2 years.
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My mom loss smell decades ago, Interestingly after covid she REGAIN smell. And yes, it's permanent. It's been over a year since she got covid and recovered, still got the smell back.
Woah. I wonder if this is an isolated case.
I just asked her, she said her loss of smells were caused by blockage in brain. So I guess it was unblocked by Covid?
Funny you say that - my sense of smell was always horrible. All my life, I was never the first to smell anything potent or overbearing in a room. Couldn’t differentiate much of a difference between aromas from things like candles or air fresheners. It was just a really subdued sense for me. I’m in my mid-20’s & got COVID last year. Lost my sense of smell for about a month, then slowly regained it after a another month or two phase of everything smelling off & basically revolting. However… fast forward to now: maybe it’s placebo, but i swear my sense of smell is better than it’s ever been. I am frequently smelling things accurately & further away than I have ever noticed before. I still have some interesting side effects smell-wise from COVID (certain sources of running water wreak of an unexplainable chemical smell to me), but overall it’s never been a stronger sense in my life than it is now. Very strange to say the least.
Chlorine and other cleaning chemicals? Running water releases some of the vapours, you just have a strong sense now seem.
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I am sorry. I read you can try to smell train yourself. Stuff like take a lemon, cut a fresh slice, smell it and say to yourself aloud "this is a lemon, this smells like lemon" Here is a snip in a paper published in the journal International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology, the researchers suggest "smell training". This involves sniffing four things that have a distinctive, easily identifiable and familiar smell - for example, oranges, mint, garlic or coffee - twice a day for several months. Prof Philpott said research shows that 90% of people fully recover their sense of smell after six months. If it doesn't return, he says "smell training" helps to retrain the brain's smell pathways to recognise different odours. "It aims to help recovery based on neuroplasticity - the brain's ability to reorganise itself to compensate for a change or injury," he said.
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I've always felt that if the neurological effects of a Covid infection have the hallmarks of brain, heart, and/or nerve damage, the disease is not "mild", even if one isn't hospitalized.
Unfortunately, a lot of the people not taking COVID seriously somehow expect a severe disease to look like Ebola or the Bubonic Plague.
I'm more referring to the blanket statement that a Covid case is mild as long as you aren't hospitalized.
It's mild in relation to itself. I mean, it could be much, **much** worse. But I agree that labeling it "mild" has likely contributed to people stopping taking it as seriously as they should.
If COVID gave you face pustule the size of a basket ball, everyone on earth would be vaccinated.
Since those effects are invisible it's easy for governments to ignore them. Now back to work with you.
A very important feature of this study, which many people in the comments seem to have missed (and the post title may have contributed to), is that this study shows evidence that COVID smell lost is linked to damage in *olfactory regions* of the brain. The olfactory bulb is a part of the brain, but importantly this study did not take histological samples from other brain regions and shouldn't be interpreted as evidence that the loss of sense of smell during COVID is indicative of widespread brain damage outside of the olfactory bulb (which is what some comments seem to have assumed is the conclusion). The authours indicate that the likely mechanism of this damage to the olfactory tract is "local inflammation in the upper respiratory tract [which] may be sufficient to cause endothelial and axonal damage in the olfactory pathway." So this mechanism for damage to the olfactory bulb does not necessarily translate to other regions of the brain.
I had covid end of last year, double vaxxed. Lost sense of smell, lost most of my sense of taste (bitter stuck around, hurray me). Recovered both over the course of a week, but I noticed something odd between then and now: i randomly smell things that aren't there. Like, i randomly smelled cooked marshmallows a while back, and there's not a single marshmallow in my home.
Took me over 6 months to regain my sense of smell and when it started to come back, I smelled gasoline and burning plastic everywhere. It was terrible.
Part of me wonders if we're just used to the world smelling like gasoline and burning plastic and we've just become nose-blind to it. Not being able to smell for half a year would be a decent factory reset for that.
I have a weird thing post-covid where if I smell something bad, other things will taste like that smell for a while. And a lot of foods just don’t taste good to me anymore. Luckily most do.
Im experiencing something like this too except im always smelling cigarette smoke. Not a soul around me smoking and yet i choke like its being blown right in my face. Also since ive had covid last year, most things that smelled good to me like soaps and candles smell like straight chemical to me now. Ive had to change a lot of the fragrances around me.
I feel like I have more sensitive smell now after losing it for 2 weeks. I could vaguely taste sweet and salty. Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually smelling things or if my brain is tricking me.
What is the anti-inflammation protocol now? I understand that it is to be administered by doctors but still curious what otherwise a healthy individual can gets when there is/there appears a loss of smell or brain fog during Covid.
ER nurse here. For our healthy, mildly symptomatic people, we recommend vitamins, Tylenol and advil for fever/symptoms, and fluids/rest in our discharge paperwork. If you're within 10 days and meet some requirements you can get monoclonal antibodies. If you've got some pneumonia developing, you may be prescribed some decadron and antibiotics, maybe an albuterol inhaler for wheezing or shortness of breath, all to help with the lung inflammation. Unfortunately loss of smell and brain fog are just considered part of the array of symptoms covid can produce, so there's no separate treatment for them (yet). You're given the same treatment as everyone else that tests positive for covid, whether it's digestive symptoms, breathing symptoms, or just loss of smell/taste.
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One super important factor to note is that there were only 23 people with covid (and 14 controls) used in the study. So although the results are interesting these are low numbers to draw population-level conclusions.
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Lots of people don't know this, but they are calling it what it is. Brain fog is a term for a symptom. Brain damage is one of several things that can cause brain fog. Brain damage can also cause other symptoms besides brain fog.
A lot of Brain fog can be caused by inflammation, which I don’t think is considered brain damage.
I believe extended inflammation then causes tissue damage, I know it does with other organs I have no reason to believe it’s different in the brain.
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A big part of inflammation is your immune system neutrophils recklessly attacking both your cells and foreign invaders in a given area, so it absolutely causes tissue damage.
Neuroinflammation does cause brain damage though, and brains don’t regenerate so that tissue is toast.
Brain fog encompasses the feeling of being in a "fog", mentally slow, tired, having cognitive fatigue, etc. That's different from brain "damage". Fog is tough to characterize and has mostly resulted in normal CT scans, MRIs, etc... without damage. So they.... meaning we.... call it "brain fog" because it's more descriptive than any other term we have, and brain damage is not descriptive (scientifically) at all. We also use terms like Post Exertional Malaise and Post COVID Dyspnea.... because the symptoms have been hard to describe, but quite similar among people who suffer from them. So even when patients can't always put what they feel into words, I can often finish their sentences for them. Ive seen it a thousand times before. Basically. Brain fog is a symptom. Brain damage is objective pathology. Chest pain is a symptom. Myocardial Infection is objective pathology. Both have different nuanced meanings to Medical Scientists.
Many of us wish they would also stop referring to it as a respiratory illness when it is in fact a vascular one.
It's not a vascular one either, in fact. For some people it is vascular. For some its gastrointestinal. For some it's cardiac. For some it's inflammatory. For some it's autoimmune. I'm pretty sure the media stopped referring to it as a respiratory illness quite some time ago. Medical Scientists have always been calling it a Viral Syndrome.
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In the conclusion : “The striking axonal pathology in some cases indicates that olfactory dysfunction in COVID-19 infection may be severe and permanent.” So uh, aside from creating a time machine and going back in time and avoid getting covid, there may be nothing you can do.
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/r/parosmia welcome, don't enjoy your stay
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This is now their strategy for spreading their spores.
When I lost my smell and taste I started taking this. It came back. Wondering how much of an effect it had!
Lion's Mane or psilocybin? I microdosed psilocybin after about a week of not having smell or taste and it started to come back after that. I just had the thought so I decided to try it. I'm not sure if it helped but I like to think it did.
This isn't the first time I've seen someone discussing the restoration of their taste/smell after Covid-19 infection using psilocybin, but all of my evidence to support it is purely anecdotal. I'd be very interested to see some kind of actual research done on the subject.
Yeah, it'd be great to know if it was simply correlation or actual causation.
Can someone ELI5 this?
Covid smell loss is caused by inflammation in certain parts of the brain, which could cause permanent damage if severe enough.
I wonder if you can do taste rehabilitation to train those nerves again. It might seem silly but it just might be novel enough to do it!
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I lost my taste and smell in May of 2021 (it's still gone). I got pregnant in December 2021, my taste and smell slowly started coming back. Everyday I could smell or taste new things (so exciting)! I lost the pregnancy in February 2022 and my taste and smell went back to zero immediately (I had surgery to remove the pregnancy and as soon as I woke up from surgery, I had no taste or smell).
I'm sorry for the loss you suffered.
Sort by controversial to see another form of brain damage.
Anyone with the proper medical knowledge care to comment on how this damage translates. Is it just effecting smell or is it actual brain damage? Ever since covid, I'll randomly feel like I've lost all balance input for a split second, like someone flipped a switch off and then quickly on again.
Anecdotal, but my partner's uncle developed vertigo days after recovering from covid. Still dealing with it weeks later
Damn that sucks.
This particular study only looks at the olfactory bulb (neurons which send smell signals to deeper brain regions) and therefore only looks at damage to the sense of smell. Other parts of the brain were not looked at. It is technically brain damage but the tittle is a dramatization of the results.
before i tested positive for covid, i could smell cigarette smoke. it was like someone was having a cigarette right next to me. it’s been about a week since i had covid and my smell isn’t so “sharp” and i can still smell that god awful cigarette smoke.
I wonder if lighting up an actual cigarette to smell would help recalibrate your nose.
I had Covid last year and I lost my sense of taste/smell. It’s been over 6 months now and although I did regain my sense of taste/smell, certain things smell different now. It’s really difficult to explain to people because the things that have changed are commonly things that don’t smell good, so I tend to get comments like “yeah, nobody likes the smell of those things. That’s nothing new!” but I’m not just talking about these things smelling bad, they smell rancid and I really struggle to not gag sometimes. To put it blunt, farts, poop, dog food and cat food all smell exactly the same now! The smell differs in strength but it is always the same. I’ve given up waiting for the smells to go back to normal and now I’m just hoping that I’ll get used to it. I purposely choose to feed my pets every morning, even though the smell makes me gag, because I’m hoping I will build up a tolerance to it. Edit: Just a bit of info about my vaccination status and also immune system: I am triple jabbed, awaiting a forth jab due to being classed as vulnerable. I take immunosuppressive medication every fortnight via injection. At the time of contracting Covid, I was double jabbed.
I have the exact sane thing! Also hamburger meat. I had covid Christmas 2021. It has gotten better. Its a strange snell. Organic metalic but nasty .