They lost their sense of smell through Omikron. «I was crying while eating chocolates»

Loss of smell is one of the symptoms of COVID-19. However, it does not appear in everyone and only affects some variants of the coronavirus. In the case of Omikron, unfortunately, an unpleasant ailment occurs, as MedTvoiLokony interlocutors found out. For them, anosmia turned out to be a particularly painful experience.

1. Anosmia in the course of COVID-19 is also often associated with loss of taste
2. This symptom may last for several days, but it also does not go away for months
3. After regaining the sense of smell, it can also become disturbed, for example, when you feel smells that are not there
4. At one point, I realized a simple fact: I don’t feel anything. There is no smoke and gas leakage, nor is there any food burning on the stove. Simply, if anything dangerous happens, I’ll be the last to know about it – reports Agata
5. More current information can be found on the Onet homepage.

Agata: I blew my nose until it was bleeding

Agata contracted COVID-19 when it was “not fashionable”. At the time when there were practically no infections, no one offered her to go for a test. When she developed symptoms (mainly a sore throat and weakness), she decided to check if it was not the coronavirus. She took a test from the pharmacy and it clearly confirmed that she was infected with Omikron.

– The sore throat was very unpleasant indeed, but survivable. It was really bad when I stopped feeling. Sure, I’ve heard the coronavirus is a loss of smell and taste, but somehow I couldn’t believe it. I was sure it was just a stuffy nose like the rhinitis. That it is enough to blow your nose well and the sense of smell will come back. Well, no – says Agata in an interview with Medonet.

In her case, the anosmia lasted for several long and unpleasant weeks.

– It started when I made myself coffee every morning, I took a sip and was barely able to swallow it. Until I don’t know how to describe it. It had no taste, just some “idea” of how it might taste. It was mainly ash, smoked meat, silt and mud. Absolutely nasty, and I must point out that I love coffee and buy it in beans, just one type that I grind myself. At Omikron, coffee disappeared from my menu.

Next, there were difficulties related to Agata’s sense of security. Contrary to appearances, quite justified.

– At some point, I realized a simple fact: I do not feel anything. There is no smoke and gas leakage, nor is there any food burning on the stove. Simply put, if anything dangerous happened, I’ll be the last to knowbecause I don’t feel at all. It was a really scary experience – I lost one sense, the importance of which I had not realized until now. Of course, this is nothing compared to the blindness, but quite seriously, we use our nose every day and it can save our life. And I just lost this superpower.

The anosmia persisted for several weeks, despite the olfactory training consisting, among others, of on placing intensely fragrant products under the nose, such as the aforementioned coffee beans.

– Nothing worked. I blew my nose until it was bleeding, I was irrigating and inhaling, I was smelling something all the time and nothing. The food tasted of paper and was not fun, so I lost a lot of weight. I had to literally force myself to swallow something. And I had no hope that this little nightmare would finally pass. Until one day the child offered me sweetness. It wasn’t such an outburst of smell, just a shadow of an old taste and smell. I cried while eating chocolates. I cried a lot. It was a huge relief – he sums up.

Hania: what a tragedy it is to lose your sense of smell, every parent of an infant knows

At home, Hani Omikron was caught by the whole family, which was confirmed by home tests. She was the one who felt the worst, although the symptoms were rather meager: a severe sore throat, headache and fatigue. And this unfortunate anosmia, which she became aware of after a certain delay.

– When, while playing, I noticed a brown stain on the back of my little one-year-old child, “hmm, it’s strange that I didn’t sense it earlier” flashed through my mind. Moments later, when I was restoring them in the bathtub to order and changing the diaper, I was sure. Help! I don’t poo! I have lost my sense of smell! The perfume tests carried out a moment later confirmed the “diagnosis”. I felt absolutely nothing, no smell – admits Hania.

The Omicron symptom turned out to be the most severe for her due to the difficulties in maintaining the baby’s hygiene. A full diaper, as well as escaping gas, cannot be felt when the nose stops working.

– What a tragedy it is to lose your sense of smell, every parent of an infant knows. Because – although it may sound disgusting to someone who does not have a baby or whose baby has already outgrown diapers (and has forgotten what it was like) – you just feel a toddler’s poop. This is the fastest and most convenient way when a person wants to make sure that “two” are already there.

Fortunately, Hania’s anosmia lasted much shorter than Agata’s. The sense of smell quickly returned to normal.

– When, after three days, I suddenly realized that I smell this specific smell, I was as happy as anyone. For two reasons. The first – the baby poop is a joy for every parent, the second – it meant my sense of smell was coming back!

Patrycja: it was terrifying

To someone who has not experienced loss of smell before, this symptom may seem like a common inconvenience, as well as a slight cough or a scratchy throat. In practice, however, the experience turns out to be really unpleasant, as Patrycja found out. In her, in addition to a sore throat and a slight low-grade fever, Omikron also manifested a loss of smell and taste.

– I remember that I was probably the most afraid of this loss of smell and taste. When I realized I didn’t feel anything, I wrote to a friend who had recently had COVID-19 with a desperate question: ‘how long will it take? Say it will pass quickly! ». When she wrote back that she had been tired for almost 1,5 months, I wanted to fall asleep and wait this time. Of course, I also read half the internet of reports from others who wrote not about weeks but months without smell or taste. It was terrifying – sums up Patrycja.

Despite the obvious disadvantages, anosmia had one quite useful advantage from Patricia’s perspective.

– When it comes to the sense of smell, the loss of it was a colossal change for me, because this sense is extremely acute. Sometimes it’s a torment because I can smell scents that others don’t, and it makes my life very difficult, but it’s usually a useful tool. The only advantage of losing it during COVID-19 was the “non-invasive” rewinding of my then several-month-old baby. I have never changed his diaper with a “two” with such calm and … full breath – he laughs.

The woman emphasizes that the mere loss of smell was not as severe for her as her connection with the lack of taste.

“It’s common knowledge that you don’t really want to eat anything when you’re sick, but tasting anything during this quarantine was a nightmare. I sat over my plate like a grumpy preschooler, picking at my food with a fork and forcing myself to swallow anything. No fun to eat. But then I also saw how much I can really eat out of greed, because I like something. During COVID-19, I ate the minimum – enough to satisfy my hunger, the rest didn’t make sense.

Patrycja emphasizes that the lack of smell and taste was also a problem for her, not only health, but also practical. Cooking for loved ones has become a challenge.

– But eating was half the drama. Cooking was much worse (when we got overwhelmed and the taste did not come back). Because how to cook soup or meat and not try it, is it seasoned well? This is the cosmos. I relied only on experience – I prepared proven dishes, which I made with my eyes closed, there was no other way. Otherwise, I would probably poison my family – he finishes.

We encourage you to listen to the latest episode of the RESET podcast. This time, Dr. Agnieszka Bolikowska – the founder of Linguistics, creator of the 6oMethod® method, will tell us about what slow learning is. How to break the language barrier? How to learn to make mistakes? You will learn about this and other aspects of language learning in today’s episode. Listen!