COVID’s long list of symptoms includes an alarming range of complications that can come with the virus. One of the most common symptoms among patients with COVID, especially those with mild cases, is the loss of smell and taste. For some, these senses return in a few weeks, while others wait months before their senses reappear. At worst, experts say, some patients with COVID lose those senses forever. Read on to learn more about how coronavirus can kill your sense of smell and taste forever, and to find out more about symptoms, if you have one of these symptoms, the CDC says go to the hospital now.
Your sense of smell and taste may never return after COVID.
Losing smell and taste are common symptoms of COVID. A January 5 study of the Journal of Internal Medicine (JIM) found that 86 percent of patients with mild cases of COVID experienced a loss of taste and smell. And although a significant part of these patients’ senses eventually return, Wall Street Newspaper reports that doctors say that some people’s senses may never return.
On the website of Harvard Health, cognitive and neurological specialist Leo Newhouse, LICSW, writes: “Some of us may never recover our sense of smell or taste.” And for the most up-to-date information, subscribe to our daily newsletter.
Most patients’ sense of smell and taste return after six months.
An April 6 study published by European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology found that the loss of taste and smell in most patients persisted long after other symptoms had resolved. According to the study, at least a quarter of the participants’ ability to taste and smell returned within two weeks after the other symptoms disappeared.
O JIM The study concluded that, after 60 days, 15.3 percent of patients had not yet recovered their senses and, at the 6-month mark, 4.7 percent of people’s senses had not yet returned. And to monitor more symptoms, if you have this subtle symptom, you may have already had COVID.
Even if your senses return, they may not return in the same way.
“The good news is that olfactory neurons are capable of regeneration,” writes Newhouse. “The bad news is that not everyone will return to the pre-COVID level.”
If your senses are still lost, you must not lose all hope. Experts say there is a significant chance that your senses will recover in the first year of loss. Assistant professor Jessica GraysonThe doctor told the University of Alabama at Birmingham that “patients with post-viral scent loss have approximately a 60 to 80 percent chance of recovering part of their olfactory function in one year.” And for another long-term complication of the coronavirus, discover the new and disturbing long-lasting symptom of COVID that doctors want you to know.
Loss of smell and taste can lead to depression.
This common COVID symptom can have an even more damaging effect than you think. Experts say that losing your sense of smell and taste can lead to adverse emotions. A 2016 study published in Chemical Senses found that “patients with olfactory dysfunction have symptoms of depression that worsen with the severity of the loss of smell”.
Chemosensory scientist Pamela Dalton, PhD, said Wall Street Newspaper that when our sense of smell and taste are gone, “we remove a whole piece of our consciousness that we didn’t even know we were using every day”. When people are unable to taste the food they want or smell their partner, it can lead to less serotonin, explains Dalton. And for even more symptoms you need to know, this is the “strongest and most consistent” signal that you have COVID, study says.