Brooke Viegut, a 25-year-old girl who lives in Washington Heights, realized that something was wrong when she entered her partner’s building last June.
“We walked in through the front door and the whole building smelled rancid,” she says, describing the smell as “rotting and burnt meat.” His partner didn’t notice anything, except a few smells from the neighbor’s food.
Viegut, like many affected by COVID-19, had lost his sense of smell when he caught the coronavirus last March. This anosmia, as it is called, persisted for much longer than its common symptoms, which dissipated after two to three weeks. At first, his sense of smell returned muffled. Then smells that were once pleasant – or at least tolerable – started to smell so badly that they made your stomach turn.
She eventually discovered that she had a condition known as parosmia, or distorted smell. Cooking oil was one of its triggers. “There is a bodega that does a lot of frying right next to my apartment and I have to go the long way,” she says.
Although large-scale studies show that patients with COVID-19 lose their smell about a quarter of the time, it is unclear exactly how prevalent parosmia is. However, it is a condition cited in an increasing number of anecdotal reports among people with long COVID or chronic symptoms of the virus. Viegut says he found support among thousands of others with similar stories in Facebook groups dedicated to the disease. She has also participated in studies on parosmia through the Smell and Taste Association of North America and AbScent, a UK-based organization dedicated to odor disorders.
Chrissi Kelly founded AbScent after contracting a sinus infection in 2012 that precipitated anosmia and subsequent parosmia. She says the disorder has gained increasing attention from the general public and researchers since the arrival of COVID’19. She researched people with parosmia and monitored their online discussions, and said she noticed some common topics.
“They can notice this first with the coffee,” Kelly told Gothamist / WNYC. “Coffee is one of the most potent triggers. It is what we use in our own research for parosmia. Meat is another typical. ”She listed a handful of other familiar flavors that become aggravating: onions, garlic, eggs, cucumbers, peanuts, peanut butter, certain types of toothpaste.
Looking at their chemistry, some of these items share common odor compounds, while others are different. Kelly says people also use similar language to describe their new perceptions.
“The smells that the parosmia triggers are smells that don’t exist,” says Kelly. “When people say it’s like the most disgusting rotten meat, I don’t think they mean it actually smells like rotten meat. I think they’re saying it smells as disgusting as the smell of rotting meat. “
Viegut, who was recently interviewed with Kelly in a series on parosmia on the Fatigued podcast, says the condition severely limited her diet and changed the way she navigates the city.
“In the first six months, I could make smoothies, but then the fruits started to taste like sickly sweet chemicals,” said Viegut. She became very dependent on sweets and baked goods, which she recognizes are not very nutritious. “Me and bagels are best friends right now.”
Meanwhile, many old favorites have had to go, and she rarely eats more. “Chinese food as a whole is prohibited. Pizza is a solid obstacle, ”says Viegut. “I loved going to Lucille’s in Harlem. They had really good ribs and great food, but I haven’t eaten in a long time. “
Your partner agreed not to eat your trigger foods for 24 to 48 hours before seeing you. “If he does that, his breathing will be nauseating for me,” says Viegut. “Even being with you is not as comforting as it should be.”
And Viegut had to adjust his behavior to be blind to smells. Often she cannot tell when there is a particularly bad smell from the subway – something she says “is not necessarily a bad thing”. This means that it has to be “much more visually vigilant, because I can no longer trust my nose”.
Parosmia can last from a few months to a few years, says Kelly. Some patients resort to smell training, which involves sniffing four different scents repeatedly for months. Research shows that such activity causes the nose’s nervous center – the olfactory bulb – to turn its specialized odor sensors.
“It’s like physical therapy and it’s even more related to stroke rehabilitation,” Kelly explained in Fatigued. “In stroke rehabilitation, you are there to establish new neural pathways.”
Kelly says that mental health support should also be considered for those who suffer from the disease. “There is something about this, something about the smell that is absolutely linked to your personality and sense of self, and when it starts to go wrong, it is a global problem. It’s everywhere. “
Viegut, now a year after his original coronavirus infection, tries to maintain hope for a complete recovery from his parosmia. “It is constantly changing, so for me it says that something is happening, something is evolving and there may be an end to it,” says Viegut.