People suffering from ‘long COVID’ report a strong smell of fish, sulfur and a sweet and sickening odor as more symptoms of the virus appear.
The unusual side effect is known as parosmia – which means a distortion of the smell – and can disproportionately affect young people and health professionals.
The ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon, Professor Nirmal Kumar, called the symptom “very strange and very unique”.
The aroma of burnt toast and sulfur have also been reported
Professor Kumar, who is also president of ENT UK, was one of the first doctors to identify anosmia – loss of smell – as an indicator of coronavirus in March.
He asked Public Health England to add it to the list of symptoms months before it became official guidance.
He now noticed that among the thousands of patients being treated for long-term anosmia in the UK, some are suffering from parosmia.
“This morning I saw two patients with parosmia,” Professor Kumar told the PA news agency.
“One said he could smell fish instead of any other smell, and the other could smell burning when there was no smoke around.
“Both are health professionals and we think that there is an increased incidence in young people and also in health professionals because of exposure to the virus in hospitals.
“For some people, it’s really upsetting them.”
Long COVID is a term to describe the effects of coronavirus that can continue for weeks or months after the initial illness.
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Months after having COVID-19, some are still struggling with their health
Describing it as a “neurotropic virus”, Professor Kumar explained: “The virus is affecting the nerves in the roof of the nose – it is like a shock to the nervous system and the nerves are not working.”
Daniel Salvaki, a 24-year-old banker who lives in London, said he lost his taste and smell for two weeks after contracting the coronavirus in March, and has suffered from parosmia ever since.
Salva-me, from West Yorkshire, said that strong-smelling things like cans now smell like burnt sulfur, or they smell “like toast.”
He added: “It has diminished my taste for food and it is a little depressing not to be able to smell certain foods.”
Lynn Corbett, a real estate manager, said she was “shocked” to wake up on her 52nd birthday in March with “absolutely no smell or taste”.
Mrs. Corbett, from Selsey in Sussex, said: “From March until the end of May, I couldn’t taste anything – I honestly think I could have bitten a raw onion, such was my loss of flavor.”
She said her nose started to come back in June, but “nothing smells as it should”.
“Most things had a disgusting smell, that sweet, sickening smell that is difficult to describe, since I have never seen it before.”
She said that despite being “addicted to coffee” before, the drink now smells “unbearable”, as well as beer and gasoline.
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Although she is not sure if she will ever regain her sense of smell, Ms. Corbett said: “I’m fine with that, I just think I was lucky because if I had coronavirus, which it seems I did, then I wasn’t” seriously ill, hospitalized or died like so many others. “
Charity AbScent, which supports people with sense of smell, is collecting information from thousands of patients with anosmia and parosmia in partnership with ENT UK and the British Rhinological Society to assist in the development of therapies.
They recommend that anyone affected by parosmia undergo “olfactory training”, which involves smelling rose, lemon, clove and eucalyptus oils every day for about 20 seconds, in an attempt to slowly regain their sense of smell.