Michele Miller, from Bayside, NY, became infected with the coronavirus in March and has not smelled anything since. Recently, her husband and daughter threw her out of the house, saying the kitchen was filling with gas.
She had no idea. “It’s one thing not to smell and taste, but that’s survival,” said Miller.
Humans constantly scan their environments for smells that signal potential damage and change, although the process is not always conscious, said Dalton of the Monell Chemical Senses Center.
The smell alerts the brain to the mundane, like dirty clothes, and the risky, like spoiled food. Without this form of detection, “people are anxious about things,” said Dalton.
Worse still, some Covid-19 survivors are plagued by phantom odors that are unpleasant and often harmful, such as the smell of burning plastic, ammonia or feces, a distortion called parosmia.
Eric Reynolds, a 51-year probation officer from Santa Maria, California, lost his sense of smell when he contracted Covid-19 in April. Now, he said, he often perceives bad odors that he knows do not exist. Diet drinks taste like dirt; soap and washing powder smell like stagnant water or ammonia.
“I can’t do the dishes, I get sick,” said Reynolds. He is also haunted by the phantom smells of corn chips and a smell he calls “lady’s perfume smell”.
It is not uncommon for patients like him to develop food aversions related to their distorted perceptions, said Dr. Evan R. Reiter, medical director of the Virginia Commonwealth University scent and taste center, which tracks the recovery of nearly 2,000 Covid-19 patients who lost their sense of smell.