Lucy had developed parosmia, a condition where perceptions of odour are distorted. For some individuals, smell may never return to precisely how it was, but it does not mean quality of life won't improve, says Chrissi Kelly, who suffers with parosmia herself. When I started being able to smell again, it was faint and came in waves. Metal taste side effect reported after Pfizer Covid-19 vaccination 3 Weird Things I Still Cannot Smell Because of Covid And what tastes good and bad can vary from day to day, and even from hour to hour. Ms Kelly, whose website gives advice on dealing with parosmia, explains: "Avoiding triggers can sometimes be the only way to deal with this, but as it improves people who 'push through' seem to get through this phase better.". The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. Scientists have no firm timelines. She gagged at the first mouthful, saying the chicken tasted off. For example, the smell of a rose has 13 odour molecules, explains Philpott. DALLAS - A reduced sense of smell, or olfactory dysfunction (OD), is one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19. University of East Anglia provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. For instance, I might sniff the swatch and smell motor oil, only to discover nothing close to it among the options I had to choose from. Feces, body odor, and bad breath, to which I'd been nose-blind for months, now emanated the same sickly-sweet smell of fermented melon. But no such blockage typically occurs in patients with Covid-caused anosmia and parosmia. Parosmia could be a very rare offshoot of the viral infection," she says. In the study of 2,581 patients from 18 European . Weird Smell in Nose After Having COVID-19: What Research Shows - Healthline The condition, which causes smell and taste distortions, can mean tucking into a roast turkey with all the trimmings becomes a nauseating nightmare. In an early 2005 French study, the bulk of 56 cases examined were blamed on upper respiratory tract infections. Garlic is a unique herb. She said that "onions and garlic and meat tasted putrid, and coffee smelled like gasoline." Reportedly , another person, age 25, contracted COVID in March 2020 and lost their sense of smell. Marcel Kuttab of Chelsea, Mass., has experienced . In the beginning, Roberts couldnt eat or drink anything without feeling nauseous, and lost so much weight that she ended up spending two weeks in hospital. Boak is also feeling positive about the future. The fundamental components of taste are perceived through fibers that innervate the tongue via three cranial nerves: the facial nerve, the glossopharyngeal nerve, and the vagus nerve. A new study out of Europe reports "olfactory dysfunction" was present in nearly 86% of mild cases. Now, five months on, its a stench that constantly lurks in our house, in the dining hall at school and even on seaside walks, and Zara is down to only a handful of what those living with the condition call safe foods. A recent UK Biobank study, published in Nature, investigated brain changes via two MRI scans before and after mild COVID-19 infection, and revealed tissue damage and greater shrinkage in brain areas related to smell[5].