If you got COVID and lost the ability to taste things, did it ever come back? Otherwise, did you experience any other long term consequences from the pandemic in general?
Never heard any follow ups on the taste thing, so I need answers
4 years since 2020. Time really flies when a catastrophic global event hits you in the face
I had OG covid just after Xmas 2020. Didn’t eat for 3-4 days, and was so excited for the first time I felt up to eating. That’s when I discovered I had no sense of smell. The basic tastes were there, salty, sweet, etc, but no nuance to it. With just the texture to go off, my basic white-bread-and-ham sandwich was like eating a wet sponge. It stayed that way for about 2 weeks, I think (the brain fog was real, too, don’t remember much of January 2021).
Started to come back slowly, and was normal by the end of March. Nothing much long term to report. Smell might be a little more sensitive now, if anything. We have cats, and I’m always the first to know when the box needs cleaning.
Had COVID in 2022. Lost sense of taste and smell. I can say I didn’t lose it permanently since it has come back. Whether in part or fully, I don’t know. I smelled anything with a strong and recognisable smell to try retraining my nose. Perfume, Vicks, even newspapers.
I didn’t get COVID during the peak in 2020 but my mental health has taken a massive hit. The NHS has taken a massive downturn since the pandemic, and I don’t see it getting any better.
Lost the ability to smell and taste. Both slowly started to come back over a few months, in the end I want to say it took at least 8. It doesn’t seem quite as good as before but it’s mostly back to normal.
As for other long term effects, I seem to have been mostly spared except that whenever I get a viral infection, I usually have terrible joint pain.
I had COVID at the beginning of 2021, I’ve lost smell, even when I got out of it for a few months soft drinks like Coke, sprite or tonic tested like paint thinner, raw onion and my own sweat smelled like rotten eggs, fortunately after some time it stopped, drinks sooner than onion though
Hola. For me, I started getting a cough and feeling under the weather. I came home from work on that Friday and I hadn’t eaten at all that day, was super hungry. It was Friday! I’m going to treat myself to some Mediterranean from this delish local place. Got my food, took a bite, bland af. Couldn’t taste anything. Finished eating and fell asleep watching the simpsons on the couch like I tend to do when I’m not feeling well.
Woke up the next day and couldn’t smell or taste anything. Immediately took a home test which came back positive. Made a appointment for a test through my doc on Monday which of course came back positive.
Things got worse, brutal cough for at least a month. Complete brain fog for over a week, couldn’t put thoughts together, which made it so i struggled to complete regular day to day things. Super fatigue for a could of weeks. After maybe 10 days my sense of smell and taste came back.
The first time I didn’t lose my taste it just made a few things taste slightly weird, most of it didn’t last too long but orange juice tasted a bit different for a few weeks. I’m pretty sure I had it again over Christmas as I literally had no taste when I woke up on the morning of the 27th, but it slowly came back throughout the day. Again orange juice tasted slightly weird for a few days after but now I think it tastes normal? Or at least more normal than it did last week
I read something saying that it takes 6-12 months for the neural pathways for taste and smell recognition to reform in a permanent way.
I briefly lost my sense of taste and smell 2 years ago. I ‘got it back’ after a week, but everything is still less intense… maybe 20-30% muted. Some things came back with very distinct differences. Alcohol taste like rotten garbage, dairy tastes off, things I didn’t like aren’t as powerful and things I used to love don’t hit like they used to.
I tried retraining smell with different scented oils over the course of a few months, but didn’t really see any difference. Hell, maybe it worked on some things, but the things that it didn’t work for stand out in my mind… maybe that’s cognitive bias.
Other than that, I don’t have any lasting side effects. I don’t even know for sure that it was from Covid. By the time I realized I had a taste change, I tested a few times and never came up positive. I am assuming I had a case and was asymptomatic until the sense change and stopped shedding by the time I tested, but you can develop anosmia/parosmia from other viruses, like the flu, too.
It varies, sometimes comes back within 1 year but different than before, so stuff that one tasted good now tastes bad. I will look for some saved links about this when I get a chance, but of course you can also try web search.
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