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
Totally lost my sense of smell for about 2 weeks, but it came back pretty quickly. The worst long term symptom has been a substantially heightened gag reflex. Talking while chewimg gum has become a balancing act or I start heaving, just brushing my molars is enough to trigger gagging some days, and brushing my tongue after my teeth is a sprint to avoid puking. It's trash.
I had it 4 times that I’m sure of. Long term effects saw me bed ridden for the larger part of a year with my stamina and immune system still heavily affected to this day.
Smell and taste are back to 75% I’d say, could all be in my head but I swear stuff had a stronger taste/smell 2 years ago.
Just a reminder that not only is covid not over, but in many places infections are on the rise again and people are still dying, while vaccines become less and less accessible, no other official measures taken (like recommending masks on public transport), and more and more long term effects of infection come to light.
As a vulnerable person, the fact that people talk about it like it's in the past scares the shit out of me.
Same. I don’t even know how to respond to questions like this. It’s such a failure of our governments that people think loss of taste and smell from an infection years ago is the only lasting impact they’re experiencing. It’s a vascular disease that can damage every organ in the body and we’re being forced to experience repeat infections. Unfortunately most won’t realize what is happening until after it does, and there’s very few treatments and even little care for prevention.
I’m a disabled organizer focused on covid issues, and every day I hear constantly from people about the barriers covid has to their lives. Some are new barriers like new health conditions, increased precarity, and rising debt. Others are finding existing issues that were already hard to navigate become near insurmountable. Many of us haven’t had regular healthcare in years due to lack of covid safety or the system’s complete overwhelm. So many of us are fighting to just see a dentist without getting covid, and it’s nearly impossible.
And this is just from the folks who are aware of why covid should be avoided and what the current situation is, every day I talk to people who have long therm health issues from covid that now have to navigate a world they thought wouldn’t affect the. Covid has and will continue to impact every aspect of everyone’s life and it sucks seeing so many ignore it.
Edit to add- and yea, at least 7 million people died worldwide with over a million of that just in the US. The amount of people forever missing loved ones is hard to grapple with. A quarter of a million kids lost one or both parents, it’s had profound impact to their life trajectories that we’ll see for decades, and that’s not even accounting for the health implications they’ll endure along with the rest of society as we have continued repeat infections.
Others are finding existing issues that were already hard to navigate become near insurmountable. Many of us haven’t had regular healthcare in years due to lack of covid safety or the system’s complete overwhelm
I am part of this group, I was already struggling to get the kind of in-home care I actually need (because social services are direly and deliberately underfunded), now I won't even risk it because I know people won't/can't avoid bringing that shit in to my space. And that's just to name one of so many impacts it has had...
Otherwise I agree with everything else you've said, except that the government is failing, but only because I think they're doing exactly as they want and expect to do, we're (we being not only those already most vulnerable in society and to covid, but by extension the rest of the working class) just an after thought and acceptable collateral damage.
I've been meaning to share this on its own, but it definitely belongs here too:
Thanks for the link, it’s a good piece. And I definitely agree on it being an intentional path by our government not a failing per se. It’s not just the disabled that are and always have been afterthoughts, it’s everyone. Covid’s lasting damage is well-known, but that’s your problem not theirs, they have mitigations in place for themselves and the best care available if needed.
It’s very little but if you’re US based and want to remind your state officials that they’re killing people with their negligence, a group I organize with has a letter to send them about masking in healthcare. I really hope that this year we see actual progress on addressing covid instead of just ignoring it. We’re in the second highest ever surge currently, a lot of people are going to be sicker by November.
It’s not just the disabled that are and always have been afterthoughts, it’s everyone. Covid’s lasting damage is well-known, but that’s your problem not theirs, they have mitigations in place for themselves and the best care available if needed.
Well said. Accessibility and inclusion of disabled and vulnerable people has always benefitted society at large, but people are put under such pressure to "win", never mind just survive, that they've completely lost sight of that (like you say - to their own detriment).
Thank you too for the link, the fact that wearing masks in the healthcare sector is even up for debate, never mind something that needs to essentially be begged for, is enraging, though you'd be relieved? to know that here in the UK they aren't mandatory either.. And the infection and deaths numbers show it. We're also expecting potentially the largest wave yet https://donotpanic.substack.com/p/four-years-later-two-million-infections?publication.
There honestly are no words to express the frustration..
In the US Covid vaccines are available at any pharmacy for free. Accessibility isn’t the problem. People have just stopped getting revaccinated. The ant vac propaganda has been effective.
Of course it is if people don't know about it being available. or about the importance of having it (never mind the time and mental energy to get another task done when you're working 3 jobs and have kids to feed). Accessibility isn't just ramps. And the US isn't the only country in the world.
Yes, ant-vaxx propaganda is partly to blame, but this is a much bigger problem that is being deliberately neglected if not actively made worse by those in power for their own benefit.
And also, no they aren’t available at any pharmacy for free. They’re available at some pharmacies, if covered by insurance or you’ve applied through the bridge program, but still unlikely to be administered in a covid safe setting. If the vaccine is nearby and covered but I’ll get covid while there, that is not accessible. The existence of the vaccines is barely anything towards actually controlling covid and reducing its impact on society and the ability of people who don’t want to get it to access society.
And let’s remember, the vaccines help prevent the worst case scenario of hospitalization and death. They do not prevent infection, stop you from spreading the virus, or nullify the damage covid does to your body.
no they aren’t available at any pharmacy for free. They’re available at some pharmacies, if covered by insurance
"available at any pharmacy for free" definitely sounded too good to be true, especially considering it's the US we're talking about, thanks for confirming.
What do you mean by a Covid safe setting? Just wear a mask, you’re in and out in minutes. All the pharmacists wear masks too so just keep your distance from anyone else, or go when they aren’t busy, etc.
Thanks for asking. A covid safe setting is one where mitigations are in place to contain the spread of covid. This includes but is not limited to: universal masking in n95/kn95 masks, sufficient ventilation and filtration of the air to reduce the virus floating around, limited time indoors to reduce exposure, workers staying home when ill. So, pretty simple things that have together reduce ones chances of getting covid.
Most places have not achieved this, or stopped doing so if they did. I’m glad you and you’re pharmacists mask, but that is bare minimum and sadly not a universal experience. Many people live in places where there is no masking from others and any requests for it are denied, even though that’s illegal under ADA. Masks are also just one tool that can be used to stop spread and should not be the primary method used.
It also seems like most people think that if they are vaccinated they can ignore it entirely.
Vaccinated individuals still experience the first stages of infection and still develope a high enough viral load to be contagious. The vaccines are effective at decreasing the duration and severity of infection, but they can’t prevent it entirely.
People who know they were exposed should still isolate for a few days even if they are vaccinated.
Thanks for reminding me I need to start wearing masks again.
Yup, covid really did ramp up the ableism in society to a whole new level..
It's not only that people think that because they didn't feel that bad or have long term side-effects, covid simply isn't that bad or have serious long term side effects, so in their own minds they not only don't need to make any effort to protect themselves, never mind others (mostly already marginalised people they prefer to ignore in everyday life, so why not now), they also have a new (and constantly growing) group of people to scapegoat and gaslight and tell it isn't really that bad because it wasn't that bad for them, and that they should just "suck it up".
I won't even start on the part capitalism and the governments and media who uphold and serve it have played in making it this way, and how a desperate and divided population benefits them, which is why they're never going to do anything about it..
Had it in 2021, taste was gone for only three days. Afterwards some things tasted off for a few weeks, chocolate tasted like ammonium. That's gone now. Endurance was mostly gone afterwards, and I stil have trouble remembering names, even of people I've known a long time.
I had the name thing before covid was even a thing (sorry not belittling your pain just had to be a smart alek. really though I have always been so bad with names and faces im not sure I would notice if covid made it worse.)
Don't worry, I get that reaction a lot. Also the "that's just aging" reaction regarding both the forgetting and the endurance (stamina?). But if you can't remember the names of people you speak every week, and who don't have forgettable face and demeanor, that's not normal for me. Also, if you suddenly are exhausted after walking a stair where this was no problem before, that's also not normal.
yeah I get its ot the same thing and if your memory was sharp as tack before its going to be massive. One thing I am thankful for being born in the modern world is that my coworkers names always appears in teams. I get into trouble when im speaking with my screens are covering teams as suddenly I can't get names quite right or tell who is speaking.
Lots of people do this. My work place displays last name - first name in Teams. My last name can also be a first name, and it happens more than once a week that somebody calls me by my last name.
My sense of smell still sucks, and it's been almost two years since I had COVID. It's marginally better than it was, but is still substantially worse than it was pre-infection.
EDIT: Okay, this is a bit of an exaggeration. My sense of smell has mostly returned, but for example, nuances in the taste of food seem to have become permanently dulled, and it sucks tbh. Something, as subtle as it is, has changed.
It was about 45 days for me before my taste and smell came back, I got it the first round in 2020 and I felt like death for about a week then I felt fine but couldn’t taste or smell anything for 6 weeks.
Yep, brainfog and I partially lost taste, only to spicy food!
So I spiced stuff up anormally for like 6-9 months then less and like at 1.5 years it just came back just like before and spicy things are super duper spicy again.
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.
My sense of taste kind of came back, but severely muted for some things. Coffee never quite got back to the same level of flavor, for example. I've also noticed my ability to taste salt is pretty shot. I can, but I have to add stupid amounts of the stuff. For an example, I had to do a clear liquid diet about a week ago prior to a medical procedure, and drinking some broth with 748mg of sodium per serving just tasted like drinking greasy water to me.
In terms of long term effects, it's a bit harder to say. I got covid for the first time in August 2020 (yay for being an essential peasant!), and I was out of work until May 2021. I had to do months of PT because of what my primary doctor called a post-viral fatigue syndrome. At its worst, if I tried to walk more than a block away from my apartment and back, I would wake up the next day feeling sore from my neck down to my toes. I remember a day where I slept for 12 hours, woke up and made and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and just doing that left me so tired I went back to sleep for another 6 hours or so.
Other stuff is less clear. It certainly started manifesting and presenting symptoms after I had COVID, but correlation and causation being what it is, it's hard to definitively say what might have just been low-level and not bothering me that much before and what could have been kicked off by COVID. I developed photophobia, Hashimoto's thyroiditis and some nerve damage after being ill for the first time, which are all fun.
I guess the photophobia is the easiest to manage, I just need to wear heavily tinted glasses at all times, as I get these awful migraines if I don't. Uncovered light bulbs, TVs, monitors, whatever can set them off. The thyroid condition I get to take a synthetic hormone basically for the rest of my life and get blood work done 4 times a year to see how it's working. The nerve damage I get to take another medication pretty much for forever as well, thanks to US insurance. Instead of a daily pill, my neurologist could give me an occipital nerve block every 3-4 months, but insurance doesn't want to pay for them unless it's done at a pain management clinic. For reasons I can't work out, every pain management clinic I looked at with my referral seemed to be out of network for everyone, so it'd run me like $700 for the initial visit and $400 every 3-4 months after that. I guess they know they've got you if the pain is bad enough? Anyway, my prescription has been working so far and it's the only thing I don't even need to pay for before hitting my deductible, so I have that going for me.
I've also noticed my ability to taste salt is pretty shot.
That's really interesting - for most people it is the nasal receptors that are included - lost of "taste" is actually lost of smell. I'm not sure I've head of someone losing salt, sweet, soutr or bitter.
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