Loss of smell could be a 'highly reliable indicator' of Covid-19, research says

My girlfriend had that symptoms for few days, so I've told her to make the test, she got back and told me that the test was positive and we've got 2 weeks quarantine, it was august 26th.

The very next day I got really painful arthralgia (august 27th). The next day was fever that lasted till the thursday (august 29th). On the next day (30th august) I was feeling good, though that that was the end. Oh boy how I was wrong. Later on the same day I've had issues with breathing, friday night was nightmare with short shallow breathing and fever, that scared me a lot, never feel that way. I've gad few times pneumonia when I was a kid, but this was next level. The next day was better, so I didn't call an ambulance as they were already overwhelmed, but got to the hospital by myself and did the test with positive result. On the monday (september 2nd) I started coughing a lot, but the next day was much worse. With tuesday I started having headaches, dizziness and ear ache.. Coughing, headaches and dizziness lasted more than a week, with better and worse days.

It was the worst experience of the last few years, and it started with loss of smell an taste.

My wife was ill earlier during the first wave. She literally gargled TCP (the chemical, not the protocol. Handshakes are illegal.) and couldn't taste it. If you've ever been around this chemical you know how strong it smells, people can smell it across the house. That's when we suspected Covid. Couldn't get a test until months later, and it was negative. But still suspect it.

Same taste outcome here. Coffee and Coke Zero became very disappointing. I was swabbed and confirmed diagnosed with it.

It really did me in and I’m not sure I completely recovered form it yet. Took me 3 months after it was over to be able to run more than 30 seconds again. I could do a 5km run easily before. It’s a struggle now. But I’m in my 40’s so I expected a longer recovery cycle.

I had that exact experience for 12 days after a fever and a light cough in March. I couldn't even smell Thai fish sauce.

They wouldn't test me because it wasn't on their list of symptoms in Germany, even though South Korea, UK and China were already reporting it as a strong indicator for Corona.

I have something like that right now (started exactly week ago), I can't smell or taste and I can easily breath through the nose, but I also feel some pressure, like it would be a little bit swollen inside. It's cold outside and breating through the nose is mildly painful when I go out. Looks more like sinus infection without typical symptoms. I wonder if you felt it like that or the loss of smell was the only indicator of illness.

> (it appears near the end of an infection typically)

Hmm doesn't that contradict the article? Of it is at the end of the infection, then it feels like it isn't good as a warning to others that you got the virus, and more of an indicator that you had the virus

Same happened to me. No cold, runny nose, or any problems with airways. But my smell was just gone. I literally ground up basil and garlic and stuck it up my nose... nothing.

Back around 2010 I had this happen to me, It was so bizarre. Someone told me it was do to a sinus infection but I never had to go on antibiotics for one and no pain. I was sick that year with other things not related to the nose and it took a long time to get my sense of smell back. It never fully recovered to what it was. One thing I remember is it was like a filter and some things smelled awful and some things like nothing at all. Onions smelled like ammonia is what I remember most. I had lots of test done and never found out why. It wasn't a pleasant experience and freaked me out a little.

In February of 2019 I flew to SF for a business trip, and a few days after my return my wife became sick with an unknown illness -- she was complaining of shortness of breath, had a cough, lightheaded feeling and migraines.

Her breathing continued to get worse over a period of days to the point where she was waking up with blue lips and would become totally winded when walking a few feet.

Eventually she decided she needed to see a dr so we went to an urgent care -- due to the fact we had no car (we were living downtown Denver at the time) we walked and only a few blocks from the house she nearly collapsed -- I had to hold her up while we walked very slowly the rest of the way to the urgent care -- once we arrived she was immediately put on oxygen and given an IV.

later that night she was sent home, but in the morning her condition was worse, so we went to the ER but she was sent home again this time with asthma medication including an emergency inhaler.

Her breathing was labored for months and she continued to use the emergency inhaler during this time.

In August of 2019 she completely lost her sense of taste and smell.

In October 2019 she got exponentially worse so we went back to the ER and this time they checked her in.

They ran loads of tests on her, checked for cancer, HIV etc. -- eventually they gave her a bronchoscopy and found lots of very thick stringy mucus all in her lungs and found that she had a collapsed lung.

During this time they treated her with oxygen and antibiotics.

All of the tests they ran came back negative -- she remained in the hospital for a week and eventually recovered. I was in close contact with her during this time I even laid next to her in the hospital bed but did not contract her illness.

After 7 days the doctors concluded that she must have developed asthma and sent her home with an inhaler which she relied on daily until around February.

She is now able to exercise on a treadmill without ill effects. However if I cook things on the stove and it produces smoke this seems to trigger mild issues, and occasionally she has a stuffy nose that seems like allergies.

I'm not saying she had covid-19 but she had many of the symptoms. She had no fever during this time.

Did that include tongue-based tastes, too, like sweet / salty / sour / bitter / umami, or just olfactory ones? Like, if you ate an orange would it be sweet and sour at all?

This has happened to me countless times with the flu where i can't smell or taste anything at all.

> I had a mild case of covid and the loss of smell and taste was unlike anything similar I've ever experienced.

Very much true. Usually when you bite a lemon you feel a strong sour taste followed by involuntary movement of hands tightening towards the chest and shivering briefly.

With covid's loss of taste, i felt no taste at all when biting a lemon, but the body wants to shiver which i could control easily but was very confusing experience i never felt before. Very unique experience.

Also realized the appetite falls rapidly. Without taste i had to force feed myself. During normal illness your are tired and don't want to eat, but this is very different experience.

That was how I knew. Had a vague sense of coming down with something; smelled a scented candle which I KNEW i could smell (normally), didn’t sense it at all. Test followed.

Strange that this was known early, yet never was considered an indicator easily tested.

Thank you for posting this. I've never been able to tell what "loss" meant in media reports. I've had instances where I don't have much of a sense of smell, but I can still smell certain strong odors.

This was my exact presentation of the virus. A deeply profound loss of smell and taste, with an otherwise clear nose. I did develop some significant fatigue and fogginess and a slight cough, but the complete loss of smell and taste was upsetting. The early articles about this connection back in March is what prompted us to get tested. In our cases, though, this symptom appeared almost immediately and stuck with us throughout the infection, so I don't think it's fair to generalize about when anosmia is likely within the course of the virus.

How long did it take to recover your senses, and do you feel that their recovery has been 100%?

Edit: nm, I see it was answered: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24665323

I had an almost complete loss of smell, unlike anything I've experienced before, but could still smell some aerosols like air freshener. My sense of smell was back to normal in about 3 days.

I had covid three weeks ago, but I never noticed a lack of smell and taste.

I had all the other symptoms, including some of the post effects, but not this particular one.

Did this apply to everything? Could you taste spiciness, for instance, from really hot peppers?

Did your sense of smell and taste come back? How long did it take to recover?

how did that effect your eating? were you able to eat much?

How much time did it take to gain it back ?

I wonder if that loss of taste is at least a good way of quitting something like sugary foods

Did it come back? How soon?

I probably had decreased smell, and it felt like I was tasting with the sides of my tongue and cheeks(2 weeks later the middle of my tongue peeled off almost looked like I was getting a snake tongue).

I did test multiple times and I could still smell and taste, though it felt like maaaybe my smell was decreasing, but every article I read said completely gone smell and taste.

I realises my smell was reduced when I was in the hospital and I suddenly could smell how stinky the room and I were, then it hit me "yeah, my smelling was probably bad untill now.

My wife "realised" she lost her smell and taste right after her test came back positive. But she most likely lied for the attention(I know this sounds harsh, but I have goos reasons to think so).

So I wouldn't call this reliable.

Same here, although I also had a cough and fever. My wife is a doctor and got infected at work, she suffered only a mild illness with mild fever on day one and then a cough for the rest of the week. After 7 days she went back to work (according with gov guidelines) and was never unwell again. When she was self isolating at home I looked after her and must have been exposed to huge viral loads as I was obviously in very close contact and didn’t change my behaviour at all. I was just there as if she had a normal flu or cold, so warm hugging her at night, still giving her kisses and going normally about life. 5 days into her isolation I got a fever as well and I had a very high fever for the first two days. Then it disappeared like it normally would and I just had a cough left for the week and felt a bit tired obviously. After roughly 10 days I felt like I was all good again and even started to go for runs in the park again and to work out at home again. Weirdly we lost our sense of taste and smell entirely towards the end of the first 7 days and it lasted for about 5 days in total despite all other symptoms having disappeared. It was a complete loss, like nothing I had ever had before. All in all the loss of smell and taste was literally the most annoying about it, otherwise it felt like an extremely mild flu like not even worth talking about. Luckily smell and taste came fully back, just suddenly one day it was back and that was the end of story. This happened in early April in the UK. Since then we felt great, no lasting symptoms whatsoever. I’m not a super athlete or anything, but I do enjoy sports and I have maintained a great condition and actually even feel a lot stronger than before. Probably because due to the extra work outs I get from all the extra time. This virus is just a regular respiratory illness and it’s honestly so mild I cannot believe how the world is going bonkers over this. I actually hope that the more people get it hopefully they will realise like me that this whole reaction to COVID is massively over the top. There will always be some people with complications and some who die. But that is literally just like with other viruses which we don’t care about. If you’re in normal health, are not fat and not end of life, then there’s nothing to worry about.

EDIT: I’m 33 and my wife is 32 btw.

That's crazy, I'm so sorry you haven't regained your senses the way they were.

My friend is experiencing exactly the same results many months after having Covid. Doctor prescribed steroids for him which made it better for a brief period of time but then it regressed.

I, on the other hand, lost my smell for about 4 weeks after which it mostly came back to normal.

I just don't understand why no one is talking about this, as it seems like quite a lot of people have had permanent changes to their smell and this is just absolutely terrifying.

My father lost his sense of taste from eating poison ivy as a dare as a child (his older brothers basically tricked him into it). Similarly, he LOVED spicy and extremely salty foods because those were the only things he could taste. I grew up loving over-salted food because that was the way my family cooked.

He even would put salt in his beers.

This is eerily reminiscent of Perfect Sense (spoilers ahead in plot section):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Sense

My sense of smell is still about 75% gone 6 months on. Can't smell natural gas, ammonia, and a bunch of other stuff.

It is somewhat frustrating that big data is widely used to nudge us into buying the right detergent, but somehow not to keep us alive.

There were many papers that came out over 4 months ago with more people and other approaches, all with similar conclusion [1-3]. Not sure why this paper is getting a lot of press.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0916-2 [2] https://elifesciences.org/articles/58227 [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7386529.1/

Are there restrictions to be enrolled as a participant in these researches? I still do not understand why cannot a large group of people be studied given its disastrous imapct.

I had covid and at least my experience was very different. When I have a cold, I get stuffy and lose my sense of smell a little bit. With covid, it wasn't stuffiness... just couldn't smell, period. This remained after all other symptoms cleared up and I otherwise felt just fine.

When it happens, you KNOW you have covid.

With cold and flu you loose your smell because your nose is stuffed up, and it's more of a diminished smell than total loss.

With COVID, your nose is clear and there is just no smell at all.

Go to the doctor and maybe get an MRI.

That’s not normal.

Maybe it’s covid, maybe not - but seems worth getting checked out.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/08/us/loss-of-smell-termed-s...

Go to a doctor. I have congenital anosmia, and all the research I've done says that losing your sense of smell is serious. There are some things that may help, but they are more effective the sooner you do them.

If you are in the bay area there is a doctor at Stanford who actively researching in this field:

https://profiles.stanford.edu/zara-patel

Maybe have it checked out by a real doctor?

I'd not be surprised if both severity & symptoms vary a lot by which bodily tissues are 1st infected & bear the brunt of viral replication.

An initial infection via inhaling a large "initial inoculum" (viral dose) into the deep lungs (its favorite cells)? Severe case, but less impact on nasal/smelling membranes.

An initial infection in the outer nose - which is to some extent the body's evolved sample-invaders-and-contain-them zone? Definite temporary impact on smell, but a relative immune-system head-start before viruses reach the lungs, so milder case overall.

(Some health-care workers have shown repeated positive nasal swabs, but remain asymptomatic & seronegative for blood antibodies, suggesting they had a very mild infection fought-off completely in their nose/throat. Some of these have also then generated re-infection reports, but similarly mild. It seems if the body has an easy time confining the infection the 1st time, it also never bothers to create a large standing army of antibodies – but that's exactly the situation where it doesn't need to.)

> Conclusion: Our findings suggest that recent loss of smell is a highly specific COVID-19 symptom and should be considered more generally in guiding case isolation, testing, and treatment of COVID-19.

I think this is a situation where having loss of smell is a strong indicator of having COVID, but not having loss of smell doesn't imply testing negative.

Hm, I've read repeatedly that runny nose isn't a COVID symptom, so that's interesting.

I say that as someone with a runny nose this week and dizziness last week...

I have lost smell and taste completely for 3 days, to the point it started in influence my eating habits. I felt hungry, but I'd feel full as soon as I started eating, so I was eating around 30% of the usual intake.

Same. It was just like a cold but a bit longer than usual, temperatures never exceeded 37.5.

Fatigue continued for two something weeks after the infection cleared though. My productivity wasn't remotely at it's best.

Perhaps, but I’m awed with how much we do know and how quickly systems have come into place. New Zealand has been tracing its outbreaks. This has been valuable and has allowed origins be traced quickly and effectively. Maybe I’m too easily impressed by things like the below:

“Using genomic analysis, researchers in New Zealand looked at more than half the confirmed cases in the country and found a staggering 277 separate introductions in the early months, but also that only 19 percent of introductions led to more than one additional case.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overloo...

Not only we, but pretty much no one in the field. If you think about it, everybody got it all wrong, even the shape of the so called curve that was supposed to be flattened, the real number of cases, the mortality rate, the useless power of lockdowns in big countries, etc.

Yes, there were a lot of reports back in March about the loss of smell as a frequent and specific symptom for COVID-19. I'm not sure why this article acts like it's a new thing. And, yes, patients recovering from the loss of smell (hyposmia or anosmia) can often have smell distortions and disturbances (known as parosmias and phantosmias).

Causes of Loss of Smell — Mayo Clinic

https://www.mayoclinic.org/symptoms/loss-of-smell/basics/cau...

I've experienced it a couple times after having a bad flu or cold. It usually happens towards the middle the disease, when your nose is completely stuffed. It usually lasts a few days (think two to five days) and - in my case at least - it resolves itself once my cough starts to be more 'productive'.

From the few reports I've heard from people who experienced it because of Covid-19, it seems the Covid-19 experience lasts way longer.

If you have a bad cold and your nose clogs up you can also pretty much lose your smell, but then again you also have typical cold symptoms which isn't really common with covid.

Not sure about anyone else, but I lose my sense of smell regularly when I get a cold. (Not due to being stuffed up -- even when I inhale through my nose I smell nothing.)

I don't think it would be all that much of an improvement. Loss of smell/taste is a pretty good indicator of Covid, but still having smell/taste is not a good indicator of not having Covid.

My sense of smell has been not particularly great for many years - probably from some meth use as a teenager.

If covid gave me anosmia I doubt I'd even notice.

Excellent suggestion. I would use garlic rather than peppermint because an observer could judge their reaction rather than relying on a verbal response.

> “I can taste strong spices,” she said, “but still no lemon or herbs.”

Hah, that resonated with me. I've had anosmia since birth, and I had a moment this week where I was chewing on rosemary to gauge what its impact on my dish would be, and thought to myself "I really don't get herbs".

Very interesting and beautifully written piece.:-) Greetings to her, and good luck during pregnancy for you both.

I lost part of my taste for about week around Christmas, and when eating my mother's waffles I thought she had lost her baking touch because it tasted like cardboard. Thankfully my taste was soon recovered, but it made me think of the "small" things we take for granted . . .

The virus attacks the support cells for your olfactory system, but not the system itself. Once the disease is gone, those cells slowly replenish and you regain your sense of smell.

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/how-covid-19-causes-loss-smell

Take this with a grain (or a spoon) of salt, but AFAIK it comes from zinc exhaustion in your body.

Yeah, I think that's unusual. I assume most people lose their smell a bit when their nose gets stuffy, but complete loss... no.

It happens to some people, but it does seem to be more common with covid.

> I thought that was normal, but everyone making such a big deal out of the loss of smell makes me wonder if I'm unusual for experiencing it with regular colds.

It was normal until people started to extremely exaggerate what covid-19 really is to make it seem a lot more dangerous when in fact it is just like influenza.

I'm not a doctor but AFAIK loss of smell and taste is because all your body's zinc is exhausted.

It may be beneficial to supplement for a while.

Search for Dr Berg on Youtube, he has a few videos about the importance of Zinc.

I whish you all the best.

The studies weren't out then.

Let's not pretend that even the data driven people decry "fearmongering" to anything that wasn't a peer reviewed study published in a journal, even though there were no peer reviewed studies published in journals yet.