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Comment by dannyphantom | Hacker News Reader

Oooh yes yes - this is such wonderful news! Literally weeks before the world changed my boyfriends dad had begun to explore the world of cooking; he was so happy when we would bring him to niche little grocers to try things he had never known about before and trying all the food - but after his infection, and for the last 2 years - nothing. No taste. No smell.

We try to make up for it by encouraging him to make stuff with varied textures and components but he's been really depressed about it since. His pinterest recipe board he would share with us hasn't been updated in years and his meals typically consist of protein/starch/veggie with no seasoning as it doesn't register.

I am so hopeful for something that can bring him his sense of smell and taste back; so far his medical teams have kinda just been bouncing him around to various specialties - he even had a small surgery in an attempt but no dice.

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One of the rarer side effects of using Zicam nasal spray is loss of sense of smell. Somebody experiencing this reported that they accidentally restored their sense of smell by being exposed to pepper spray.

There are nasal decongestants out there that are essentially dilute capsaicin in suspension in saline (as a sufferer of sinus infections I have tried most things at this point). It's not pleasant, but it's less unpleasant than eating food that's way too spicy, and nowhere near as bad as getting wasabi fumes up your nose.

If memory serves there are several other ways that capsaicin can unstick the nervous system. Might be worth a try.

Try a nasal spray with lactoferrin - that one breaks down bacterial biofilm, getting to places where other sprays can't.

Lactoferrin is also able to kill SARS-CoV-2.

In 2020 I had lactoferrin on fabric tested by a university laboratory for a potential product. The product didn't go anywhere after that, but it was conclusively shown that lactoferrin did inactivate the virus by about 92% instantly and 98% in a minute.

If you want to use it as a mouthwash, the product Salivea (a quite pleasant product with a horrible name) has lactoferrin as one of the ingredients.

"Mace your boyfriend's dad" wasn't the medical advice I was expecting to see here, but I guess I can't blame anyone for being willing to try it. Not being able to taste anything for years would be terrible. I'm not confident that it works, but either way I look forward to seeing the videos if this 'one weird trick' catches on.

As I said, the sprays I found are not that intense. Rootbeer burps hurt more.

Worst nose burn I've ever gotten was from burping 7-up

Something like this? https://sinusplumber.com/

Around 15 years ago I broke my nose which eventually led to a loss of taste and smell. Around 8 months ago I had surgery on the internal structures of my nose which in addition to allowing me to breath again, I can also taste and smell. The experience has been completely mind blowing.

On the flip side I can no longer order the spiciest of spicy Thai and Indian food from my usual restaurants. The owners poke fun at me now.

That's fascinating because it implies that our ability to feel/respond to spicy food is all psychological. I would have figured that you would have felt at least some pain build while eating really spicy food but I guess not.

The response to spicy food is not all psychological. It's due to activation of heat receptors by capsaicin. Note: many factors affect the subjective experience of taste sensation.

I have been put into atrial fibrillation by the aggravation caused by spicy food from a popular indian restaurant in north Seattle. I had to get cardioverted. Was it due to stress? Was it due to the sustained rise in blood pressure? Was it caused by GI? It doesn't matter. I have to avoid it now, for safety.

I, too, have dined at Taste Of India, and paid the price. I'll do it again too!

My mouth can handle the spiciest food one can order. Unfortunately, my GI system isn't quite so tough.

fascinating. the receptors for hot / chili are in your tongue and not in your nose.

mind to elaborate how you can't eat chilly any longer?

In the name of science, go ahead and stuff some diced chilis in your nose and report back.

You can probably already find that on TikTok.

why on earth do you eat with your nose? don't do that! even for science, really just don't.

I don't either. in the name of science.

He probably doesn’t know how. But it’s an interesting point. I never thought about it before, but the event I went through had a similar link between taste and smell, and in hindsight I now don’t get why.

In college I made a bet with a friend that I could hold dominos wings hot sauce in my mouth for 10 minutes. At the time, the wings from dominos were actually very spicy. It was painfu, I spent about 30 minutes washing my mouth out after that. I lost my sense of taste AND smell for an entire year.

Why did I lose my sense of smell and not just my taste? Any docs here to explain?

It feels like damage like that is (speculation from reading about covid effects and causes) often neurological.

Maybe the intense overload of the pain receptors triggered some immune reaction that damaged nerves as collateral damage?

Interesting… I now (nearly 30 years later) have a condition that is considered a vestibular/neurological condition called mal de Debarquement. I also believe I suffer from vestibular migraines, but that is not diagnosed yet (seeing a specialist next week). I doubt that dominos hot sauce was the cause, but maybe I am susceptible to such things? I never thought to link these two things before.

I noticed this too, after losing my sense of smell/taste in june 2022 I've been able to easily tolerate spice that I wasn't able to tolerate prior.

I had a similar injury with on-and-off sense of smell since.

What type of surgery did you have done? I'd like to bring it up with my ENT doctor (who treats my nose as his personal polyp farm), and has prescribed only steroids (which DO work but have bad side-effects).

I had a septoplasty and turbinate reduction. The recovery was pretty brutal - there’s many nerves and pain receptors in the middle of your skull apparently. In all it’s amazing to not have a “stuffed” nose all the time.

It might interest you that zinc, just like Ensitrelvir, is a 3c like Protease inhibitor. You might have a try at getting his serum and RBC zinc tested.

https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(20)32476-5/fulltext

When I caught Covid I had very high fever and was in constant pain, but nothing was as bad as losing my taste. Can totally relate.

The saddest burrito in my life was when I had COVID. My doctor said I should take Zinc but that did not make it come back any faster.

I was cooking tacos for my family knowing I had COVID (we all had it at the time). I remember not smelling the seasoning, and threw a small handful of chopped raw onions in my mouth to confirm the bad news...

Luckily it came back in about a week. Beer and wine tasted awful for a few weeks, and I am a fan of both. Luckily a year on, and all seems well for now.

Yeah I had a dram or so of cask strength (60% iirc?) whisky per day when I had no taste just because I wanted to have some kind of taste-adjacent feeling even if that was just a bit of burning. I was so happy when I realised it was coming back slowly every day. Nose is still not 100% but I am fine with that, I can enjoy food and drink so I'm lucky and thankful

Years later, I'm still registering new scents that I haven't smelled since before my first COVID infection. For a hearing analogy, it's not like the volume is turned down, it's like some frequencies are missing entirely. And then one day, suddenly, it's back. Freshly ground coffee is an especially rich source of new odors. It turns out coffee isn't just one smell, it must be dozens.

Weird, I remember when there was an epidemic of anosmia caused by zinc containing nasal sprays/gels: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16467707/ Guess oral supplementation is ok?

No.. I got Zinc toxicity from taking it. I do not know its efficacy but it made me vomit when I got too high of levels and stopped.

I hate zinc! I wish God had never made this cursed element!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1iCZpFMYd0

I could only taste salt. I had very salty food for a while.

I feel for him. About 20 years ago, I had a bad bout of flu which nixed my sense of smell fro about 6 months. Eating was quite simply a chore. I didn't know whether I was drinking tea or coffee.

Then one day someone made me a cup of tea and I rhapsodised about it being the best, most flavoursome cup of tea ever and I realised I had my sense of smell back.

I wish him a full recovery.

Oh man,

The good part of my family dog dying was that suddenly I could smell and taste things. Switching from bland to flavour at 18 was crazy

this is one of the plot lines in the 1994 Taiwanese film "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat_Drink_Man_Woman , though the father/chef character lost his sense of smell due to another reason.

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