16 ms·

Postmortem assessment of olfactory tissue degeneration in patients with Covid-19

172 points by ilovecaching 5y ago

ilovecaching 5y ago
I've been really worried about whether COVID has affected my brain. I had very mild loss of smell and flu like symptoms (I contracted COVID before the vaccine was available). I also had what felt like brain fog as well afterwards. I'm fine now, but I often spend time worrying about whether I've had a drop in cognitive functions post-COVID. I hate that it's impossible to really gauge how it affected my brain. My brain is my most important work asset (I'm a SWE) and I hate the idea of losing a few IQ points to COVID that could diminish my ability to create.
- hammock 5y ago
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bluSCALE4 5y ago
    Lol, realized your first comment was rude eh? (He originally asked how brain fog related to the article)
  - etherael 5y ago
    Why? They said they already had it which means they'd now have natural immunity. What would be the point of getting a vaccine for something you're already immune to? Am I missing something here?
    - hammock 5y ago
      We aren't sure how long natural immunity lasts for.
      - mzvkxlcvd 5y ago
        well the amazing vaccine at best works for 4 months, if that. considering i've recently had covid with minimal issue, i'll take my chances with natural immunity.
      - nradov 5y ago
        Immunity is not a binary condition. It's not as if immunity, whether produced by vaccination or recovery from infection, lasts a certain period and then stops. While I would encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated, all the scientific evidence we have from similar viruses indicates that recovery from infection produces a significant level of cellular immunity lasting as long as the patient's immune system remains basically healthy. Concerns about waning immunity were mainly based on antibody levels, but of course those aren't very important. https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/ https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/
      - kbelder 5y ago
        It may be short term, but it's probably as long or longer than the immunity from the vaccine. That's an argument for scheduling repeat vaccinations... but it needs to be looked at in the context of a lifetime. A recurring shot every year or few years may be feasible. Every three months is not.
    - memish 5y ago
      - TAKEMYMONEY 5y ago
        That's why Big Pharma still forces us to get a Chicken Pox vaccine every year! Oh wait, they don't? You can still get infected with SARS-CoV-2 even if you have before, and you should still be vaccinated. https://www.science.org/content/article/more-people-are-getting-covid-19-twice-suggesting-immunity-wanes-quickly-some https://www.science.org/content/article/more-people-are-gett...
        memish 5y ago
        If you're old or obese, yes. If you're young and healthy, no. As for Big Pharma, it's strange so many people are defending an industry well known for committing crimes against humanity. In recent history. The opioid crisis is still playing out, for one.
        TAKEMYMONEY 5y ago
        > If you're young and healthy, no. ...unless you have concern for spreading disease. Some only think of themselves. > it's strange so many people are defending an industry That is strange, who are these people defending the industry at large? I'm recommending getting vaccinated against diseases, not the Sackler family. This is a comment thread about COVID.
        memish 5y ago
        You're right, that's veering off topic. Back to Covid. The vaccine doesn't stop spread. We've known this for a long time now, but here's a fresh example just last weekend: Seventy-two people have tested positive for Covid-19 after having attended the Gridiron Dinner in Washington last weekend, including members of the Biden administration and reporters. Gridiron Club President Tom DeFrank said Sunday that the group had reported 72 cases out of the hundreds of people who attended. New York Mayor Eric Adams, who was also at the dinner, tested positive Sunday. It was the first Gridiron Dinner since 2019, before the pandemic, and guests were required to show proof of vaccination, DeFrank said. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/67-attendees-test-positive-covid-high-profile-dc-dinner-rcna23763 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/67-attendees-...
    - nimih 5y ago
      > What would be the point of getting a vaccine for something you're already immune to? The immunity can wane and the virus can mutate[0]. Same reason you would get a shingles vaccine or a yearly flu shot. [0] Admittedly, this isn't relevant to COVID-19 yet as the vaccine hasn't been updated AFAIK, but it's probably useful to keep in mind going forward when evaluating your own personal situation/risk, and when trying to understand public policy decisions.
      - etherael 5y ago
        I can understand if it mutates to the point of circumventing the original immunity and there's a new vaccine variant to address that specific mutation but as you yourself point out, that doesn't apply here, so I don't get it?
      - nradov 5y ago
        That is misinformation. While there can be benefits to vaccination after infection, recovery from infection does produce durable cellular immunity in the vast majority of patients. Antibody levels always wane over time, but there's more to immunity than antibodies. https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/ https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/ I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but the reasons to get a COVID-19 vaccine have really nothing to do with the reasons to get a shingles vaccine. Shingles is caused by the varicella herpesvirus which remains dormant in the body even after the acute infection has cleared. That virus works in a completely different way than SARS-CoV-2.
        nimih 5y ago
        Given that I don't know anything about how antibodies and T-cells and all that jazz work and I don't plan on listening to a 2:40hr podcast to learn what some dude on the internet thinks about it, all I can say is that there appears to be research demonstrating that the COVID-19 vaccine has real benefit to people who already contracted the actual virus[0], which make's my government's advice that folks in that situation still get vaccinated[1] seem pretty reasonable. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm7032e1_e&ACSTrackingID=USCDC_921-DM63289&ACSTrackingLabel=MMWR%20Early%20Release%20-%20Vol.%2070%2C%20August%206%2C%202021&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM63289 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm... [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html
    - wccrawford 5y ago
      I read a study the other day that showed that the third best thing for Covid protection is vaccination. The second best is having had it already. And the best was both. Even if you've already had it, getting the vaccine as well drastically reduces your chances of being serious ill with Covid. And it's free, so why not get that extra protection?
  - mzvkxlcvd 5y ago
    i'm not convinced. my whole family got it a couple weeks ago. me and my kids are all unvaccinated, we had very mild cases. my wife was vaccinated and was basically bedridden for 2 weeks.
    - karlshea 5y ago
      Consider that your wife may have died instead, and you and your kids happen to be in the 80% that it barely touches. It’s actually wild to me at this point given the extremely clear data readily available that you are still “not convinced” though. Amazing!
      - nradov 5y ago
        While I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated, deaths in that age range are extremely rare. The CDC estimated the overall infection fatality rate for people in the 18-49 age group at 0.08%. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
        brimble 5y ago
        Hospitalization rate's somewhat higher, and last I checked vaccine drops that to like 10% the unvaccinated rate. That's not death, but being hospitalized isn't exactly fun, and can be damn expensive. Agreed that risk of death, even unvaccinated, is pretty low if you aren't fairly old and don't have significant other factors that put you at higher risk.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - xtracto 5y ago
    I'm just going to add some anecdata for people to weight when they are taking this decision: The covid AZ booster gave me an ischemic stroke (Lacunar TIA, detected by MRI, confirmed by my Neurologist). My GP got only one Pfizer vaccine and got myocarditis. She decided not to get any subsequent vaccines. There's plenty of anecdata cases of people having bad significant reactions to the vaccines all over the internet. As they say, the probabilities are low, but if you happen to be like me, who believed in the statistics and get shafted... well probabilities are meaningless to me now.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      > The covid AZ booster gave me an ischemic stroke How did you draw a causal link between the two? Anything other than post hoc? > My GP got only one Pfizer vaccine and got myocarditis. She decided not to get any subsequent vaccines. Another post hoc? There have been actual studies we can look at, rather than making decisions based on what randos on the Internet claim to be true.
      - xtracto 5y ago
        I did not draw anything. My vascular Neurologist gave me the diagnostic after looking at my MRI, A LOT of tests, including blood, ecocardiograms (form outside and inside my body), ecographies and more. You are completely right, I don't care about what a random "rootusrootus" user in the internet says, I trust my Vascular Neurologist and his diagnostic after actually reviewing my case. Now I am taking baby aspirin for the time being until I can see how my case progresses. If I cared, I could offer to share my Neurologist contact info. But I really don't.
        rootusrootus 5y ago
        I wasn't making a claim. Just curious if you had something other than ideology to back up a bold claim. Clearly not. You ought not to spread misinformation, but I can hardly stop you. The fact that you claim to have two separate antivax doctors is enlightening enough by itself.
- JTon 5y ago
  I'd try to frame the experience as a sunk cost (i.e. cannot be changed) and try not to quantify it. Instead focus your energy on developing your skills and keeping yourself healthy going forward. Easier said than done of course.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    Yeah exactly. This is your life now, and worrying about any possible impact it had isn't going to change anything about the impact and how it affects you now. All you can do is move on the best you can.
    - mrtesthah 5y ago
      It might be worth understanding the mechanism of damage in order to self-attempt reparative therapies (however theoretical or experimental). For example: Dr. Terry Wahls‘ Anti-MS diet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc&feature=emb_titl... Or BDNF-boosting strategies. Or strategies such as IF to tamp down overactive microglial cells that afflict nearby neurons with inflammation. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.26984 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.26984 https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-2094-11-85 https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...
      - avgcorrection 5y ago
        Why anti-MS diet?
        mrtesthah 5y ago
        While it seems rare for covid to cause MS itself, there might be a link between neuroinflammation and demyelinating damage. https://www.msard-journal.com/article/S2211-0348(20)30400-4/fulltext https://www.msard-journal.com/article/S2211-0348(20)30400-4/...
- sod 5y ago
  There are people with a stroke, removed tumor or other brain injuries who recover (e.g. see Simone Giertz on yourtube). Don't underestimate the ability to adapt. Maybe you lost a few points. Maybe not. Maybe you didn't even fully utilize your brain anyway and with a few tricks you easily blow past your capabilities from before covid. Just listen to a few "Huberman Lab" podcasts about cognitive function and the brain. I know worrying can be a vicious cycle. Trying to improve is the best you can do to grab yourself out of it.
  - antisthenes 5y ago
    > There are people with a stroke, removed tumor or other brain injuries who recover (e.g. see Simone Giertz on yourtube). Don't underestimate the ability to adapt. Maybe you lost a few points. Maybe not. Maybe you didn't even fully utilize your brain anyway and with a few tricks you easily blow past your capabilities from before covid. Stuff like this is not helpful. Unless you've personally had brain trauma, you probably don't understand what it's like to live with constant brain fog, and to spend extra time understanding abstract concepts that used to be easy. It adds up and wastes your free time. There are no positives about it. > I know worrying can be a vicious cycle. Trying to improve is the best you can do to grab yourself out of it. On the other hand, this is helpful. Because worrying about something you can't change can only make it worse. What helped me personally is adjusting my expectations (and expectations of others) and just living my life day to day, trying to enjoy it as much as possible.
    - xtracto 5y ago
      I got a microstroke (lacunar TIA) as a result of the Astra Zeneca COVID booster (3rd vaccine I had, two others were pfizer). You are right how people cannot imagine the impact it has on oneself. Headaches, inability to focus, head pressure, anxiety, among other things. The struggle is real, including the fear of getting a full blown stroke at any moment.
    - GordonS 5y ago
      > you probably don't understand what it's like to live with constant brain fog, and to spend extra time understanding abstract concepts that used to be easy. It adds up and wastes your free time. I have CFS, and the brain fog really is absolutely awful. Just around 5 years ago, I was at the top of my game, and could accomplish in one day at work what would take a team of colleagues a week to do. Now... gods, everything just seems to take me forever! I'll think "that'll take me an hour", and I'm still working on it days later. I keep catching myself staring at the screen like I'm in a trance, and yak shaving to avoid more complex tasks. I frequently forget what I was even doing. It's hard to describe, but it's like my thought process has slowed to a crawl - my "inner monologue" remains normal, but everything else is just slow as hell. It's really difficult to focus on tasks. 5 years on, and I still overestimate my abilities; it just feels so alien still. It's pretty much ruined my life, so yeah, don't underestimate brain fog.
- Tao331 5y ago
  Write code and document it with a dumber version of yourself in mind.
- rob74 5y ago
  I got Covid (Delta) in November despite being vaccinated. I guess you can call it a "mild case" - I felt sick for 1-2 days, then weaker than normal for ~ ten days. But I did have complete loss of smell - interestingly enough I could taste food just fine, but I could put my nose (which wasn't clogged up or anything) into a jar of ground coffee and wouldn't be able to smell a thing. No cognitive impairment though. And, if you read the article, it doesn't say anything about "brain damage" either, just "Olfactory Tissue Degeneration and Microvasculopathy" (which could be roughly translated as "nose damage", I guess) - no idea why it was submitted with this title.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- dham 5y ago
  You can't go through life and give up whenever a thing might not go your way. Think about a person who had a chunk of their brain removed, or lost their legs. They could sit down and feel sorry for themselves or push through and make something of it. Also you might be experiencing some kind of medical anxiety due to media constantly bombarding you with Covid side effects 24/7. If they did the same with the Flu you would see they have very similar effects.
- lifeplusplus 5y ago
  Same and I've seen a definite change.. I went from enjoying hands on competitive fps games to just watching dumb comedy and anything more makes me sleepy. I'm going it will get better but if not well people in the future will just pity us ... Had brain fog, lost the "drive", still good at complex problem solving but somehow feel unable to relate to it like part of me gets it and other is completely clueless and too tired to even bother
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  Such a HN take.
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
Caught COVID twice before the vaccines were available. First bout was the first time in my life that I was so physically ill that I barely had the strength to make it to the restroom. Second time is when I partially lost my sense of smell... and honestly, I'd rather go through 10 of the first type than have ever gone through the second. Now, I get to deal with the fun of not being able to taste / smell certain things AT ALL, phantom smells like today when it seems like my office is full of diesel fumes, and heightened tastes of other things due to the muting of some of those tastes. I've finally recovered from the brain fog and the narcolepsy, but I also know that my energy levels will probably never be where they used to be unless I train far harder than I'm willing to given my lifestyle. Oranges? Loved them. Can't stand them. I have zero ability to taste the sweet and sour citrus component. Peppers? Loved them. Can now only tolerate them if they are VERY cooked down and not a main component of a dish. Ground beef? I can tolerate in patty or loaf form. Not ground for some reason. It smells exactly the same going in one end and out the other... like canned dog food. It's terrible. I used to smoke a lot of cigars years ago, and spend my evenings on google hangouts educating people about the industry and the brands and the hobby of collecting them. I brought that level waaaaaaaaay down to maybe one or two a month, smoking them in the evenings to unwind and relax. They no longer bring me joy because I spend my time trying to figure out what I can still taste out of brands that should be relatively consistent. So now it feels like I have this watch spring inside me that is just wound up with no way to release it, and the thing that used to give me peace now just irks my nerves. I've described this to people and they'll say "oh, just do some yoga or meditation or something"... when the entire point of the original exercise was to just sit there, focus on something I enjoyed, and let the world pass by. Ugh. Oh, and the best part? Twice, my kids brought it home from school. "But kids don't die from it, so why vaccinate them?" Because that's why. They're little disease vectors for every other thing on the planet, so what makes anyone think they're immune from this?
- dham 5y ago
  It will get better, I promise you. Have you tried a smell training kit? I'm doing that with an almost meditation, thinking back to childhood and such with each smell. That could be helping along with just time. It's like severing a nerve, eventually it will reconnect (depending on case)
hammock 5y ago
From the conclusion: >The results of this postmortem cohort study demonstrated that COVID-19 infection could cause axon injuries and microvasculopathy in olfactory tissue. Overall, patients with smell alterations had more severe olfactory pathology than those with intact smell. In layman's terms, people who reported loss of smell had damage to the nerves and blood vessels in their nose. That conclusion, and the paper's actual title, is quite a bit more mundane and less alarmist than the submitted title here ("Covid Smell Loss Linked to Damage in Brain").
- exabrial 5y ago
  Since covid, I've been a lot more conscious of when my sense of smell goes away. 1. Allergies 2. 'normal' Colds 3. Day after a stiff manhattan or two Curious if the cause is all the same
  - rhacker 5y ago
    Since there is no money in the other 3 we'll continue forever to believe those are not the same as COVID's pathway. But great comment - you're probably right.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    My sense of smell waxes and wanes ... it doesn't completely go away, does your sense of smell actually go away completely?
    - exabrial 5y ago
      Mine does too. Not in the way it did when I "had covid" though... that was like a blackout. (My covid experience: all I did was lose my smell for 2-3 days. No cough, fever, brain fog, or other issues. Felt fine. Continued to be outdoors, walked/biked the entire week. Avoided anyone/everyone at any visual distance. Positive PCR test.)
    - jdminhbg 5y ago
      I had Covid-related anosmia for a few days, and it was very different from just being stuffed up and unable to smell/taste like with a regular cold. I could stand over e.g. a fire, and instead of smelling smoke, I had a sensation of smelling "nothingness."
taeric 5y ago
Just the other day, I realized I couldn't smell/sense menthol. Was an alarming experience. And, of course, I have still yet to have a positive covid test. :(
- lifeplusplus 5y ago
  I had negative anti-gen tests but still loss of smell, got pcr test at er when results came in few days later it was positive
- tpament 5y ago
  I had that a few of weeks ago from what turned out to be swine flu. I guess that virus is around these days. Loss of taste/smell lasted for a couple of days. Was a head scratcher since I kept testing negative for covid.
  - taeric 5y ago
    Swine flu isn't really something you want to get either, is it?
    - tpament 5y ago
      It actually was worse than covid for me (which I got back in November right after I got my booster), but overall it wasn't that horrible, apart from the temporary loss of smell and taste.
newshorts 5y ago
This title sounds very disconcerting until you realize the “brain damage” is actually damage to the nervous system (located in your nose). I lost my sense of smell years ago from another issue, it’s a minor inconvenience for me now. I say this not to dismiss the dangers but to balance the alarm in this hyperbolic title.
- ctoth 5y ago
  You are the second person in these comments making this same mistake. The olfactory bulb is in the brain. I guess Covid seems less scary if it doesn't damage the brain and so people who might otherwise be okay catching it or whatever might want to push back, but as far as I can tell it actually damages the chunk of goo in your skull that makes you you. Not so great if immunity fades and you're rolling a D20 every time you get infected which more and more seems to be the case.
  - timcavel 5y ago
  - sterlind 5y ago
    it's disconcerting, certainly. but I would be far less worried about localized damage to the olfactory bulb, than I'd be about the amygdala, or some kind of widespread inflammation. this particular chunk of goo doesn't make me me, at least to the degree that others do.
    - somewhereoutth 5y ago
      I suspect it's one of those things 'you didn't realise how good it was until it had gone'.
      - sterlind 5y ago
        oh, I'm sure it is, but I'd much rather lose my sense of smell than my capacity to feel and respond to emotions.
aenis 5y ago
I had a weird one. Got covid and my taste for alcohol got ...corrupted. For the first 200ms of a sip of wine or beer it tasted normally, and then a wave of extremely bitter aftertaste would come and drown all the other tastes. It lasted a few weeks and then it fixed itself in the course of one day. It did coincide with me taking a few zinc pills as someone told me taste anomalies are sometimes caused by zinc deficiencies.
- antisthenes 5y ago
  I think you were just drinking an IPA.
- jbd28 5y ago
  Intranasal zinc has absolutely shown to have a direct correlation on loss of smell: https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/ColdandFluNews/story?id=7853178&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/ColdandFluNews/story?id=78...
- rwoerz 5y ago
  I had a complete loss of my sense of smell, which I first noticed when I put my nose into a bottle of softener and smelled nothing. The first scents like parfume came back after two weeks. Real stench was away for months and came back with parosmia. Sounds not too bad if you can't smell stench but on the other side: making new friends with dogshit under your sole is not easy.
- CSDude 5y ago
  I heard similar from people. I did not get corruption but my sense od smell came back after 4-5 months. In some ways, I miss it, depraved of one of the earthly pleasures :P
exdsq 5y ago
I'm going to put my tin hat on here but if covid-19 was leaked from a Chinese lab due to error or whatever, the reason they're having such strict lockdown measures like in Shanghai make much more sense when you see papers being released regarding damage to the brain than if it was a regular virus leading to a flu - especially in highly vaccinated population centres. Assuming a lab leak they may well be aware of these effects already from previous research and therefore enforce zero-covid to avoid it because it's riskier than we currently understand. This stems from my thoughts that it is fairly likely to be from a lab and that the lockdown measures of physically padlocking buildings to the point vaccinated people are starving in Shanghai for weeks is just incredibly OTT for what the risks are viewed as in the West. And I take the tin hat off :)
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  The brain fog inherent in long covid has been documented for how long now? You don't need to assume a lab leak to conclude that China's desperate lockdowns are intended to curb long-covid and not just deaths.
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    Yeah pretty much. Especially in the US we've oriented mostly in minimizing economic damage. Which is valid I guess, but we also need to acknowledge that other optimizations are possible. Different choices don't need to be based on different information available, just different values and desired/acceptable outcomes.
    - blip54321 5y ago
      We're optimizing to short-term economic damage. I suspect if COVID rolls through a dozen times, and gives just a few percent of the population brain fog on each pass, the long-term economic damage will be astronomical.
      - giraffe_lady 5y ago
        Agreed but I was trying to keep it as neutral as possible in that one. If this is really the mass disabling event I suspect it is, and given the way it has expressed along the lines of inequality that already exist, and how healthcare is tied to employment... and we really only accept "personal responsibility" as the cause of all hardship.... Prob gonna get real eugenicsy over here the next 5-10 years. I pray that I'm wrong I truly do.
toss1 5y ago
No Surprise From studying neuroscience in college, I knew that the olfactory system goes straight into the deep brain as one of the oldest evolutionary neural structures and pathways. It's likely related to how a smell can instantly evoke very deep and old memories more strongly than sight, touch, or hearing. I caught by breath when I first heard that one of the initial signs of COVID-19 is loss of smell. I don't know what's going on in there, but it can not be good - kind of like a code insertion into the deepest kernel layers - it can make an outsized disaster.
caycep 5y ago
Of interest....anosmia is a known prodromal risk factor for Parkinson's disease...whether the similarities are coincidental for 2 different types of brain damage or note remains to be seen I guess.
- sterlind 5y ago
  it's also a prodromal risk for schizophrenia, and occasionally part of seizure auras. I don't think it tells you that much, other than where geographically things start going wrong.
  - caycep 5y ago
    seizure auras are (at least stereotypically) a foul burning/rubbery smell, i.e. dysosmia, and is fairly acute in time course... vs. gradual loss of smell sensation would suggest some neurodegenerative process. Of which one could argue schizophrenia is. And shares some biochemistry w/ Parkinson's. I wouldn't go so far to say there's a link between PD and COVID...but it bears at least keeping an eye on, from an epidemiological standpoint.
lesgobrandon 5y ago
jokowueu 5y ago
What's odd that many people who tried stellate gangelion block found complete relief from smell and taste issues . So this whole "damage" issue might not be the reason for this cause https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34922127/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34922127/
- cactusmatt 5y ago
  This is an interesting article. I'm going to ask my doctor about it. I had Covid in early November, 2021, and still experience some of the symptoms others have mentioned in this thread (80 percent smell back, some foods taste different, and some smells are different than pre-covid; for example, coffee smells like warm cheese to me now). My concern is sample size of two patients for the article. Still, if it's a common procedure with low risk, it sounds interesting enough to look into.
  - jokowueu 5y ago
    You can find many news articles as well that go into this as well https://www.newsweek.com/woman-covid-symptom-food-taste-awful-shares-potential-cure-1696187 https://www.newsweek.com/woman-covid-symptom-food-taste-awfu... Shop around for docs that do this because some charge quite a bit while other provide a good price
taurusnoises 5y ago
> the olfactory pathology did not result from direct viral injury and may be associated with local inflammation This seems important. Is it safe to say that inflammation (and especially excessive inflammation) is the culprit, (maybe even in general), and not that covid is particularly partial to olfactory region?
kup0 5y ago
I am quite certain since having COVID my sense of smell has never been the same. It has fully returned in terms of sensitivity (things don't smell weak or undetectable). But certain things just don't smell or taste the same anymore.

172 points by ilovecaching 5y ago

I've been really worried about whether COVID has affected my brain. I had very mild loss of smell and flu like symptoms (I contracted COVID before the vaccine was available). I also had what felt like brain fog as well afterwards. I'm fine now, but I often spend time worrying about whether I've had a drop in cognitive functions post-COVID. I hate that it's impossible to really gauge how it affected my brain. My brain is my most important work asset (I'm a SWE) and I hate the idea of losing a few IQ points to COVID that could diminish my ability to create.

hammock 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bluSCALE4 5y ago
  Lol, realized your first comment was rude eh? (He originally asked how brain fog related to the article)
- etherael 5y ago
  Why? They said they already had it which means they'd now have natural immunity. What would be the point of getting a vaccine for something you're already immune to? Am I missing something here?
  - hammock 5y ago
    We aren't sure how long natural immunity lasts for.
    - mzvkxlcvd 5y ago
      well the amazing vaccine at best works for 4 months, if that. considering i've recently had covid with minimal issue, i'll take my chances with natural immunity.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Immunity is not a binary condition. It's not as if immunity, whether produced by vaccination or recovery from infection, lasts a certain period and then stops. While I would encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated, all the scientific evidence we have from similar viruses indicates that recovery from infection produces a significant level of cellular immunity lasting as long as the patient's immune system remains basically healthy. Concerns about waning immunity were mainly based on antibody levels, but of course those aren't very important. https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/ https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/
    - kbelder 5y ago
      It may be short term, but it's probably as long or longer than the immunity from the vaccine. That's an argument for scheduling repeat vaccinations... but it needs to be looked at in the context of a lifetime. A recurring shot every year or few years may be feasible. Every three months is not.
  - memish 5y ago
    - TAKEMYMONEY 5y ago
      That's why Big Pharma still forces us to get a Chicken Pox vaccine every year! Oh wait, they don't? You can still get infected with SARS-CoV-2 even if you have before, and you should still be vaccinated. https://www.science.org/content/article/more-people-are-getting-covid-19-twice-suggesting-immunity-wanes-quickly-some https://www.science.org/content/article/more-people-are-gett...
      - memish 5y ago
        If you're old or obese, yes. If you're young and healthy, no. As for Big Pharma, it's strange so many people are defending an industry well known for committing crimes against humanity. In recent history. The opioid crisis is still playing out, for one.
        TAKEMYMONEY 5y ago
        > If you're young and healthy, no. ...unless you have concern for spreading disease. Some only think of themselves. > it's strange so many people are defending an industry That is strange, who are these people defending the industry at large? I'm recommending getting vaccinated against diseases, not the Sackler family. This is a comment thread about COVID.
        memish 5y ago
        You're right, that's veering off topic. Back to Covid. The vaccine doesn't stop spread. We've known this for a long time now, but here's a fresh example just last weekend: Seventy-two people have tested positive for Covid-19 after having attended the Gridiron Dinner in Washington last weekend, including members of the Biden administration and reporters. Gridiron Club President Tom DeFrank said Sunday that the group had reported 72 cases out of the hundreds of people who attended. New York Mayor Eric Adams, who was also at the dinner, tested positive Sunday. It was the first Gridiron Dinner since 2019, before the pandemic, and guests were required to show proof of vaccination, DeFrank said. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/67-attendees-test-positive-covid-high-profile-dc-dinner-rcna23763 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/67-attendees-...
  - nimih 5y ago
    > What would be the point of getting a vaccine for something you're already immune to? The immunity can wane and the virus can mutate[0]. Same reason you would get a shingles vaccine or a yearly flu shot. [0] Admittedly, this isn't relevant to COVID-19 yet as the vaccine hasn't been updated AFAIK, but it's probably useful to keep in mind going forward when evaluating your own personal situation/risk, and when trying to understand public policy decisions.
    - etherael 5y ago
      I can understand if it mutates to the point of circumventing the original immunity and there's a new vaccine variant to address that specific mutation but as you yourself point out, that doesn't apply here, so I don't get it?
    - nradov 5y ago
      That is misinformation. While there can be benefits to vaccination after infection, recovery from infection does produce durable cellular immunity in the vast majority of patients. Antibody levels always wane over time, but there's more to immunity than antibodies. https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/ https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/ I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but the reasons to get a COVID-19 vaccine have really nothing to do with the reasons to get a shingles vaccine. Shingles is caused by the varicella herpesvirus which remains dormant in the body even after the acute infection has cleared. That virus works in a completely different way than SARS-CoV-2.
      - nimih 5y ago
        Given that I don't know anything about how antibodies and T-cells and all that jazz work and I don't plan on listening to a 2:40hr podcast to learn what some dude on the internet thinks about it, all I can say is that there appears to be research demonstrating that the COVID-19 vaccine has real benefit to people who already contracted the actual virus[0], which make's my government's advice that folks in that situation still get vaccinated[1] seem pretty reasonable. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm7032e1_e&ACSTrackingID=USCDC_921-DM63289&ACSTrackingLabel=MMWR%20Early%20Release%20-%20Vol.%2070%2C%20August%206%2C%202021&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM63289 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm... [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html
  - wccrawford 5y ago
    I read a study the other day that showed that the third best thing for Covid protection is vaccination. The second best is having had it already. And the best was both. Even if you've already had it, getting the vaccine as well drastically reduces your chances of being serious ill with Covid. And it's free, so why not get that extra protection?
- mzvkxlcvd 5y ago
  i'm not convinced. my whole family got it a couple weeks ago. me and my kids are all unvaccinated, we had very mild cases. my wife was vaccinated and was basically bedridden for 2 weeks.
  - karlshea 5y ago
    Consider that your wife may have died instead, and you and your kids happen to be in the 80% that it barely touches. It’s actually wild to me at this point given the extremely clear data readily available that you are still “not convinced” though. Amazing!
    - nradov 5y ago
      While I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated, deaths in that age range are extremely rare. The CDC estimated the overall infection fatality rate for people in the 18-49 age group at 0.08%. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
      - brimble 5y ago
        Hospitalization rate's somewhat higher, and last I checked vaccine drops that to like 10% the unvaccinated rate. That's not death, but being hospitalized isn't exactly fun, and can be damn expensive. Agreed that risk of death, even unvaccinated, is pretty low if you aren't fairly old and don't have significant other factors that put you at higher risk.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- xtracto 5y ago
  I'm just going to add some anecdata for people to weight when they are taking this decision: The covid AZ booster gave me an ischemic stroke (Lacunar TIA, detected by MRI, confirmed by my Neurologist). My GP got only one Pfizer vaccine and got myocarditis. She decided not to get any subsequent vaccines. There's plenty of anecdata cases of people having bad significant reactions to the vaccines all over the internet. As they say, the probabilities are low, but if you happen to be like me, who believed in the statistics and get shafted... well probabilities are meaningless to me now.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    > The covid AZ booster gave me an ischemic stroke How did you draw a causal link between the two? Anything other than post hoc? > My GP got only one Pfizer vaccine and got myocarditis. She decided not to get any subsequent vaccines. Another post hoc? There have been actual studies we can look at, rather than making decisions based on what randos on the Internet claim to be true.
    - xtracto 5y ago
      I did not draw anything. My vascular Neurologist gave me the diagnostic after looking at my MRI, A LOT of tests, including blood, ecocardiograms (form outside and inside my body), ecographies and more. You are completely right, I don't care about what a random "rootusrootus" user in the internet says, I trust my Vascular Neurologist and his diagnostic after actually reviewing my case. Now I am taking baby aspirin for the time being until I can see how my case progresses. If I cared, I could offer to share my Neurologist contact info. But I really don't.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        I wasn't making a claim. Just curious if you had something other than ideology to back up a bold claim. Clearly not. You ought not to spread misinformation, but I can hardly stop you. The fact that you claim to have two separate antivax doctors is enlightening enough by itself.
JTon 5y ago
I'd try to frame the experience as a sunk cost (i.e. cannot be changed) and try not to quantify it. Instead focus your energy on developing your skills and keeping yourself healthy going forward. Easier said than done of course.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Yeah exactly. This is your life now, and worrying about any possible impact it had isn't going to change anything about the impact and how it affects you now. All you can do is move on the best you can.
  - mrtesthah 5y ago
    It might be worth understanding the mechanism of damage in order to self-attempt reparative therapies (however theoretical or experimental). For example: Dr. Terry Wahls‘ Anti-MS diet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc&feature=emb_titl... Or BDNF-boosting strategies. Or strategies such as IF to tamp down overactive microglial cells that afflict nearby neurons with inflammation. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.26984 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.26984 https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-2094-11-85 https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...
    - avgcorrection 5y ago
      Why anti-MS diet?
      - mrtesthah 5y ago
        While it seems rare for covid to cause MS itself, there might be a link between neuroinflammation and demyelinating damage. https://www.msard-journal.com/article/S2211-0348(20)30400-4/fulltext https://www.msard-journal.com/article/S2211-0348(20)30400-4/...
sod 5y ago
There are people with a stroke, removed tumor or other brain injuries who recover (e.g. see Simone Giertz on yourtube). Don't underestimate the ability to adapt. Maybe you lost a few points. Maybe not. Maybe you didn't even fully utilize your brain anyway and with a few tricks you easily blow past your capabilities from before covid. Just listen to a few "Huberman Lab" podcasts about cognitive function and the brain. I know worrying can be a vicious cycle. Trying to improve is the best you can do to grab yourself out of it.
- antisthenes 5y ago
  > There are people with a stroke, removed tumor or other brain injuries who recover (e.g. see Simone Giertz on yourtube). Don't underestimate the ability to adapt. Maybe you lost a few points. Maybe not. Maybe you didn't even fully utilize your brain anyway and with a few tricks you easily blow past your capabilities from before covid. Stuff like this is not helpful. Unless you've personally had brain trauma, you probably don't understand what it's like to live with constant brain fog, and to spend extra time understanding abstract concepts that used to be easy. It adds up and wastes your free time. There are no positives about it. > I know worrying can be a vicious cycle. Trying to improve is the best you can do to grab yourself out of it. On the other hand, this is helpful. Because worrying about something you can't change can only make it worse. What helped me personally is adjusting my expectations (and expectations of others) and just living my life day to day, trying to enjoy it as much as possible.
  - xtracto 5y ago
    I got a microstroke (lacunar TIA) as a result of the Astra Zeneca COVID booster (3rd vaccine I had, two others were pfizer). You are right how people cannot imagine the impact it has on oneself. Headaches, inability to focus, head pressure, anxiety, among other things. The struggle is real, including the fear of getting a full blown stroke at any moment.
  - GordonS 5y ago
    > you probably don't understand what it's like to live with constant brain fog, and to spend extra time understanding abstract concepts that used to be easy. It adds up and wastes your free time. I have CFS, and the brain fog really is absolutely awful. Just around 5 years ago, I was at the top of my game, and could accomplish in one day at work what would take a team of colleagues a week to do. Now... gods, everything just seems to take me forever! I'll think "that'll take me an hour", and I'm still working on it days later. I keep catching myself staring at the screen like I'm in a trance, and yak shaving to avoid more complex tasks. I frequently forget what I was even doing. It's hard to describe, but it's like my thought process has slowed to a crawl - my "inner monologue" remains normal, but everything else is just slow as hell. It's really difficult to focus on tasks. 5 years on, and I still overestimate my abilities; it just feels so alien still. It's pretty much ruined my life, so yeah, don't underestimate brain fog.
Tao331 5y ago
Write code and document it with a dumber version of yourself in mind.
rob74 5y ago
I got Covid (Delta) in November despite being vaccinated. I guess you can call it a "mild case" - I felt sick for 1-2 days, then weaker than normal for ~ ten days. But I did have complete loss of smell - interestingly enough I could taste food just fine, but I could put my nose (which wasn't clogged up or anything) into a jar of ground coffee and wouldn't be able to smell a thing. No cognitive impairment though. And, if you read the article, it doesn't say anything about "brain damage" either, just "Olfactory Tissue Degeneration and Microvasculopathy" (which could be roughly translated as "nose damage", I guess) - no idea why it was submitted with this title.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dham 5y ago
You can't go through life and give up whenever a thing might not go your way. Think about a person who had a chunk of their brain removed, or lost their legs. They could sit down and feel sorry for themselves or push through and make something of it. Also you might be experiencing some kind of medical anxiety due to media constantly bombarding you with Covid side effects 24/7. If they did the same with the Flu you would see they have very similar effects.
lifeplusplus 5y ago
Same and I've seen a definite change.. I went from enjoying hands on competitive fps games to just watching dumb comedy and anything more makes me sleepy. I'm going it will get better but if not well people in the future will just pity us ... Had brain fog, lost the "drive", still good at complex problem solving but somehow feel unable to relate to it like part of me gets it and other is completely clueless and too tired to even bother
avgcorrection 5y ago
Such a HN take.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago

Caught COVID twice before the vaccines were available. First bout was the first time in my life that I was so physically ill that I barely had the strength to make it to the restroom. Second time is when I partially lost my sense of smell... and honestly, I'd rather go through 10 of the first type than have ever gone through the second. Now, I get to deal with the fun of not being able to taste / smell certain things AT ALL, phantom smells like today when it seems like my office is full of diesel fumes, and heightened tastes of other things due to the muting of some of those tastes. I've finally recovered from the brain fog and the narcolepsy, but I also know that my energy levels will probably never be where they used to be unless I train far harder than I'm willing to given my lifestyle. Oranges? Loved them. Can't stand them. I have zero ability to taste the sweet and sour citrus component. Peppers? Loved them. Can now only tolerate them if they are VERY cooked down and not a main component of a dish. Ground beef? I can tolerate in patty or loaf form. Not ground for some reason. It smells exactly the same going in one end and out the other... like canned dog food. It's terrible. I used to smoke a lot of cigars years ago, and spend my evenings on google hangouts educating people about the industry and the brands and the hobby of collecting them. I brought that level waaaaaaaaay down to maybe one or two a month, smoking them in the evenings to unwind and relax. They no longer bring me joy because I spend my time trying to figure out what I can still taste out of brands that should be relatively consistent. So now it feels like I have this watch spring inside me that is just wound up with no way to release it, and the thing that used to give me peace now just irks my nerves. I've described this to people and they'll say "oh, just do some yoga or meditation or something"... when the entire point of the original exercise was to just sit there, focus on something I enjoyed, and let the world pass by. Ugh. Oh, and the best part? Twice, my kids brought it home from school. "But kids don't die from it, so why vaccinate them?" Because that's why. They're little disease vectors for every other thing on the planet, so what makes anyone think they're immune from this?

dham 5y ago
It will get better, I promise you. Have you tried a smell training kit? I'm doing that with an almost meditation, thinking back to childhood and such with each smell. That could be helping along with just time. It's like severing a nerve, eventually it will reconnect (depending on case)

hammock 5y ago

From the conclusion: >The results of this postmortem cohort study demonstrated that COVID-19 infection could cause axon injuries and microvasculopathy in olfactory tissue. Overall, patients with smell alterations had more severe olfactory pathology than those with intact smell. In layman's terms, people who reported loss of smell had damage to the nerves and blood vessels in their nose. That conclusion, and the paper's actual title, is quite a bit more mundane and less alarmist than the submitted title here ("Covid Smell Loss Linked to Damage in Brain").

exabrial 5y ago
Since covid, I've been a lot more conscious of when my sense of smell goes away. 1. Allergies 2. 'normal' Colds 3. Day after a stiff manhattan or two Curious if the cause is all the same
- rhacker 5y ago
  Since there is no money in the other 3 we'll continue forever to believe those are not the same as COVID's pathway. But great comment - you're probably right.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  My sense of smell waxes and wanes ... it doesn't completely go away, does your sense of smell actually go away completely?
  - exabrial 5y ago
    Mine does too. Not in the way it did when I "had covid" though... that was like a blackout. (My covid experience: all I did was lose my smell for 2-3 days. No cough, fever, brain fog, or other issues. Felt fine. Continued to be outdoors, walked/biked the entire week. Avoided anyone/everyone at any visual distance. Positive PCR test.)
  - jdminhbg 5y ago
    I had Covid-related anosmia for a few days, and it was very different from just being stuffed up and unable to smell/taste like with a regular cold. I could stand over e.g. a fire, and instead of smelling smoke, I had a sensation of smelling "nothingness."

taeric 5y ago

Just the other day, I realized I couldn't smell/sense menthol. Was an alarming experience. And, of course, I have still yet to have a positive covid test. :(

lifeplusplus 5y ago
I had negative anti-gen tests but still loss of smell, got pcr test at er when results came in few days later it was positive
tpament 5y ago
I had that a few of weeks ago from what turned out to be swine flu. I guess that virus is around these days. Loss of taste/smell lasted for a couple of days. Was a head scratcher since I kept testing negative for covid.
- taeric 5y ago
  Swine flu isn't really something you want to get either, is it?
  - tpament 5y ago
    It actually was worse than covid for me (which I got back in November right after I got my booster), but overall it wasn't that horrible, apart from the temporary loss of smell and taste.

newshorts 5y ago

This title sounds very disconcerting until you realize the “brain damage” is actually damage to the nervous system (located in your nose). I lost my sense of smell years ago from another issue, it’s a minor inconvenience for me now. I say this not to dismiss the dangers but to balance the alarm in this hyperbolic title.

ctoth 5y ago
You are the second person in these comments making this same mistake. The olfactory bulb is in the brain. I guess Covid seems less scary if it doesn't damage the brain and so people who might otherwise be okay catching it or whatever might want to push back, but as far as I can tell it actually damages the chunk of goo in your skull that makes you you. Not so great if immunity fades and you're rolling a D20 every time you get infected which more and more seems to be the case.
- timcavel 5y ago
- sterlind 5y ago
  it's disconcerting, certainly. but I would be far less worried about localized damage to the olfactory bulb, than I'd be about the amygdala, or some kind of widespread inflammation. this particular chunk of goo doesn't make me me, at least to the degree that others do.
  - somewhereoutth 5y ago
    I suspect it's one of those things 'you didn't realise how good it was until it had gone'.
    - sterlind 5y ago
      oh, I'm sure it is, but I'd much rather lose my sense of smell than my capacity to feel and respond to emotions.

aenis 5y ago

I had a weird one. Got covid and my taste for alcohol got ...corrupted. For the first 200ms of a sip of wine or beer it tasted normally, and then a wave of extremely bitter aftertaste would come and drown all the other tastes. It lasted a few weeks and then it fixed itself in the course of one day. It did coincide with me taking a few zinc pills as someone told me taste anomalies are sometimes caused by zinc deficiencies.

antisthenes 5y ago
I think you were just drinking an IPA.
jbd28 5y ago
Intranasal zinc has absolutely shown to have a direct correlation on loss of smell: https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/ColdandFluNews/story?id=7853178&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/ColdandFluNews/story?id=78...
rwoerz 5y ago
I had a complete loss of my sense of smell, which I first noticed when I put my nose into a bottle of softener and smelled nothing. The first scents like parfume came back after two weeks. Real stench was away for months and came back with parosmia. Sounds not too bad if you can't smell stench but on the other side: making new friends with dogshit under your sole is not easy.
CSDude 5y ago
I heard similar from people. I did not get corruption but my sense od smell came back after 4-5 months. In some ways, I miss it, depraved of one of the earthly pleasures :P

exdsq 5y ago

I'm going to put my tin hat on here but if covid-19 was leaked from a Chinese lab due to error or whatever, the reason they're having such strict lockdown measures like in Shanghai make much more sense when you see papers being released regarding damage to the brain than if it was a regular virus leading to a flu - especially in highly vaccinated population centres. Assuming a lab leak they may well be aware of these effects already from previous research and therefore enforce zero-covid to avoid it because it's riskier than we currently understand. This stems from my thoughts that it is fairly likely to be from a lab and that the lockdown measures of physically padlocking buildings to the point vaccinated people are starving in Shanghai for weeks is just incredibly OTT for what the risks are viewed as in the West. And I take the tin hat off :)

phendrenad2 5y ago
The brain fog inherent in long covid has been documented for how long now? You don't need to assume a lab leak to conclude that China's desperate lockdowns are intended to curb long-covid and not just deaths.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  Yeah pretty much. Especially in the US we've oriented mostly in minimizing economic damage. Which is valid I guess, but we also need to acknowledge that other optimizations are possible. Different choices don't need to be based on different information available, just different values and desired/acceptable outcomes.
  - blip54321 5y ago
    We're optimizing to short-term economic damage. I suspect if COVID rolls through a dozen times, and gives just a few percent of the population brain fog on each pass, the long-term economic damage will be astronomical.
    - giraffe_lady 5y ago
      Agreed but I was trying to keep it as neutral as possible in that one. If this is really the mass disabling event I suspect it is, and given the way it has expressed along the lines of inequality that already exist, and how healthcare is tied to employment... and we really only accept "personal responsibility" as the cause of all hardship.... Prob gonna get real eugenicsy over here the next 5-10 years. I pray that I'm wrong I truly do.

toss1 5y ago

No Surprise From studying neuroscience in college, I knew that the olfactory system goes straight into the deep brain as one of the oldest evolutionary neural structures and pathways. It's likely related to how a smell can instantly evoke very deep and old memories more strongly than sight, touch, or hearing. I caught by breath when I first heard that one of the initial signs of COVID-19 is loss of smell. I don't know what's going on in there, but it can not be good - kind of like a code insertion into the deepest kernel layers - it can make an outsized disaster.

caycep 5y ago

Of interest....anosmia is a known prodromal risk factor for Parkinson's disease...whether the similarities are coincidental for 2 different types of brain damage or note remains to be seen I guess.

sterlind 5y ago
it's also a prodromal risk for schizophrenia, and occasionally part of seizure auras. I don't think it tells you that much, other than where geographically things start going wrong.
- caycep 5y ago
  seizure auras are (at least stereotypically) a foul burning/rubbery smell, i.e. dysosmia, and is fairly acute in time course... vs. gradual loss of smell sensation would suggest some neurodegenerative process. Of which one could argue schizophrenia is. And shares some biochemistry w/ Parkinson's. I wouldn't go so far to say there's a link between PD and COVID...but it bears at least keeping an eye on, from an epidemiological standpoint.

lesgobrandon 5y ago

jokowueu 5y ago

What's odd that many people who tried stellate gangelion block found complete relief from smell and taste issues . So this whole "damage" issue might not be the reason for this cause https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34922127/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34922127/

cactusmatt 5y ago
This is an interesting article. I'm going to ask my doctor about it. I had Covid in early November, 2021, and still experience some of the symptoms others have mentioned in this thread (80 percent smell back, some foods taste different, and some smells are different than pre-covid; for example, coffee smells like warm cheese to me now). My concern is sample size of two patients for the article. Still, if it's a common procedure with low risk, it sounds interesting enough to look into.
- jokowueu 5y ago
  You can find many news articles as well that go into this as well https://www.newsweek.com/woman-covid-symptom-food-taste-awful-shares-potential-cure-1696187 https://www.newsweek.com/woman-covid-symptom-food-taste-awfu... Shop around for docs that do this because some charge quite a bit while other provide a good price

taurusnoises 5y ago

> the olfactory pathology did not result from direct viral injury and may be associated with local inflammation This seems important. Is it safe to say that inflammation (and especially excessive inflammation) is the culprit, (maybe even in general), and not that covid is particularly partial to olfactory region?

kup0 5y ago

I am quite certain since having COVID my sense of smell has never been the same. It has fully returned in terms of sensitivity (things don't smell weak or undetectable). But certain things just don't smell or taste the same anymore.