3 ms·
Complete anosmia with cold/flu/sinus infection is rare. Typically you can't smell anything because your nasal passages and olfactory bulb are fully occluded by
by ink_13 3y ago
Complete anosmia with cold/flu/sinus infection is rare. Typically you can't smell anything because your nasal passages and olfactory bulb are fully occluded by excess mucus. The loss of smell is physical. If you blow your nose you can usually still smell a bit.
With COVID the loss of smell was fully neurological. It's like...a null vs. a 0. And it persisted in some cases, to the point that some Long COVID cases had to retrain their palates to fully taste food (e.g. overcoming aversion to alliums). That was the novelty.
- FollowingTheDao 3y agoIt was not fully neurological in Covid. It affected the cells around the olfactory nerves. Nothing more. https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2022/02/14/losing-the-sense-of-smell-how-covid-19-infection-induces-long-lasting-symptoms/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2022/02/14/los...
- giraffe_lady 3y agoWhat kind of cell are olfactory receptors?
- jph00 3y agoI don't think "nothing more" is the right conclusion here. From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8658706/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8658706/: "Long COVID-19 anosmia fatigue could result from damage to olfactory sensory neurons, leading to an augmentation in the resistance to cerebrospinal fluid outflow by the cribriform plate, and further causing congestion of the glymphatic system with subsequent toxic build-up in the brain... SARS-CoV-2 can either travel via peripheral blood vessels causing endothelial dysfunction, triggering coagulation cascade and multiple organ dysfunction, or reach the systemic circulation and take a different route to the blood–brain barrier, damaging the blood–brain barrier and leading to neuroinflammation and neuronal excitotoxicity."
- jnwatson 3y agoI completely lost my sense of smell in April from a regular cold. It is back now perhaps 25%. The ENT says it does happen, and come back in 6 months to get a brain scan if it doesn’t.
- lamontcg 3y agoAsk your ENT how often they saw that in their practice before COVID compared to after. There's no symptom of COVID that can't be caused by a more common respiratory virus, but the frequency and severity of COVID symptoms is much higher.