Darn Coved Effects...

I had a bout of covid awhile back. Recovered well but had some lingering effects with my smeller. Scents weren't the same. Some of my former favorites were just not pleasant, if not downright awful. Some time passed and things got better, or so I thought.

Fast forward to the past couple of weeks and I tried some of my formerly well liked soaps/creams/aftershaves and guess what? Still not good. Scents/aromas are just different and not necessarily in a good way. And it's not just shave related items either. Food stuffs, outdoors, you name it.

On the other hand, some shave related items still are agreeable and will be used while some of the formerly favored items will go back on the shelf for a bit and will be tried again down the road.

This sucks!

It truly does suck. My turn in the barrel was late June to early July. Sense of smell is OK but still have a I slightly metallic taste in my mouth and occasional hoarseness. Hopefully this all passes in a few weeks. Best wishes for fun and health! And… great shaves. ?

In mid-2019 a virus took both my smell and taste. After 3 months, I saw an ENT Specialist Doctor. He confirmed my total "anosmia" was indeed due to a virus. He said to give it 6 months to a year. It takes a long time from "zero smell/taste", to regaining 100%. A after 12 months it may be permanent. After 6 months I was regaining both smell and taste, but with issues...coffee, coke, strawberries, peppermint and chocolate all tasted different. Coffee smelled like burnt toast. It took 1 year to regain about 85% of both smell and taste. Coffee, peppermint and coke are still a little off, but are identifiable. I can smell most of my soaps and fragrances, but none of them are as strong as they once were. To help regain my senses, I purchased 6 essential oils, such as jasmine, rose, orange, cloves, lemon and lavender. I smelled each of them every day to help "re-boot" my sense of smell, and it really did help. I am a coffee snob, super foodie, wine aficionado, and shaving/fragrances are my hobby. Having anosmia was the loss of everything that brought pleasure to my life, and I do not wish it on anyone. There are 2 things that affect too many people, for which medicine has no cures, and unfortunately are doing little to no research to help us: Anosmia and Eye Floaters. I have said that if Bill Gates or Warren Buffett were to get bad cases of either, they might pour a ton of money into research and cures. Both are tough to live with, and I hope that someday they can be cured.

The condition you have is called Anosmia and C19 does cause it in some cases
depending on what variant is floating around....anecdotal accounts suggest
the new ones don't seem to affect smell and taste.

Get yourself some Alpha Lipoic Acid...take 600mg once a day...many have reported
it takes care of the problem.

Check out the findings here....quite encouraging...better than just accepting it and doing nothing.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12439184/

Interesting study, thanks for that.  I'll look into it more deeply.

Yes, the effects can linger. I had it in Feb' 2020 and it took me a loooong time to get my blood 02 back where it was pre-covid (97-98%). A friend still hasn't gotten her sense of taste back fully and like you favorite foods taste horrible. My symptoms were different, but I had a strain that no one admits was here at all, except the CDC announced my symptoms on TV to a T in late April.

the worst issue I had with my bout of covid in April of 2022 was that it gave me shingles on my head.

I lost my smell and taste for 2-3 days but it all came back fine within a few days without any lingering issues that I notice...

I think a local hospital/university here in Philadelphia is working on a treatment for those who have severe issue with taste and smell after getting covid:

https://www.jeffersonhealth.org/about-us...mell-taste

Thanks for the link to the medical study on Philadelphia. I plan to follow their progress. I hope they have continued success and can get the anosmia treatment approved. The cost is high, but people with anosmia that can afford it will most likely go for it. During the months I could not smell or taste anything, I would gladly have paid for the treatments.

the worst issue I had with my bout of covid in April of 2022 was that it gave me shingles on my head.

I lost my smell and taste for 2-3 days but it all came back fine within a few days without any lingering issues that I notice...

I think a local hospital/university here in Philadelphia is working on a treatment for those who have severe issue with taste and smell after getting covid:

https://www.jeffersonhealth.org/about-us...mell-taste

andrew18, I haven't had covid, but I had shingles on my forehead. I remember your earlier posts when it first bloomed. 

No problem with your eyes ? The nerve root shingles follows from the forehead goes around, or over the eyebrow, around the temple. I have chronic dry eye in my left eye now, which I never had before. I thank God that I had gotten the shingles vax in 2013, so that when I actually came down with it in 2021 it wasn't as bad as it would have been. Bad enough though.

The doctors told me it follows whichever nerve root it begins with, had it been on my nose to start it would have went into the eye. (shudder)

Since then I've gotten the two dose new shingles vax. Not cheap but supposedly 90% effective in preventing a recurrence.

Usually shingles are not a Covid effect but a side effect of something interfering with the immunity. I am sure that you can easily figure out what is this something that you didn't have before 2021 and that I am not allowed to mention. My mother has now many patients with the same immunity issues, all of them officially listed as side effects of .... The very best treatment for everything mentioned above for her and for many other independent physicians is intermittent fasting to restart the immunity, Ivermectin (if you can't get black seeds oil works too), n'acetyl cysteine, Zink. In some countries now the intermittent fasting is part of the national health policies. I hope you guys recover fast.
https://thevigilantfox.substack.com/p/ca...ling?sd=pf