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Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

wsj.com

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Re: Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

#161

Post by C1sc0cat »

H8crilA wrote: post #37

Losing your sense of smell, while painful, is nothing compared to what other things can happen to the surviors. 50% of ICU patients have clotting problems. In fact it's so common that all covid patients are now put on anti-clotting medication, immediately, no questions asked. Would you mind losing your leg (getting that clot stuck in lower limbs)? Or getting a stroke (getting that clot in your brain), and losing a si…

From uk experience if you go into ICU or any high risk ward they tend to put you in the inflatable leg splints.

Serous kidney problems are no joke and you might well end up with chronic kidney failure - so you will be on the pathway to dialysis and transplant in the future.

Re: Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

#162

Post by gnulinux »

jpxw wrote: post #98
protomyth wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a few people that really have an adverse reaction to oatmeal. The texture makes them nauseous.

This is likely because the consistency is somewhat like the consistency of vomit. I like oatmeal (or porridge as it’s called here), but I can understand why people wouldn’t.

I love the taste of oatmeal in milk but can't stand the texture. The way I eat is very slowly with a small spoon. Since COVID, I've been eating milk+oatmeal every day (powder milk and oatmeal have almost infinite life) so I definitely got better at eating it. But I still can't stand putting a big spoonful of it in my mouth, even though I love the taste and smell!

Re: Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

#163

Post by kaybe »

kokey wrote: post #119
kibwen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, my partner is also extremely texture-sensitive and has not been able to stand eating eggs or meat for as long as they can remember, but can definitely sense smell and taste. I wonder if there's some interesting connection there.

This type of texture aversion is not uncommon with people who have sensory processing or autism spectrum disorder and there's a lot of people who don't fall within those groups but have some of those traits in the same way. Aversion to the texture of meat, mushrooms and tomatoes are quite common. Sometimes this goes along with pica, which is the tendency to want to eat things that others consider not edible like card…

Let me tell you about the horror that is vanilla pudding with vanilla ice cream. The textures clash in a way that is just.. terrible. But also kind of interesting.

Re: Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

#164

Post by vonmoltke »

Lewton wrote: post #153
irq11 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers I cited from the CDC for Covid are symptomatic fatality rates. You can work out an asymptomatic rate by using their estimated percentage of asymptomatic infections, if you like. > Where are you getting the numbers for flu? As far as I'm aware the best guess for flu IFR is 0.04% compared to COVID-19s 0.4% IFR Any number of different sources; 0.1% is the generally accepted estimate of overall IFR for influe…

> The numbers I cited from the CDC for Covid are symptomatic fatality rates. I guess the CDC are using symptomatic case fatality to mean the IFR then? Or else it doesn't make any sense. > Any number of different sources; 0.1% is the generally accepted estimate of overall IFR for influenza in an average year. Here’s an article that tries to be as fatalistic as possible, which still cites an overall IFR for flu of 0.1%…

According to their numbers, less than half the "symptomatic cases" resulted in a medical visit. Based on information from their FAQ[1], it seems that column represents the total number of people the CDC estimates got the flu that year:

> How many people get sick with flu every year?

> CDC conducts surveillance for people who see their health care provider for flu-like illness through the Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network (ILINet); a network of thousands of health care providers who report the proportion of patients seeking care for flu-like illness weekly to CDC. This system allows CDC to track levels of medically attended flu-like illness over the course of the flu season. CDC does not know exactly how many people get sick with seasonal flu each year. There are several reasons for this including that ILINet does not include every health care provider and monitors flu-like illness, not laboratory-confirmed influenza cases. Also, flu illness is not a reportable disease and not everyone who gets sick with flu seeks medical care or gets tested.

> CDC uses mathematical modeling in combination with data from traditional flu surveillance systems to estimate the numbers of flu illnesses in the United States. CDC estimates that flu has resulted in between 9.3 million and 49 million illnesses each year in the United States since 2010. For more information on these estimates see CDC’s Disease Burden of Influenza page. For more information on CDC surveillance systems, see CDC’s Overview of Influenza Surviellance in the United States.

The way I read that, from the CDC's POV if you aren't symptomatic you didn't get the flu. Similarly, if you are symptomatic it doesn't necessarily mean you did get the flu.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/faq.htm

Re: Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

#165

Post by henearkr »

narengowda16 wrote: post #68
ceedan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago, I also lost my sense of taste for a few days (toothpaste burned my tongue)... I would also describe it as terrifying and immediately depressing. The next day I had pizza and cake with tons of frosting, but everything tasted like soap. I was really concerned that the damage to my taste was permanent. I was in disbelief for a few days. As I ate my regular meals, I just reminded myself that they were things I…

"perfect sense" is a movie about a virus attack, where people starts to loose all 6 senses gradually. Must watch!! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1439572/ I remembered this movie because, when people losses their sense of taste, the hotels re-invent it's business model by serving food with different textures!!

Wow, that's a movie right for the current situation. I know this isn't actually related, but a virus causing loss of smell and irresistible anger, with scenes of rioting...

PS: don't get me wrong, this is just in the film. I know that the anger in US is caused by police's wrongdoings.

Re: Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

#166

Post by zuppy »

sparkywolf wrote: post #132
disillusioned wrote: post #93

I had Covid-19 (confirmed antibodies test, wife had confirmed PCR) in early March. Lost my sense of smell and taste _completely_, almost immediately. I've lost some smell before with bad allergies or a congested nose. This was otherworldly: no smell, at all. Not solvents. Not strong fragrances. Nothing. And this, with a perfectly clear nose. It freaked me out. It lasted for about 2.5 weeks. Around week 3, it started…

For a medical reason not related to Covid in any way, I've lived my entire life not being able to smell anything, whatsoever. I'm getting a surgery in two days that should give me a sense of smell. While I'm over the moon excited to be able to smell... I didn't even think about how it would affect taste...

As far as I know, the smell has a bigger impact on tasting foods than taste itself, you’re going to have a big surprise.

Re: Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

#167

Post by m0xte »

rightbyte wrote: post #141
m0xte wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Recovered approx 6 weeks ago and coffee only just tastes reasonable again. My eating habits have changed in the recovery time. Probably for the better!

How bad was the typical symptoms (fever etc) compared to the smell issue?

Absolutely awful. Temp hit 41 oC regularly over the space of 3-4 days. Couldn't move. In agony and sweating constantly.

Re: Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

#168

Post by azinman2 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #107
azinman2 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think you got it?

Working in a tourist town, in the hospitality industry (I frequent this site since I did some CS related stuff for my degree years ago but hospitality is my first love). I got it around the last week of February, before any travel restrictions in Canada. We get (or got) tons of tourists from both Asia and Europe.

Do you feel like you had prolonged exposure to someone at a close distance?

Re: Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

#169

Post by 5ociety »

tsimionescu wrote: post #87
5ociety wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Is there such evidence? I don't consider articles to be evidence. 2. How MUCH more than the flu? 0.00000000000000001%? Any amount is enough to justify mass hysteria, right?

Given that this disease is killing more people than malaria, while infecting far fewer, I don't think you want to find out just how bad it can get if we don't take strong measures to stop it.

You do get the fallacy here right? You can say that about anything. Shouldn't we also put severe restrictions on sugar consumption since that kills more people than malaria and covid19 combined? You can use your argument about literally anything that kills people and has a greater than 0 chance of happening. Have you looked at any statistics yourself aside from reading articles? What would be an acceptable death rate to you?

and within 10 seconds you downvoted my comment. lol, how are we supposed to have a serious discussion like this?

Re: Some coronavirus patients haven't gotten their senses of smell or taste back yet

#170

Post by troutwine »

spike021 wrote: post #36
troutwine wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact, I was born without a sense of smell. Texture is a huge part of my enjoyment of food -- probably obviously -- and what caused the OP revulsion are things I enjoy, as another first-hand anecdote.

That's crazy and I admittedly didn't know that's possible. Sorry to hear that. :( I have an issue where I have these crazy, unusual "allergic" reactions (doctors I've gone to actually say it's "hypersensitivity" rather than a normal "allergy"), and one of the weird "symptoms" is that if I'm out and about while reacting to something I ate, my sense of smell gets severely heightened. I'll smell food cooking at restaura…

> That's crazy and I admittedly didn't know that's possible. Sorry to hear that. :(

Eh, it's okay, but thank you. :) If you have to lose a sense smell is the one. It's a genetic abnormality that you'll find in some Appalachian families so I'm not even particularly unusual among my kin.

> I have an issue where I have these crazy, unusual "allergic" reactions (doctors I've gone to actually say it's "hypersensitivity" rather than a normal "allergy"), and one of the weird "symptoms" is that if I'm out and about while reacting to something I ate, my sense of smell gets severely heightened. I'll smell food cooking at restaurants and feel more disgusted than not, even for stuff I'd generally enjoy all the time.

> Pretty crazy how human biology works.

Wow, now that's wild and I'm sorry to hear it. I'd say being disgusted by stuff you normally enjoy is a rougher burden than just being short a sense!

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