Sitting up in bed, I couldn’t sleep because I was going crazy. It felt like I was suffocating, even though I was breathing fine and the O2 sensor on my finger was reading 98. The problem was that I couldn’t smell a thing and it was creating extreme anxiety – very similar to claustrophobia.
Maybe that’s something that we experience any time we lose one or more of our senses, but I just know that I never want to go through that again.
I finally managed to fall asleep sitting up, propped against some pillows. This continued for 3 days.
Let’s rewind a bit.
On March 23/25 I got covid.
Though I had gone through the initial vaccinations at the height of the pandemic in 20/21, I surprisingly became infected now. “Wasn’t this thing gone?” I wondered as I stared at the two solid lines on my home test kit.
Maybe I should have kept up with my boosters.
Rewind a day earlier and I noticed a little congestion and cough that had been with me since that morning. “Great, now I’ve got to deal with a cold for the next 7 days,” I thought. As the day progressed, I began to feel worse.
The next morning, I had a fever and sore throat. I also had chills and felt generally run down. “Okay, maybe we’re dealing with a flu. Terrific.” I thought.
I’m not sure what made be dig out my expired covid test kit, but I figured, I may as well rule out one thing anyway. Btw, an expired kit should still give you a positive result if you are positive.
And it did come back positive, and so did the next one I took just to make sure.
I had managed to avoid covid during the pandemic and this was the first time for me. I panicked a little as I rummaged around for my O2 device, thermometer, and a nice warm comforter. I kept monitoring my temperature and O2 level. My O2 was always 96-99, so that was reassuring.
Long story short, I suffered with symptoms for a week. After 6 days, I finally started feeling better. The fever only lasted for the first day, and after that, I had to deal with a sore throat, headache, and congestion.
It was a Saturday afternoon and I decided to enjoy a beer with a snack before dinner. The first gulp told me something was off. The beer had no flavour at all. If anything, it tasted like I was drinking sparkling water.
The next morning, I realized that I couldn’t smell or taste anything at all. I knew it was covid related as I had familiarized myself with its symptoms during the pandemic. Strange to be experiencing this after the main symptoms subsided, I thought.
Let me tell you that one of the things we really take for granted is our ability to smell and taste. It’s not something that anyone really thinks about.
It’s very unsafe not being able to smell or taste. What if your food is spoiled? What if there’s a gas leak? Or a fire?
My first instinct was to go online and look up loss of smell due to covid. That was a mistake, and I should have known better. All I saw was how some people lost their sense of smell for months and years, and it never really returned for some. That sent me into a panic.
Anyway, for me, the whole thing more or less resolved itself after a week. That is to say that I regained most of my smell and taste after a week. It’s been 3 weeks now and while things are almost back to normal, I am still missing the top end of my ability to smell. I call them subtle smells. For example:
Fresh air
The smell of rain
Cigarette smoke a block away
Someone’s laundry exhaust from the street.
My armpits
My farts
It’s been a slow grind. I can see a little improvement, but I know that it’s going to be several more weeks until I get this back.
For anyone going through it, I would recommend finding items with very strong odours and using them as a gauge to see how your progress is going. A set of base smells.
For example, I used a jar of Vicks Vapo Rub, a container of whole cloves, Eucalyptus oil, and a container of Peppermint tea. Even when I could not smell at all, these scents still came through due to their strength. I would smell them every day to check my progress. Initially, you’ll notice that these odours have no depth to them. They are harsh and not that pleasant.
Let’s say you are smelling a bottle of wine. While you may be able to detect a faint whiff, it is going to smell mostly like alcohol. You definitely won’t be able to detect the fine notes.
Anyway, keeping this group of heavy smelling items as a baseline really helps because as the smell becomes stronger and more complex from one day to the next, you know that you are getting better.
Also, don’t freak out. Your smell will come back. Give it time.
*Edit* It’s now been over a month and my smell is 99%. I can smell my wet dog, fresh air, rain, and the faint smell of a fireplace 2 blocks from my house. The more nuanced and subtle the smell, the longer it is going to take to return. At least that’s been my experience.
It’s been a hard lesson and I intend to keep up with my covid shots after this. A small price to pay to avoid this nightmare.
