I think I might be starting to freak out a bit here
Hey there people. Long time lurker here. I decided to start writing because it's late at night, my mind is running wild and I'm trying to piece together the situation myself here. This will probably turn out to be a wall of text. Apologies to anyone who might see it as spam or bothersome - my bad.
Context:
in the second half of my 20s. Working in Germany. Healthy and slim. Working as a field technician for a company installing machines for industrial kitchens. Since this whole pandemic started I have always worked (and traveled around the city). I had offered myself for AZ when people were refusing it, got my second as Pfizer and 3rd with Moderna after 6 months from my second shot. Always followed guidelines regarding masks, vaccines and the whole shabang.
These past 6 months the whole 'global pandemic thing' kinda started becoming 'old news' so-to-say for me. Yes, some people I know got it recently, yet most had little to no symptoms and all recovered without a problem. In my mind I have been thinking 'come on, in 2 years working in closed environments with no ventilation and all sorts of people I have never caught it - I am surely one of those fully immune or asymptomatic ones, right?'.
On top of that I have started to indulge actually going out: drinking with friends, dining with people, casual socialising... I still believe that there is no way going forward without it. I know I cannot stomach another Christmas, Easter, birthday or whatever by myself. And still here I am freaking out after actually getting COVID.
Being brutally honest I was actually quite chill up until about an hour ago. I had been watching the last episodes of a certain very lighthearted anime comedy series that's coming out while lightly coughing, cleaning my nose pretty often and drinking as much water as I could. At some point I came to realise that something was not right. Initially I couldn't put my finger on it, I was just feeling uncomfortable.
Then it hit me: I couldn't smell anything. Not the laundry I did today, not the soap I had used to shower myself with, nothing. Up until this point it had been nothing more than some cough, sore throat and phlegm. Now it felt real - or rather unreal, it still feels like a nightmare.
Thinking logically it doesn't even make sense to me - I mean, come on, it's just smell right? - still losing the sense of smell is the first thing that has truly scared me since testing positive 2 days ago.
I have been going around the apartment for 20 minutes trying (to no avail) to smell stuff:
- old spice deodorant stick
- mouthwash
- toothpaste
- perfume
- isopropyl alcohol
- chlorine (super concentrated mildew killer spray)
I just feel like i have ice up my nose. It's a very weird and unpleasant sensation (or lack thereof).
I have now just decided for no particular reason to do a mouthwash, and since then I can faintly distinguish smells. What the fuck.
I am now in between putting paper imbued with mouthwash in my nose and drinking a glass of the heaviest edible alcohol I have in my apartment. This is just insane.
Noone I know has lost smell or taste since the original variant, 2 years ago. I am worried and scared. Be brutally honest with me people, should I be or am I just being unreasonable and overly emotional?
It sounds like you're panicking some. I definitely recognise the overthinking, racing thoughts, anxiety about my body and health, hyperawareness of how I feel... all that. And I definitely had some anxious nights specifically about COVID, earlier in the pandemic. So for one I'd say you're not being unreasonable - panic is an unpleasant reaction, but it's not an abnormal one.
The acute worry it sounds like you're feeling right now will pass. It would help if you have a friend or family member you can talk to, just to talk you through what you're feeling and let your emotions out a bit. It's also a good way to distract yourself. If not, hopefully this thread can fill that purpose a bit.
One other thing that helped me about COVID specifically was, as someone told me, you're playing the odds. The odds of actually contracting COVID right now are high (as you'll know, having now got it), but the odds of it making you severely ill are low, especially since you are young, healthy and vaccinated. Remember, even as you've got the disease, you've already rendered it less harmful to you. If you can put that risk into perspective, you can hopefully see that it's still quite far from you. Your chances are very good in this game.
I can't speak to how common it is to get the symptoms of loss of taste and smell from the current COVID variants in Europe, so I can't tell you that it's normal or not. The best thing for you to do there is to call your doctor and ask them for advice. They will be able to know your symptoms better than we would, and they will have seen a lot of patients with COVID recently, so they should have a good idea of how common such symptoms are right now.
I hope these thoughts help some! Feel better soon.
Thank you very much for the thoughtful reply! Soon after writing the alcohol kicked in and i manager to sleep. I woke up today with surging Tonsillitis, so i will need to probably get in touch with a doctor soon if it doesn't subside.
You're perfectly right about the "playing with odds" take, that was why i went against what was being advised and offered myself to receive the AZ shot when many were refusing it.
All in all though, it still feels surreal, I can just hang onto the hope that the situation will stabilise asap...
Have a nice weekend!
You're being unreasonable and overly emotional, yes :)
I have chronic anosmia, for the past ~15 years. It was originally caused by polyps -- malformations in my sinuses. Partially removed by surgery, which didn't heal correctly, so now it comes and goes. Last month I've been enjoying smells daily, but the past couple of days I can't smell much at all as I did get a bit sick, and the slightest swelling in my sinuses pretty much removes any sense of smell I have.
I can see how you might freak out suddenly losing your smell, but it can happen for a lot of reasons. It's common to lose it and not notice, it's just that the past couple of years we've all been trained to be on the look out for a lack of sense of smell.
Losing your sense of smell can be caused by any kind of irritations in your sinuses, swelling, mucus excess, buildup of a variety of gross stuff in your nose, nosebleeds, etc.
You can regain it by fighting those symptoms. Products with eucalyptus oil will clear up congestions; I don't exactly know the mechanic behind this but it's most likely what happened with your mouthwash.
Enjoy your time playing with this very weird condition. I think it's a very special thing. I've gotten used to both having and not having a sense of smell, and it's really quite fun what you notice when going from one to the other. The changes in food tastes, the subtle smells behind certain spices, etc. Also, what kinds of smells aren't actually smells but can still be felt, such as gasoline, rubbing alcohol, and smoke.
I regained mine after not having a sense of smell at all for over a decade. Let me tell you one thing: Boy did I not realize how awful my farts were.
Thank you so much for the message.
I knew deep down that i was overreacting, but losing smell all of the sudden (literally it felt like i had it just a minute earlier) freaked me out completely.
One time, due to a minor blood loss i began to slowly feel unconscious (going temporarily blind so to say); the experience and panic i had yesterday felt pretty much the same.
Right now, although my smell is mostly gone, i'm feeling generally ok; i think i've come to terms with it for the time being. Taste is still there.
I really couldn't even imagine being in your shoes and not smelling anything for years, what was it like after regaining it after a decade, was there anything in particular that hit you?
If your taste is still there, to me that confirms that it's unlikely to be covid or flu, and more likely to be some kind of vascular issue such as swelling indeed. I am not a doctor, though, so usual disclaimers apply. But I once lost my whole taste and smell together due to a cold and I had the pleasure to eat the most disgusting, tasteless burger of my life -- nothing like what I had experienced as an anosmic.
Hot water / steam, menthol etc will all help reduce congestion and regain it. But I'd say don't bother, give it a couple of days and if it persists beyond a week then maybe talk to an ENT. Personally, I hadn't even talked to one for almost a decade, and when I did it was because the polyps had gotten bad enough that I had trouble breathing during my sleep, that's how it was all discovered.
You might find that although you do still have taste, some tastes are gone. Spices for example; curry will be bland, thyme and basil will be unrecognizable.
My taste developed a lot around texture because of this. I love food that has a lot of texture to it; crunchy things, or "melty" foods such as salmon / salmon eggs, creams etc.
I once regained my sense of smell for just half an hour or so after a hot shower. I could smell my perfume, it was weird and shocking! My reaction: I immediately ran to the kitchen and took a big ol whiff of black pepper up my nose. It was disgusting and the stupidest thing I ever did.
I'd say the ability to smell perfumes, deodorants and foods are what I miss the most when I don't have it. Anything strong, really.
The first time I got COVID and had anosmia as a symptom, I took advantage of it to deep clean my home! I had a bad habit of leaving sauce jars in my fridge to become microbial colonies, ick! But anosmia greatly suppressed my disgust response, so I had no trouble washing out those jars for recycling. :)
Yeah, I can imagine! "Taking the trash out" went from being something I could easily do every few days, to the most unpleasant chore ever.
Even going to the bathroom went from being somewhere I would be able to just relax for a bit to... well, not that.