Quad Cities women experiencing loss of taste and smell months after having COVID-19 - KWQC-TV6

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DAVENPORT, Iowa (KWQC) - Upwards of 60% of those who had COVID-19 experience a loss of taste or smell. It’s one of the more common side effects of COVID-19. Right now, it’s unknown how long that may last. For some, it’s a few weeks. For others, it may be forever.

Davenport resident Lisa Studer says she had the virus in July of 2020 and still has not regained her full sense of taste. Making and drinking coffee, one of her favorite morning routines, has now been ruined by COVID-19. “It doesn’t smell like coffee, I can’t drink it anymore,” says Studer. Instead, she says it tastes like feces and smells like car exhaust.

“I was an avid latte drinker. My thing was always I wanted coffee-flavored coffee. I don’t want flavors; I want coffee-flavored coffee. Not anymore!” says Studer. She’s now turned to hot tea as her caffeine replacement.

While she hasn’t lost her sense of taste and smell entirely, she says nothing is quite the same, “I guess I assumed it would come back and be like it normally was before and it just did not. When I lost it, I lost it completely.” Studer says she’s also had to change her toothpaste because she can’t stand the taste of mint anymore. While she used to like baking, now she cannot eat her treats anymore because sweets don’t taste the same either.

Epidemiologist Rebecca Heick says she has a similar experience. She got COVID-19 in September of 2020 and experiences phantosmia, smelling something that is not there. For Heick, that’s a mixture of cigarette smoke and a campfire that lasts for days at a time. Her sense of taste has also not quite recovered. Heick says, “it might be like a pickle that never would have bothered me before and now I can’t tolerate the burning sensation that it brings. I had to change my flavor of toothpaste. There’s been a lot of things like that that have come with that alteration in my sense of taste and smell. That’s not the only piece of COVID that I’ve unfortunately retained, but that is definitely one that as I mentioned before, has a distinct impact on quality of life. Because some things just aren’t enjoyable like they used to be.”

About 90% of people who lose those senses will get them back within about four weeks, according to Heick. But for others, it could last a year or longer. Heick adds, “this particular issue with loss of taste and smell can also bring with it some pretty significant mental health impacts as well. It’s just something that we don’t often stop to think about and so we experienced it and we realized, ‘oh my gosh, the fact that I can’t taste that thing’ or when I eat it and it used to taste so good to me and now it just tastes odd, or maybe it tastes like dirt. That can be really difficult to kind of work your way through.”

Studer says she’s grown frustrated with the side-effect, “wondering if it’s ever going to come back normally again. I’d love to learn more, meet other people who have gone through the same thing. I’d love to meet other people. I can’t be the only one.”

If you have a similar experience, it’s recommended you contact your health care provider.

Heick says data continues to show that vaccinations are critical to preventing this side-effect in the first place, and it could help lessen the symptoms after having the virus. Natural immunity does not fully protect someone from the new variants we see spreading globally.

There are also ways for you to try and reconnect some of those senses, says Heick. You could take a lemon for example and focus on the smell - trying to jog your nose’s memory.

Heick says losing those senses happens because COVID-19 damages the cells around your neurons that carry messages to your brain. For some people, those cells regenerate faster than others. It’s still unknown why some people lose their sense of taste and smell, and others may not.

Copyright 2021 KWQC. All rights reserved.

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Quad Cities women experiencing loss of taste and smell months after having COVID-19 - KWQC-TV6
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