Some COVID-19 survivors claim that the virus has destroyed their sense of smell. They make a ‘disgusting’ smell like fish and burnt toast.
Dr Nirmal Kumar, who is an ear, nose and throat surgeon in the UK, said the ‘very strange’ phenomenon among patients with recovered viruses is known as parosmia, Sky News reports.
‘This morning I saw two patients with parosmia. “One said they could smell fish in place of any other flavor, and the other one could burn if there was no smoke in the area,” Kumar said.
According to Kumar, he noted that strange symptoms have an “increased incidence in young people and also in health workers due to exposure to the virus in hospitals.”
” He virus affects the nerves in the nasal cavity. It’s like a shock to your nervous system and the nerves are not functioning, ‘he said.
Daniel Saveski, a 24-year-old banker from London, said he began to experience the peculiar symptom after losing his sense of smell and taste while fighting the virus.
He said that strong-smelling things like rubbish bins are now sulfur or ‘like toast’.
“It reduced my enjoyment of food, and it’s a little depressing that I could not smell certain foods,” he said.
Lynn Corbett, who works for a real estate agent in Sussex, England, said she also lost her sense of smell during her battle with the virus.
When it came back three months later, ‘nothing smelled like it should’, she said.
“Most things smelled disgusting, this sick sweet smell that is hard to describe as I have never encountered it,” the 52-year-old said.
She said that although she used to be a coffee addict, she now finds the smell ‘unbearable’.
Gas and beer also have unbearable stench, she said.
But she said even if her sense of smell did not return, she was only grateful that she had survived the virus.
“I’m doing well, I think I’m lucky that if I had a coronavirus, which looks like I was there, I was not seriously ill, got into the hospital or died from it like so many others,” he said. she said.