Michele Miller, from Bayside, NY, was infected with the coronavirus in March and has not smelled anything since. Recently, her husband and daughter rushed her out of their house and said the kitchen was filling up with gas.
She had no idea. “It’s one thing not to smell and taste, but it’s survival,” she said. Miller said.
People are constantly searching their environments for odors that indicate changes and potential damage, although the process is not always conscious, Dr. Dalton, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, said.
Smell warns the brain of the everyday, such as dirty clothes, and the risky, such as spoiled food. Without this form of detection, people become anxious about things, said dr. Dalton said.
Even worse, some Covid-19 survivors are bothered by ghostly odors that are unpleasant and often harmful, such as the smells of burning plastic, ammonia or feces, a distortion called parosmia.
Eric Reynolds, a 51-year-old probation officer in Santa Maria, California, lost his sense of smell when he contracted Covid-19 in April. Now, he said, he often sees bad odors that he knows do not exist. Diet drinks taste like dirt; soap and detergent smell like stagnant water or ammonia.
“I can not wash dishes, it makes me gag,” said Mr. Reynolds said. He is also plagued by ghostly scents of corn chips and a scent he calls ‘old lady perfume scent’.
It is not uncommon for patients like him to develop food disorders related to their distorted perceptions, says Dr. Evan R. Reiter, medical director of the Smell and Taste Center at Virginia Commonwealth University, who oversaw the recovery of about 2,000 Covid-19s. patients who have lost their sense of smell.