How Covid-19 affects the 5th sense

I lost my senses of taste and smell due to Covid-19

By Madeleine Ware

I tested positive for Covid-19 in January 2021. I was lucky enough to experience very mild symptoms, but one symptom quickly became nerve-wracking: I couldn’t taste or smell. Suddenly food was bland and flavorless, and I could only smell scents when they were really strong. I quickly took to the Internet to learn everything I could. 

Loss of taste and smell is a common symptom of Covid-19. One study indicated that 41% of people who contract Covid-19 will experience this symptom. Although it is listed in the CDC’s list of common symptoms, it is hard to understand the impact that losing taste and smell has on your mental wellbeing until you experience it firsthand. 

A small portion of the US population, around 3%, experience no sense of smell, a condition called anosmia. However, due to the rise of loss of taste and smell in Covid-19 cases, a growing number of people are now grappling with this unfortunate condition. Anosmia is not only dangerous, due to an inability to detect hazardous smells, but is also linked to feelings of social isolation and decreased mental health, as the senses of taste and smell are significant aspects of our social culture. 

During my experience with anosmia, my relationship with food and eating became drastically different. Even though I had an appetite, eating was a chore. Without flavor, eating felt like something I had to do out of necessity, rather than enjoyment. I was so anxious. Were my senses ever going to return? Gradually, as the days continued, I started to notice small improvements in my senses of taste and smell.

The vast majority of people who develop anosmia due to Covid-19 will see their senses return to normal within 6 months. However, for a small minority, Covid-19 seems to have damaged their senses in a more permanent way. I ran across a group of these people, termed “long-haulers,” on a Facebook support group while on my quest to regain my senses. The support page was full of posts voicing fears and experiences. Some had lost their senses for close to a year, and others were dealing with parosmia, which is a distortion of smell that some Covid-19 survivors experience while regaining their senses. 

Luckily, my taste and smell returned after 10 days. However, experiencing anosmia has made me much more congnizant of the long term effects of Covid-19. As college students, it can sometimes be easier not to acknowledge that Covid-19 is a real threat to our health. But, as more young people go on to experience complications, we can no longer argue that we are the exception to Covid-19’s unarguable impact.