Allegedly Zink should have a role in sense of taste, so supplementing Zink may help restore poor sense of taste.
Vitamin D also plays a role, but you should probably be taking Vitamin D anyway. You can only make vitamin D when you are in the sun when it’s at 45° or higher, and it’s near impossible to eat food that has sufficient Vitamin D.
I’ve heard some good things about fluticasone propionate. Normally it’s an over the counter allergy med (nasal spray), but I saw a study where a lot of people that used it got their sense of smell (and by extension a lot of taste) back in about 5 days.
Worth a try, at any rate. They sell it at Costco and most drug stores.
You don’t!
Remember this next time you interact with a conservative. They did this to you.
Doesn’t that make you mad?
A lot, considering we politicized the fuck out of that virus, which lead to global pushback against mitigating its spread and ultimately resulting in avoidable infections, unnecessary suffering, and senseless deaths. You’re on the receiving end of that attack, so previous poster isn’t wrong to include your personal suffering into the broader generalization of the covid dumpster fire as a whole.
That said, his delivery was shit, and he was wrong about the “You don’t!” bit - you can absolutely retrain your senses. I’ve got nothing but heresay on the ‘how’ side of that though, so my advice would be to make an appointment with your doc and see if he or she can point you to an effective sensory therapy process.
And for real, good luck. I’ve gotten that shit twice now, and honestly losing taste was among my biggest fears. Food is one of the only things I can consistently look forward to on a daily basis… losing the ability to enjoy food would be depressing as fuck. Like literally, clinically depressing as fuck - food is a massive part of pretty much every culture, and our social events pretty much all revolve around food. Contrasted against the “it can kill you” side of covid, the taste and smell thing is kind of permanently out of the spot light, which doesn’t do justice to the (albeit nonlethal) severity of that symptom.
This but also the infinite fatigue
There has been some recent progress on this: https://www.amsterdamumc.org/en/spotlight/tiredness-experienced-by-long-covid-patients-has-a-physical-cause.htm
Apparently, avoiding cardiovascular exercise helps. Anecdotal comments on Reddit suggest that adding in some weightlifting helps as well. Good luck.
Related question: Does everyone that gets covid lose their sense of taste?
Nope, I could still smell and taste, although it was perhaps slightly diminished. I wish I would have lost my sense of taste briefly because the cough medicine I was taking tasted absolutely disgusting.
Maybe not totally related, but I think my sense of smell has always been not as great as other people, even before COVID. People will sometimes complain about a specific smell and I don’t always notice it.
I caught Covid in Feb 2020, so I was part of the first wave when they weren’t sure it was a thing yet. I lost my sense of taste and smell for almost a year, to the extent I could stand next to a pan of frying onions or a trash can with rotting garbage and not smell it. It never fully recovered from that - I couldn’t say whether is 50% back or 30%, but it also still goes out sometimes. I’ve had every shot and booster available and have had a few influenza like illnesses since but with different levels of severity.
I’m going to hazard a guess here based on some related studies I’ve seen about the effects of covid and say that there’s likely a genetic component. I probably have a gene variant that makes this outcome more likely. I’m saying that because I’ve seen at least preliminary studies that looked at the severity of covid symptoms and found a genetic correlation.
For the majority of people who do lose their sense of taste and smell, they recover within a few weeks to a couple of months, but I am unaware of studies that show the degree to which they cover sensation. I know from my own experience that “recovery” can mean getting a fraction of your previous sensation back.
I’ve had it twice. Got my 2 vaccine doses and I think we’re up to 4 boosters? I work in a hospital in the cousin-fuckingly deep south, so I’m pretty much permanently in the middle of a plume of that shit.
Anyway, kept my sense of taste and smell both times, My symptoms were sore throat, fatigue, and horrific sneezing fits… like 10 mins straight of sneezing every couple seconds. Got to the point that it triggered nose bleeds and felt like I got punched in the sinuses.
Relatively mild compared to what covid has the potential to be, but still not a good time.
No. I’ve had it twice and have had no long-term effects (that I know of). I’ve been vaccinated twice and gotten a booster. I didn’t even lose my sense of taste while experiencing symptoms.
