COVID-19 | How do patients who lost it to the coronavirus regain their sense of smell?

Sometimes Encarna Oviedo goes shopping to see if she smells things. He also showers more than usual and, when his daughter comes to see him, he immediately asks her: “Does the house smell good, baby?”

She does not know because it has been more than a year since she lost her sense of smell due to covid and, like thousands of patients, she still

This jovial 66-year-old woman who lives near Terrassa, northwest of Barcelona, ​​was one of the many Spaniards who contracted the virus in the aggressive first wave of 2020. With a scared country, and hundreds of deaths a day, pass a way mild illness was fortunate and the loss of smell, a minor detail, also for saturated doctors.

Over time, vaccines have been gaining ground from the pandemic, but at least according to the calculations of Dr. Joaquim Mullol, director of the Smell Clinic of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, ​​and one of the few specialists in the country before the pandemic.

“Loss of smell occurs in approximately 70% of patients who have covid”, Explain. Most of them recover fully in the following weeks, but a quarter still have problems.

“Of many we will never find out, because they do not consult the doctor”, the doctor points out.

The news is not very encouraging either for those who go to the specialist expecting to recover quickly: the only treatment that has shown some efficacy after the loss due to a virus such as covid is

Rehabilitation

The increase in cases brought on by the pandemic pushed the Mutua Terrassa Hospital, about 30 km from Barcelona, ​​to create in February a Unit of Smell, as has happened in many centers.

Since then, about 90 patients have already passed through there. After a first medical evaluation, they begin a rehabilitation in which once a week, for four months, they go to the center to identify odors with a therapist.

At the end, they go back to see the otolaryngologist -the ear, nose and larynx specialist doctor- and perform

“Honey, vanilla, chocolate or cinnamon?” the doctor asks Encarna as he hands her one of the 48 unidentified aromatic cylinders that make up one of the tests.

“Vanilla?”, she launches unconvinced.

Coffee and gasoline

Cristina Valdivia was also infected with covid in that confusing March of 2020. The disease passed mildly and until, suddenly, she smelled again, but bad.

“I started to constantly smell burning, like I had my nose stuck in a deep fryer”, remembers this 47-year-old woman from her home in Barcelona.

After months of anguish, and the passage through several otolaryngologists to reach the Hospital Clinic, they explained that he suffered from a distorted perception of smell.

The good news is that this kind of erroneous reconnection usually occurs in patients who are in the process of recovery and the bad news, that there is no other help than the

Twice a day, Cristina opens her suitcase with six cans of different scents and spends about 20 seconds concentrated inhaling each one to try. Some, like citrus, seem to be popping up, but others are especially resistant.

“The coffee is horrible, it is a mixture of gasoline, something rotten …”, he says.

Disconnected

Often the most discreet of the senses, life without smell is more complicated than it seems.

“At first it was horrible. I spent my days crying ”, remembers Cristina, who still cannot smell her son and whose life has been altered even in the most intimate way: “For example, I hug my mother-in-law, my mother and (…) It is difficult to manage that ”, describe.

A fibromyalgia patient, for which she had to stop working for a long time, her years in therapy have helped her endure a process in which she has felt very alone.

“With smell we smell everything we eat, what we drink. We interact with the outside world ”, explains Dr. Mullol. “In addition, we smell harmful things that can be dangerous, such as gas, spoiled food. All this is lost andalert to patients who may suffer from depression or abrupt weight loss.

Tired of not tasting food, Encarna says that lately she has less desire to eat, but she does not lose hope that this will end soon.

“Let’s see if I get up one morning and, look, I already smell something. Not even the coffee! ”He laments.

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