Ask Lemmy

Didn't lose my smell or taste but after the initial flu-like stage of my infection was over I didn't really get any better. And my doctor made it worse by telling me to power through and start working again. Nowadays I can only leave the bed to go to the toilet.

I'm about to participate in a study with some experimental treatments. Stupid thing is that I have to do an exercise test at the beginning so that they can measure the effectiveness. I took a shower last week and that's left me in pain that will persist over the next few weeks. I shudder to think about what that exercise test will do.

But Portal taught me to do everything for science.

Just a reminder that not only is covid not over, but in many places infections are on the rise again and people are still dying, while vaccines become less and less accessible, no other official measures taken (like recommending masks on public transport), and more and more long term effects of infection come to light.

As a vulnerable person, the fact that people talk about it like it's in the past scares the shit out of me.

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Hola. For me, I started getting a cough and feeling under the weather. I came home from work on that Friday and I hadn't eaten at all that day, was super hungry. It was Friday! I'm going to treat myself to some Mediterranean from this delish local place. Got my food, took a bite, bland af. Couldn't taste anything. Finished eating and fell asleep watching the simpsons on the couch like I tend to do when I'm not feeling well.

Woke up the next day and couldn't smell or taste anything. Immediately took a home test which came back positive. Made a appointment for a test through my doc on Monday which of course came back positive.

Things got worse, brutal cough for at least a month. Complete brain fog for over a week, couldn't put thoughts together, which made it so i struggled to complete regular day to day things. Super fatigue for a could of weeks. After maybe 10 days my sense of smell and taste came back.

I never lost taste/smell. But, I lost everything else. I can't work anymore because of covid. It fucked me in the worst way. I'm an American and our disability system is fucked too. So I've been without pay for 2 years. I'm out of money. I don't know what to do tbh.

My sense of smell still sucks, and it's been almost two years since I had COVID. It's marginally better than it was, but is still substantially worse than it was pre-infection.

EDIT: Okay, this is a bit of an exaggeration. My sense of smell has mostly returned, but for example, nuances in the taste of food seem to have become permanently dulled, and it sucks tbh. Something, as subtle as it is, has changed.

Had it in 2021, taste was gone for only three days. Afterwards some things tasted off for a few weeks, chocolate tasted like ammonium. That's gone now. Endurance was mostly gone afterwards, and I stil have trouble remembering names, even of people I've known a long time.

I had it 4 times that I'm sure of. Long term effects saw me bed ridden for the larger part of a year with my stamina and immune system still heavily affected to this day.

Smell and taste are back to 75% I'd say, could all be in my head but I swear stuff had a stronger taste/smell 2 years ago.

When I had COVID, certain food or sauces were tasteless or even awful. For example, beef burger and mayonaise - they became awful in taste for me.

Took almost A year to get the taste back.

My father had COVID when there was no vaccinates yet and he still hasn’t got his taste back on certain things like coffee.

ETA: Forgot to say his smell is 50/50 as well. He sometimes does smell things and sometimes not.

I had OG covid just after Xmas 2020. Didn't eat for 3-4 days, and was so excited for the first time I felt up to eating. That's when I discovered I had no sense of smell. The basic tastes were there, salty, sweet, etc, but no nuance to it. With just the texture to go off, my basic white-bread-and-ham sandwich was like eating a wet sponge. It stayed that way for about 2 weeks, I think (the brain fog was real, too, don't remember much of January 2021).

Started to come back slowly, and was normal by the end of March. Nothing much long term to report. Smell might be a little more sensitive now, if anything. We have cats, and I'm always the first to know when the box needs cleaning.

My wife and I had very different experiences. I had one bad day in bed and was fine after. She was sick for at least a week and lost her since of smell (and much of taste) for about 6 months with another 6 months recovering.

My sense of taste was dulled and my sense of smell was totally 100% gone(I'm certain I could've been sprayed directly by a skunk and still smelt nothing at all) for about a month, with them slowly going back to normal over the course of another month or so. I also developed minor brain fog, which still hasn't fully left over 3 years later.

Caught it in the first wave, bed ridden for 7 days. Lost both taste and smell for about 3 weeks then they both came back. I consider myself lucky.

No long-term side effects from getting covid twice, my endurance didn't really change after I got better but it was kind of depressed for a week or so afterwards, and my sense of taste was gone for about 3 or 4 days.

Other than that, my dad got it once and now he's not alive anymore, so get your booster shots and mask if you want to.

I had COVID at the beginning of 2021, I've lost smell, even when I got out of it for a few months soft drinks like Coke, sprite or tonic tested like paint thinner, raw onion and my own sweat smelled like rotten eggs, fortunately after some time it stopped, drinks sooner than onion though

A family member has lost their taste and smell 3 times now. They got it back the first time but barely did the second. Can't say for sure on the third time though as they have not got it back yet.

Yes and yes. Took about two weeks to get the sense of taste and smell back

It varies, sometimes comes back within 1 year but different than before, so stuff that one tasted good now tastes bad. I will look for some saved links about this when I get a chance, but of course you can also try web search.

I was at an immediate care clinic this morning for a non-Covid sinus infection and I was asked three times if I had lost taste and smell. Apparently they are looking for that as a primary symptom of long Covid.

Had COVID in 2022. Lost sense of taste and smell. I can say I didn't lose it permanently since it has come back. Whether in part or fully, I don't know. I smelled anything with a strong and recognisable smell to try retraining my nose. Perfume, Vicks, even newspapers.

I didn't get COVID during the peak in 2020 but my mental health has taken a massive hit. The NHS has taken a massive downturn since the pandemic, and I don't see it getting any better.

Totally lost my sense of smell for about 2 weeks, but it came back pretty quickly. The worst long term symptom has been a substantially heightened gag reflex. Talking while chewimg gum has become a balancing act or I start heaving, just brushing my molars is enough to trigger gagging some days, and brushing my tongue after my teeth is a sprint to avoid puking. It's trash.

My wife lost them for 3 weeks. Had she not been vaccinated, it probably would have taken longer.

The first time I didn’t lose my taste it just made a few things taste slightly weird, most of it didn’t last too long but orange juice tasted a bit different for a few weeks. I’m pretty sure I had it again over Christmas as I literally had no taste when I woke up on the morning of the 27th, but it slowly came back throughout the day. Again orange juice tasted slightly weird for a few days after but now I think it tastes normal? Or at least more normal than it did last week

i didn't lose my taste, but my brother did. he ended up getting it back after a few days.

long term effects of the pandemic? working from home is normalized and i love it

Totally lost my sense of smell but it was fully back within a few weeks.

My sense of taste kind of came back, but severely muted for some things. Coffee never quite got back to the same level of flavor, for example. I've also noticed my ability to taste salt is pretty shot. I can, but I have to add stupid amounts of the stuff. For an example, I had to do a clear liquid diet about a week ago prior to a medical procedure, and drinking some broth with 748mg of sodium per serving just tasted like drinking greasy water to me.

In terms of long term effects, it's a bit harder to say. I got covid for the first time in August 2020 (yay for being an essential peasant!), and I was out of work until May 2021. I had to do months of PT because of what my primary doctor called a post-viral fatigue syndrome. At its worst, if I tried to walk more than a block away from my apartment and back, I would wake up the next day feeling sore from my neck down to my toes. I remember a day where I slept for 12 hours, woke up and made and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and just doing that left me so tired I went back to sleep for another 6 hours or so.

Other stuff is less clear. It certainly started manifesting and presenting symptoms after I had COVID, but correlation and causation being what it is, it's hard to definitively say what might have just been low-level and not bothering me that much before and what could have been kicked off by COVID. I developed photophobia, Hashimoto's thyroiditis and some nerve damage after being ill for the first time, which are all fun.

I guess the photophobia is the easiest to manage, I just need to wear heavily tinted glasses at all times, as I get these awful migraines if I don't. Uncovered light bulbs, TVs, monitors, whatever can set them off. The thyroid condition I get to take a synthetic hormone basically for the rest of my life and get blood work done 4 times a year to see how it's working. The nerve damage I get to take another medication pretty much for forever as well, thanks to US insurance. Instead of a daily pill, my neurologist could give me an occipital nerve block every 3-4 months, but insurance doesn't want to pay for them unless it's done at a pain management clinic. For reasons I can't work out, every pain management clinic I looked at with my referral seemed to be out of network for everyone, so it'd run me like $700 for the initial visit and $400 every 3-4 months after that. I guess they know they've got you if the pain is bad enough? Anyway, my prescription has been working so far and it's the only thing I don't even need to pay for before hitting my deductible, so I have that going for me.

Lost the ability to smell and taste. Both slowly started to come back over a few months, in the end I want to say it took at least 8. It doesn't seem quite as good as before but it's mostly back to normal.

As for other long term effects, I seem to have been mostly spared except that whenever I get a viral infection, I usually have terrible joint pain.

I got the extreme end of the stick. It fucked up my heart AND lungs.

Yep, brainfog and I partially lost taste, only to spicy food!

So I spiced stuff up anormally for like 6-9 months then less and like at 1.5 years it just came back just like before and spicy things are super duper spicy again.

I never fully lost my taste (maybe 80% lost during active infection) but it only partially came back. It feels like there's a "section" or "zone" of flavor I can't taste anymore. Like a blind spot. I am extremely saddened by it and have an even more complicated relationship with food now.

It also rewired my taste and some smell so some things taste really different. For example, coffee tastes like stagnant mildewy mop water and smells like a recently used litterbox. Only minor variations for brand, at home drip vs. barista, etc.

Going into a coffee shop smells like venturing into a crazy cat lady's condemned home.

It was about 45 days for me before my taste and smell came back, I got it the first round in 2020 and I felt like death for about a week then I felt fine but couldn't taste or smell anything for 6 weeks.

I got it towards the end of 2020 and was hospitalized for a week with pneumonia and a collapsed lung. The acute infection had me sick for a month. My last day with a fever was exactly 4 weeks after the first day I felt symptoms. I had lingering symptoms for about 6 months after.

As far as taste, I got that back quickly. I lost my taste within the first 2-3 days. I heard from someone that spicy food helps so I ate the spiciest food I could find. My lips were burning, my hair was tingling and I was sweating so I knew it was hot. I could almost feel like I was tasting spice, but the sensation would quickly go away. The next day I was able to taste a little bit and within 24-48 it was mostly back. By the time I was hospitalized, I had fully regained taste. I didn’t get my sense of smell back for probably another 3 weeks after that.

I lost what little faith I had left in our current arrangement of society and our capacity to cooperate within this context. My worst fears were realised as it became apparent just how many people, entire governments even, are more than willing to abandon the vulnerable to the capitalist machine. The fact that at one point people were trying to argue that death is actually not that bad and not being able to go to bars and cafes was actually the real injustice. I'd say that's a pretty long term consequence for me personally.