The "Do I have COVID-19?" thread

[Ruby]

Ah, thanks rosy. I knew I had heard something about it. I heard something on the radio about smell training too. I might give it a go.

[Suzi.Q]

G still can’t smell properly. He can smell a lot of cooking smells (e.g. curry) but can’t smell aftershave or perfume or cat poo.

[Mountain Goat]

My smell came back quite quickly but it's not quite right. It's fine for general purpose but I keep thinking food smells too acidic (etc) when I'm cooking and when I taste, it isn't. Actually come to think of it maybe my smell is fine and it's my taste that's off? Who wants to come for dinner.

My taste didn't fully come back until early December (before it went again in Jan when Mr G got covid - I got massive smell hallucinations then too which was really odd but just for two days). And things keep tasting underseasoned when I'm sure they're not, I have to stop myself chucking in handfuls of salt.

[Ruby]

That's it. It's just 'not quite right'. It's interesting. I might have an amateur go at smell-training and see if I can change it. Like you, Goat, mine went better and then went worse again. Weirdly, I think mine went worse when I had a migraine in February and doesn't seem to have got much better since.

[Mountain Goat]

I caught sight of an article that said that there was some evidence that people with long covid saw an improvement after being vaccinated (it was just a photo of a newspaper so I couldn't get any details) so I wonder if you might get it back then? I had a massive improvement in long covid after being laid up with not-covid when J caught it and I wonder if my illness then was an immune response and if my consequent improvement was a similar mechanism to the post vaccination improvements. So maybe hang around infected people?

[Ruby]

I wonder. I find all of this so fascinating. I am trying to persuade one of my children to become an immunologist. My colleague, who has been really ill with long-covid, is looking forward to her vaxx for similar reasons. I reckon, after today's news, that I might end up getting Moderna. BUT WHEN?

[Mountain Goat]

It's really interesting but I'm aware when I'm trying to piece things together that I don't even know for sure I ever even had it and my layers of assumptions are a massive house of cards. Mr G had it pretty mildly - he had some weirdness but was fine to keep working throughout - but is now getting all sorts of odd stuff going on which may or may not be connected. He's got that separation of the rib cage that pregnant women get.* It's quite bizarre. Maybe he's going to give birth to an alien superspreader. He's also in the under 50s so god only knows when he'll get his. Hopefully before the end of his gestation period.

* loving, concerned

[maya]

Mine took ages to come back and it’s definitely not the same as it was - some things just smell ‘different’ and I had Covid a year ago! Weirdly, sometimes my kids say something smells horrible (eg.rubbish truck) and I can’t smell anything at all...so I think it’s bad smells that are more affected! If that’s possible.

[Ruby]

Right. I have had some smell-training stuff delivered. I have assembled my jars and done the first sniff. don't think I have it bad, by any stretch, but I definitely have some degree of parosmia. There was a smell in the house last night, which I think was a leftover cooking smell, and I had to spray perfume on my pillow to get to sleep.

[Smunder Woman]

Well, apparently I didn't have COVID, but my smell and taste are definitely still off since having a virus of some kind at New Year.

[Dutchie]

Regarding the smell - I've heard from several people that rinsing your nose with salt water helps. You could just get that salt water solution from the chemist's and squirt that up your nose a few times a day. Apparently doing that in combination with smell training works a treat. One person I know spent one day doing the salt water thing and already had almost all her sense of smell back.

[Dutchie]

More tips and info here: https://consumer.healthday.com/b-3-8-lo ... 74147.html

[Edith Bacon]

Maybe a neti pot for sinus irrigation might help.

[Ruby]

I am updating this to say that I have been doing this and it has made no discernable difference. I can smell all the scents in the jars, but I could differentiate them anyway. However, some things still smell completely rank or quite faint.

I've tried nasal flush, Beconase etc. I think I am just going to have to accept that's what things smell like now.

[Mountain Goat]

No improvement after your jab?

[Ella77]

Oh no, I hope it’s not permanent.

[Ruby]

I'm hoping it will gradually improve.

No improvement after your jab?

No. It's so unfair that the total bullshit I chose to believe, turned out to be total bullshit.

Maybe the second jab will cure me.

[Mountain Goat]

You could give some light trepanning a go?

I bet it does get better gradually but how galling. You don't really notice your sense of smell until it's not there.

[Ruby]

Just to put it out there. My normal sense of smell came back last week. I don't know how or why but I hadn't realised how much it had been dampened down until now. Unfortunately, I can now smell everything. It's like being pregnant.

[smalex]

Oh no I mean, good but...