477
Leaky Blood Vessels: Underlying Cause of Long COVID “Brain Fog” Discovered
(scitechdaily.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
477 points (98.6% liked)
science
14597 readers
547 users here now
just science related topics. please contribute
note: clickbait sources/headlines aren't liked generally. I've posted crap sources and later deleted or edit to improve after complaints. whoops, sry
Rule 1) Be kind.
lemmy.world rules: https://mastodon.world/about
I don't screen everything, lrn2scroll
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I’ve been waiting since 2021 for my sense of smell and taste to come back :(
Apologies if you've already tried this or something similar, it doesn't work for everyone, but I got mine back by using essential oils to retrain [edited as my phone autocorrected to 'restrain'] my olfactory system. After over a year of my food tasting like trash, or like it was off, and a dangerous incident (with a trip to A&E) where my brain fog meant I left an unlit gas oven on all night and couldn't smell it until I'd already got carbon monoxide poisoning (thankfully mild and temporary), I regained my smell and taste in about a week. Here's an article about it, it links to a charity that works in the field of loss of smell : https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/health-wellbeing/treatments/smell-training-for-anosmia
Edit: if the down votes are because people think this is alternative medicine or woo, it isn't, it's a technique used in conventional medicine clinics. Try reading before you down vote.
To educate downvoters: Yes, “essential oil” health advice is a common bullshit indicator! But! They’re the standard pharmaceutical for this task, found in kits like this one used to train food and beverage scientists. Any diverse set of strong familiar smells can work.
I worked in a related field and got my ass kicked by long COVID shortly after the start of the pandemic. This is a good starter on the biology involved, a journal article from Nature, unpaywalled: https://web.archive.org/web/20220623072436/https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01628-9
Treating anosmia from brain damage is the same for post-COVID as for a car accident or getting gassed in WWI: you diligently breathe in the olfactory training kit and try to vividly remember those smells.
Pull quote: “Sometimes, the sense of smell recovers spontaneously after injury. The olfactory nerve is the only cranial nerve that can repair itself when damaged, and olfactory sensory neurons — cells in the upper part of the nose that recognize different odorant molecules — renew themselves periodically throughout life.“
edit to add, extreme sympathies to anyone who has found themselves experiencing this!
e2: corrected link
Thank you. I should have realised that it needed more of an explanation. Shame that people don't engage their brains before a trigger finger downvote in a science thread though.
I got COVID twice, and both times I lost my sense of smell. The first time it lasted 3 days, and the second time, the total loss was only for half a day. Both times, one of the first smells I was able to detect was the vinegar in salt&vinegar chips. It's a strong smell that seemed to "pierce through" the block.
So I didn’t completely lose my taste, but vinegar somehow ended up tasting like bleach to me for a few weeks. Strange how it affects everyone differently.