Will My Sense Of Smell Come Back? What 'Smell Training' Can And Can't Do : Shots - Health News - NPR

About 25 years ago, after a particularly bad cold, I suddenly lost my sense of smell — I could no longer sense the difference between sweaty tennis shoes and a fragrant rose.

But when COVID-19 hit, the inability to detect odors and fragrances became a diagnostic symptom that upset a lot of COVID-19 sufferers, many of whom also lost their sense of taste.

He compiled a half dozen studies showing that people are better than animals at detecting some smells, and worse at others, leading him to conclude that "our sense of smell is similar to that of other mammals.".

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the division of the National Institutes of Health that deals with taste and smell, says 23% of Americans over age 40 report some alteration in their sense of smell, as do 32% of those over 80 — and that's from data gathered long before the COVID-19 pandemic?

And then there's phantosmia, where people smell things that aren't there at all.

While there's a fair amount of overlap between taste and smell disorders, most people who can't smell food can still taste it.

Hayes says the misperception that people who can't smell things can't taste them either stems from the way scientists use the word "taste" versus the way the rest of us do.

In science, he says, "taste is strictly defined as nonvolatile chemicals triggering sensations in the oral cavity." You don't need a sense of smell to taste sweet, sour, salt, bitter, and umami.

While a COVID-related loss of smell appears to track closely with a loss of taste, other causes of a sudden inability to detect or discern odors and fragrances rarely do.

Dalton says some people who've lost their sense of smell still have 'olfactory memory,' which allows them to conjure up aromas the way some people can hear a piece of music in their heads.

Once you've lost your sense of smell, can you ever get it back.

But how often that happens for people who lose their sense of smell for other reasons remains one of the mysteries of the — osmias — there just hasn't been all that much research.

The pandemic has increased interest in "smell training," where people practice by sniffing five or six strong scents twice a day.

For some, not being able to smell a salty ocean breeze or brownies baking is an immense loss — it's even kicked off some cases of depression.

Some people lose interest in food: A members-only Facebook support group run by AbScent, a U.K.-based membership organization of people who have a disordered sense of smell, has many reports of people who have real trouble finding foods they enjoy eating.

Then there's the 2014 study that found that roughly 15% of people with disturbances in their sense of smell had mistakenly eaten rancid or otherwise spoiled foods.

Has COVID-19 taught us more about a lost sense of smell and how to get it back.

Most other smell disorders are not related to taste disorders, but the two problems seem entwined for people who trace their loss to SARS-CoV-2.

According to NIDCD, suddenly not being able to smell anything is a better predictor of infection with this coronavirus than fatigue, fever or cough.

And loss of smell can serve as a sentinel — it often happens before other symptoms develop.

The Monell Center reports that 77% of people with COVID-19 fail "smell tests," and the connection has brought heightened interest to smell disorders in general

NIH reports it supported 205 studies on the sense of smell in 2020; NIDCD'S budget for such topics was $65 million in fiscal year 2020, and just three months ago, the institute announced four new projects aimed at using taste and smell testing to screen for early signs of COVID-19