Next month will be my one year anniversary of getting covid (talk about a shitty Valentine’s day present…) and my sense of smell and taste still isn’t anywhere near back to normal. Honestly, at this point things have been messed up long enough that it doesn’t particularly bother me on an emotional level anymore. It’s just annoying and makes it really difficult to eat in a semi normal way. So, this isn’t going to be some fraught emotional post about missing food because my soul is a bit too tired to be all that sad. Instead, I’m going to write something much more useful: ideas on how to cope with it.
I’m pretty open with my ongoing issues with taste and smell, which has made me something of a go-to person for those in my life who are either personally experiencing the same issues or know someone who is. This came up the other day with someone asking me how to best support a friend of theirs who was having ongoing taste/smell loss. I provided some suggestions, which I’m going to include here and elaborate upon.
So, if your sense of taste and/or smell (or that of someone you know) is all messed up, here are my recommendations and things to remember. To be clear: I’m not a medical professional, just some person on the internet who has a messed up nose, so consult a professional where relevant.
- As soon as you feel well enough to do so, select several essential oils and/or spices and start smelling them while you remember what they smelled like! This is basically the only documented treatment at this point and it’s helped me a little bit. From my perspective, part of my ongoing issues has been that I didn’t start doing this soon enough. By the time I started to try, I’d forgotten how things smelled and that recall seems to be a pretty essential part of the process. I was too fatigued and dealing with too much too soon to get on it sooner, so here we are.
- Recovery is not a linear process and it can be a long one. I’ve had accurate smells come and go at random. Most of my smell recovery has been distorted, but even at nearly a year I have continued to gain new smells. Try not to give up hope if things don’t seem to be improving and/or if there are backslides.
- Figure out what, if anything, you can taste/smell and enjoy. Really enjoy it and get the most out of it you can, especially if the smell/taste is accurate. These can, in my experience, fade, so it’s important to enjoy them while they’re here and it seems like it could be helpful in recovery.
- In the beginning, avoid the temptation to eat and/or prepare your favorite foods. Until you’ve reached a point of acceptance of your temporary, possibly even permanent limitations, it can be really devastating to find that your favorites taste like nothing or, worse, are distorted. I made harira early on, which is my absolute favorite soup, and it broke my heart that I couldn’t smell or taste any of it. I could probably make it now and be okay.
- Pay close attention to the textures you enjoy and the ones that you don’t like. Those of us with sensory issues probably already knew some of this, but it becomes particularly important when you don’t have the full array of taste. I found that being unable to taste my food drew heightened attention to the texture. You can use this to your advantage by preparing food with textures that you enjoy, so you’re getting something more than little/no taste.
- If you’re experiencing distorted taste/smell (common and actually a good sign for recovery), try to limit and avoid as much as possible, including similar foods, at least initially. That seems kind of obvious, but it’s tempting to push through. I’ve found that my distorted smells come in categories and similar things have the same distorted smell. For example, on Thanksgiving, I noticed that potatoes gave off this awful rotten smell. I’ve since noticed that any heavily starchy food has the same smell.
- Still expose yourself to the taste/smells that are distorted and unpleasant, but pace yourself. Some of these can be absolutely horrid and I’ve found that they often dominate my smellscape when they first emerge. Ongoing exposure does, over time, lessen the strength of the smell/taste, or at least my reaction to it. So, with the potatoes, I couldn’t bear to cook or eat them initially, but I can now eat them again. I don’t particularly enjoy them anymore, but they don’t nauseate me like they used to. If you fully restrict anything distorted, you can end up with a very short list of foods to eat.
- Bland foods are your friend, at least for a while. Strong smells/tastes are more likely to trigger distortion, but also I’ve found that my expectations of bland foods are lower. Aside from the very beginning, I’ve been able to taste salt, sweet, and fat accurately and that’s most of the taste profile for bland food. So, when I have McDonald’s, for example, I don’t really notice that all I taste is fat and salt because I’m pretty sure that’s all that’s normally there. These foods can be super unhealthy, but if you’re struggling to eat on a consistent basis, something is always better than nothing.
- Cold food allegedly is less likely to trigger distorted smells. I’m honestly not completely sure how much this holds up, but it’s a tip worth sharing.
- Live it up with the foods you can’t taste but are actually good for you. I’ve always had a hard time eating veggies, but noticed that, until recently, they had no flavor for me. I took advantage of that to eat more of them.
- Invest in some kind of meal replacement shake and/or bar. It is very easy to not eat or to eat too limited a diet or to eat a diet that’s not particularly nutritious while dealing with all of this. I was surviving off basically McDonalds, tamales, and Dominican pollo al horno. Not very nutritious, so I added in the occasional shake. I chose Huel because it’s a meal replacement rather than weight loss so it allegedly has all of the things a human needs to survive and the vanilla is pretty taste neutral so it doesn’t trigger taste issues. If you want to give it a try, this link will give you (and me) $15 off your order.
- If you’re someone that loves cooking/baking, expect that it probably won’t be as enjoyable for you right now. I actually have a very hard time motivating myself to cook/bake, even now. If possible, start cooking/baking for others (or increase how much you already do). I’ve found I get kind of an enjoyment by proxy, but also it makes me much more likely to eat home cooked meals rather than takeout if I’m sharing it with someone else.
- Lastly, make sure you have a solid support network, including professional support. This can be an incredibly depressing symptom to live with, especially if it’s ongoing. This absolutely took a lot of the joy out of my life and has caused some social issues, as some people have stopped meal invites because they worry it would be upsetting for me to be there. The distorted smells in particular also pose a risk for disordered eating, as foods start to feel unsafe/safe. While this was a symptom laughed off early in the pandemic, it can be really life altering, so find the support you need to manage.
I hope this is a list you found helpful for yourself and anyone in your life living with this issue. Have other tips not included here? Feel free to drop them in a comment.
Michael Faccini 
One response to “So, Your Sense of Taste and/or Smell is All Messed Up…”
[…] new exciting foods around me, but unable to do so. All of this got worse when I lost my sense of taste/smell from COVID that has never fully returned. More than a few times my therapist expressed concern about how […]
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