Hubby and I have had a nasty respiratory virus for the past week or so. We're both finally feeling that we're in recovery mode, but although I can breathe through my nose, I still have no sense of smell whatsoever (which means I've also lost nearly all sense of taste).

I've lost sense of smell and taste before with a cold or flu, but it always came back as soon as I could breathe through my nose.

My doctor says that it can take a while for the sense of smell/taste to come back after a virus knocks it out. Apparently there are two main ways that a virus can do this - inflammation and nerve damage.

If it's inflammation, the sense of smell will come back when the inflammation is gone.

If it's damage to the nasal nerves - it will depend which nerves and how badly they're damaged. It can take weeks, months or even years to get back what was lost (in rare cases it can be permanent).


This is so very weird. Brushing my teeth this morning, I couldn't even taste the toothpaste. My tongue felt a little "cold," but otherwise I wouldn't have even guessed "mint." I even doublechecked the tube to make sure I hadn't put my dermatitis cream on my brush by mistake (it's in a similar sized tube in the same drawer as the toothpaste).

Has anyone had this happen? How long did it take before you started getting smell back?

I'm just afraid that when I DO get it back, I'm going to want to eat everything in sight just to experience flavor again.

You don't use Zicam when you are sick do you? There is a lawsuit going on right now in regards to Zicam causing some users to lose their sense of smell.

I can't say that I've ever had this happen, but it's interesting to know that this can happen sometimes.

I'm glad you're feeling better and I hope your sense of smell comes back soon.

No, I haven't used Zicam or any other nasal sprays. Although I was taking zinc lozenges, but apparently only the zinc sprays are associated with the permanent loss of smell (still, if I'd known about the zinc spray lawsuit, I probably would have avoided the zinc cough drops as well).

I have had a couple wiffs of almost-thought-I-smelled-something today, so I'm feeling a little better about my sense of smell coming back sooner or later (hopefully sooner).

Once was over a bowl of left over stew and inhaling really deeply I thought I detected a very slight stew smell. When I tried to catch it again, I almost decided I must have imagined it.

Then later when I peeled an orange, also inhaling deeply over the bowl I thought I detected an odor, but it didn't smell like citrus to me, more like grass - don't know what's up with that, but it's also common to getting the sense of smell back apparently, from what I've been reading online. Before the sense of smell comes back entirely, some aromas may come through stronger than others, and some aromas may even come through changed or distorted at first.


Weird, stuff.

Glad you're doing better.

Wow hopefully it will get better as you get well. I cant smell skunk which people think is awesome but I just want to know what skunk smells like at least once. I can smell everything else. Hopefully what your going through is only temporary

I had this happen several years ago. It was very annoying and difficult to season and prepare foods. It seems to me it took several weeks before it came back, but then just as good as new again.

It's definitely coming back, but it's blunted and weird. I can taste some things, and can't taste others. Some things taste like they should (or at least weak versions of what they should), and some things taste way wrong. And, there doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason as to why one flavor comes through, and why another doesn't.

Very odd.

I'm just glad the worst seems to be over. I get pneumonia (or at least bronchitis) so easily from even a mild cold, that I was sure I'd have to be on antibiotics, but I seem to have gotten through this infection fine. Maybe it's a sign that the autoimmune disease is truly in remission and/or my lungs are recovering (or maybe I just got lucky).

Either way, I'm going to count my blessings.
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I'd use this as an opportunity to eat foods that you normally wouldn't eat! I had this happen a couple of months ago and I got adventuous with my food.

I lost my sense of smell about 8 months ago and believe me when I say it really does not help with dieting.

LOL! To get any more adventurous with my food, I'd have to leave the country to do it (I'd love to try guniea pig in South America, and stinky tofu in China - the barely fermented stuff Andrew Zimmern ate as street food on his Bizarre Foods episode in China, not the uber-rotted stuff that he gagged on later in the episode. That was a little hard-core for me).


I love food adventures, and I'm not the least bit squeamish (maybe I would be with large insects). I'd rather have a bad food experience than a boring one (which is why I find the loss of taste rather upsetting). I even enjoyed trying bitter melon (a very bitter oriental vegetable - looks like a wrinkly light green cucumber). Not a veggie I'd want to eat frequently, but it was edible.


The only foods I actively dislike, are texture-based, not taste based (I hate applesauce, but love fresh, crisp apples).


I LOVE trying new foods so much, that if someone says "Agh, this tastes horrible," I have to taste it to see if it's really as bad as the person says (and usually I don't think so, and will say something like "if you think that's bad, you should try.....")

Yeah, I'm weird.

Yeah, I know even from losing sense of smell during a cold (I've experiences loss of smell while my nose was plugged, just never when I could breathe freely). But even with a cold, not being able to taste stuff, only seems to make me hungrier - as if somehow the next taste of something is going to magically have flavor.

Interestingly enough, there's actually been lab studies of this (I remember studying this in college in the mid 80's so some of these are pretty old studies). If you disable a lab animal's sense of smell and taste, it will not decrease it's food intake (and may even increase it slightly), but if you disable its sense of texture, it will eat less and may even stop eating.

In The End of Overeating, the author talks about texture being one of the components that big food corporations study to make their food more irresistable.

You know, this is the first time I've ever heard of the sense of smell/ eating correlation - and it explains a lot to me!

I've over time lost a fair "section" of smell for me, as well as an overall lowered sense of smell. Most of mine is due to my old work place - I worked with a LOT of chemicals and many of them caused problems (I daily dealt with very large volumes of methylene chloride and hexane - and all the safety measures in the world sometimes don't overcome careless coworkers).

Anyway, I've never has as much a problem with my weight as I have since my sense of smell has decreased.

On the up side, I can't smell urine or ammonia