Highest Rated Comments


ArdnasPry2 karma

Thanks so much. I also left a message on the nurse voice mail at your office. As I mentioned, I am a grant writer and you asked for support with your app.

ArdnasPry1 karma

Thank you for this AMA and for your work in this area. Dysosmia is a super-interesting phenomenon! Unfortunately, it has been with me since Spring 2019. Forgive the (long) length of this post, but I want to share as much as is possible, in case it is helpful to others, too.

Background: I am a 60-year old white female vegetarian bicyclist in good health, 5' tall and 107 pounds. I had enjoyed a very keen sense of smell and memory for fragrance throughout my life (easily duplicating complex spice combinations from food years later, for example.) I also now know that my visual and emotional memory had strong associations with odors as well.)

I have taken 3-6-9 oil since 1998, a multivitamin and some vitamin d--all in moderate doses, and probiotics since 2016, post-surgery for carpal tunner and IV antibiotics. As I approached menopause in my mid-50s, I put on weight by eating too much "healthy food," the same kinds of which I had eaten my whole adult life (organic oils, fruits, veggies, and nuts, with limited dairy.) In April 2018, I switched to a low fat, higher-protein diet with a good deal of Greek yogurt--and lost 29 pounds over 11 months. Symptoms of dysnomia started in Spring 2019.

I first became aware of smell changes after my hubby and I returned to our rental house in Massachusetts after having been away for a week. (Throughout 30+ years of marriage, I was the one who had a better sense of smell.) We walked in and he found the smell of mildew/mold to be overwhelming--I smelled nothing. We had the landlord deal with the issue and thought no more of it, but I continued to have unusual perceptions or absence of smell. At first, everything smelled like plain Greek yogurt--I thought I was just tired of it. I noticed that ginger--which I ate every day--was also gone. Then summer basil was dull, and peppermint smelled like horseradish. Floral scents stayed mostly intact--roses, jasmine--and citrus was evidently still satisfying because my husband noted that I started putting lime on just about every savory dish.)

By the end of the summer, we knew that we were going to leave Massachusetts, and I hoped that this was just a temporary reaction to the mold. We traveled throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic in the fall, and South Carolina in the winter. I noticed the absence of perception of nearly every common bark/woodsy scent, with continued disgust of dairy fats. I lost alliums and citrus faded. I started researching and found "Fifth Sense, in the UK," and read about loss related to Parkinson's' s/Alzheimers, tumors, and viruses. Then I moved back to my home in the Poconos, just as COVID-19 hit.

During the fall/winter, I interacted with my doctor of 30 years, a homeopathic MD/internist in the greater Philly area. We tried several remedies with no change. I realized that I probably needed to see an ENT, and just then, COVID-19-related anosmia entered the picture. Next, the Poconos locked down. And so, I waited...

Reflecting on the situation, in the new COVID-19 context, previous information came to memory:

  1. In Massachusetts, I worked as a grants officer in a small college. I had few contacts with students, but there was one Chinese student who I was kind to (he needed an envelope, and randomly walked into my office looking for one. When he learned that my daughter had studied in China, he visited often.) In January 2019, just as the semester started, and he had just returned from China, he came to see me, sick, and coughed all over my office.
  2. My hubby also had interaction with the Chinese student because he worked in the college library--and again, the student knew of our daughter. My hubby became very ill in the spring, high fever and weakness for 5 days.

Could we have had COVID-19 as early as spring 2019?

I started participating in Project Baseline in May 2020 and had a swab 5/30/2020 with Negative results. I went to see the ENT about 4 weeks ago. A nasal endoscopy found no anomalies--"healthy, no masses..." and I am scheduled for an MRI.

Just before I went to the ENT, I read something about how probiotics may not be a catch-all solution, how determining the right ones is an individual unknown, and how gut bacteria and CNS are related. So I stopped it just before the appointment.

I also reported back to my homeopath that my sinuses were healthy. Three weeks ago, I took one dose of camphora 200c, and I started having glimpses of smell. I took a second dose 2 weeks ago, and a third two days ago. I continue to have glimpses of odor--the woods after rain, for example.

So that is my story. The ending is not clear, but I am giving it another few weeks before I go for the MRI.

All the best, and thanks again.

I just realized that I did not ask anything. What do you think is going on?

ArdnasPry1 karma

I am not sure what you do for a living, but I want to encourage you. If it is indeed, gone, then you will find ways to adapt. (Unless you are a sommelier or barista, or work in the natural gas industry...)

Using essential oils, I have made a focused effort to re-connect odors with visual and emotional memory. It seems to be effective, sometimes. I am also using this experience as a contemplative practice and trying to gain insights about physical attachments. In this, I realized that my premorbid keen sense of smell was also wrapped up somewhat in my sense of self. Unusual, perhaps, but it does make sense that a primal sense might be connected to consciousness.

Blessings to you. If you cannot smell, you will not cease to be. Take care.

ArdnasPry1 karma

Correct. My exposure to the coughing student was in January 2019.

ArdnasPry1 karma

And it could be unrelated, I understand. Thanks again for your responses.