When the coronavirus robs your sense of smell

“What I miss the most is the smell of kissing my son, the scent of my wife’s body,” says Jean-Michel Maillard.

Anosmia (loss of olfaction) may be an invisible handicap, but living mentally is difficult and there is no real cure.

And that’s the price that more and more people pay after surviving with a brush Coronavirus, Some do not seem to smell in the long run.

“Anosmia separates you from the smell of life. It’s torture,” says Maillard, chairman of the French group anosmie.org, designed to help victims.

If you are unable to inhale the scent of coffee in the first morning, the scent of cut grass on freshly sown lawn, or “the encouraging scent of soap on your skin when preparing for a meeting. Sniff. Is called.

You really only notice your sense of smell when you lose the smell, Maillard said.

And it’s not just the smell of joy you lose. He, Anosmia Can’t smell smoke from fire, gas from leaks, or trash from an undercleaned bin.

Eating, nose and throat specialist Alan Colle of Paris’s Hospital Fondation Rothschild is a completely different experience to eat.

“There are dozens of causes,” he says, including nasal polyps, chronic rhinitis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.

Corre says a new coronavirus has been added to the list. In some cases, COVID-19 can be diagnosed based only on the symptoms.

“When people lose their sense of smell and don’t get it back, we notice real changes in quality of life and levels of non-significant depression,” he adds.

The problem is when the situation persists, he says.

“I’m robbed of you Smell “For a month, it’s not serious. For two months, it begins to be a problem. But after six months, you’re all alone under the bell jar.

“There are psychological aspects of this that are very difficult to live together,” he argues. “I need help.”

The quest for treatment

There is no specific cure for the condition.

Coree said the cause had to be addressed, “The problem with anosmia associated with viruses is that treatment of viral infections often does not affect odor.

“According to the first figures, about 80% of patients with COVID-19 recover spontaneously in less than a month and often even faster in 8-10 days.”

But for others, the disease may have destroyed olfactory neurons, the ones that detect odors. The good news is that these neurons can play, behind the nose.

Two Paris hospitals, Rothschild and Lariboière, have launched a “Covid ORL” study to investigate the phenomenon and test how different nasal washes can cure analgesia.

One of the cortisone-based therapies has proven promising and effective in treating anosmia after it has cooled, Corre says.

Another way to approach this condition is to re-educate the sense of smell and stimulate certain memory connections of certain odors.

His advice is to choose five scents of cinnamon, or thyme, in your kitchen that you really like. Breathe twice a day for 5-10 minutes to see what you are inhaling.

Anosmie.org collaborated with Hirac Gurden, Director of Neuroscience Research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), to put together a refresher program using essential oils. It is based on the work of Dresden-based researcher Thomas Hummel.

“Hundreds of as early as March phone, Email from people who have COVIDs and have been asking for help because they can no longer sniff anything. “Garden says.

Maillard, meanwhile, completed a refresher program last winter with four scents.

“Today I have 10 of them,” he says, including fish, tobacco, and rose essential oils. “I even found a perfume that could smell! He declares.

© 2020 AFP