SUDDENLY, I COULDN’T SMELL PERFUME OR TASTE SPICY PIZZA
Up to a third of patients infected by Covid-19 may temporarily lose their sense of smell and taste.
In some patients, this may be the only symptom or it may be a first sign. In others, it can persist, even after the tell-tale cough and fever have subsided.
Nnenna Idegwu Stevenson,
27, from Manchester, England, says it was one of the worst parts of her illness. When she first developed a dry cough on March 6, the business analyst presumed she’d picked up a chest infection. But one symptom was bizarre.
Nnenna says: ‘I first noticed it about a week after the cough started, when I was putting on deodorant. I couldn’t sense the perfume at all – which is quite strong. And that evening, my husband Mark bought me my favourite spicy meat pizza for dinner. But it was like eating paper, no taste came.’
On March 11, with her temperature climbing towards 39C, she was advised to go to hospital for investigations.
Five days later, while selfisolating, she received a call from her doctor who told her she’d tested positive for Covid19. At this point, her fever and cough were improving. But her sense of smell and taste (much of our flavour perception is actually due to receptors in the nose) were still absent.
Studies of Covid-19 patients in South Korea and Germany have found that up to a third may experience the condition, known as anosmia.
Experts say anyone who loses their sense of smell now should self-isolate.
Nnenna’s tastebuds came back to life on Monday. ‘I had a spoonful of rice for lunch and suddenly I recognised it again,’ she says. ‘That evening I made my favourite – jollof rice and chicken – and savoured every sensation of heat from the spices.’