Never heard any follow ups on the taste thing, so I need answers
4 years since 2020. Time really flies when a catastrophic global event hits you in the face
Smell and taste took maybe 3 weeks to come back fully, as far as I can tell.
I found that making myself smell strong things seemed helpful, whether placebo or not. Like whiffs of essential oils and stuff.
The fatigue was the worst part. That took at least a month to get over the hump.
No pb with taste and smell. However, I experience difficulties staying focused when I talk, finding words, finishing sentences, especially at work
Personal best? Peanut butter?
Yes and yes. Took about two weeks to get the sense of taste and smell back
Didn’t lose my smell or taste but after the initial flu-like stage of my infection was over I didn’t really get any better. And my doctor made it worse by telling me to power through and start working again. Nowadays I can only leave the bed to go to the toilet.
I’m about to participate in a study with some experimental treatments. Stupid thing is that I have to do an exercise test at the beginning so that they can measure the effectiveness. I took a shower last week and that’s left me in pain that will persist over the next few weeks. I shudder to think about what that exercise test will do.
But Portal taught me to do everything for science.
Wish I could give you a bonus upvote for that last line 😂
Congrats on keeping a sense of humor mate, and positive vibes coming your way for the sciency bit 💙
My sense of taste kind of came back, but severely muted for some things. Coffee never quite got back to the same level of flavor, for example. I’ve also noticed my ability to taste salt is pretty shot. I can, but I have to add stupid amounts of the stuff. For an example, I had to do a clear liquid diet about a week ago prior to a medical procedure, and drinking some broth with 748mg of sodium per serving just tasted like drinking greasy water to me.
In terms of long term effects, it’s a bit harder to say. I got covid for the first time in August 2020 (yay for being an essential peasant!), and I was out of work until May 2021. I had to do months of PT because of what my primary doctor called a post-viral fatigue syndrome. At its worst, if I tried to walk more than a block away from my apartment and back, I would wake up the next day feeling sore from my neck down to my toes. I remember a day where I slept for 12 hours, woke up and made and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and just doing that left me so tired I went back to sleep for another 6 hours or so.
Other stuff is less clear. It certainly started manifesting and presenting symptoms after I had COVID, but correlation and causation being what it is, it’s hard to definitively say what might have just been low-level and not bothering me that much before and what could have been kicked off by COVID. I developed photophobia, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and some nerve damage after being ill for the first time, which are all fun.
I guess the photophobia is the easiest to manage, I just need to wear heavily tinted glasses at all times, as I get these awful migraines if I don’t. Uncovered light bulbs, TVs, monitors, whatever can set them off. The thyroid condition I get to take a synthetic hormone basically for the rest of my life and get blood work done 4 times a year to see how it’s working. The nerve damage I get to take another medication pretty much for forever as well, thanks to US insurance. Instead of a daily pill, my neurologist could give me an occipital nerve block every 3-4 months, but insurance doesn’t want to pay for them unless it’s done at a pain management clinic. For reasons I can’t work out, every pain management clinic I looked at with my referral seemed to be out of network for everyone, so it’d run me like $700 for the initial visit and $400 every 3-4 months after that. I guess they know they’ve got you if the pain is bad enough? Anyway, my prescription has been working so far and it’s the only thing I don’t even need to pay for before hitting my deductible, so I have that going for me.
I’ve also noticed my ability to taste salt is pretty shot.
That’s really interesting - for most people it is the nasal receptors that are included - lost of “taste” is actually lost of smell. I’m not sure I’ve head of someone losing salt, sweet, soutr or bitter.
Lost the ability to smell and taste. Both slowly started to come back over a few months, in the end I want to say it took at least 8. It doesn’t seem quite as good as before but it’s mostly back to normal.
As for other long term effects, I seem to have been mostly spared except that whenever I get a viral infection, I usually have terrible joint pain.
I had COVID at the beginning of 2021, I’ve lost smell, even when I got out of it for a few months soft drinks like Coke, sprite or tonic tested like paint thinner, raw onion and my own sweat smelled like rotten eggs, fortunately after some time it stopped, drinks sooner than onion though
Had COVID in 2022. Lost sense of taste and smell. I can say I didn’t lose it permanently since it has come back. Whether in part or fully, I don’t know. I smelled anything with a strong and recognisable smell to try retraining my nose. Perfume, Vicks, even newspapers.
I didn’t get COVID during the peak in 2020 but my mental health has taken a massive hit. The NHS has taken a massive downturn since the pandemic, and I don’t see it getting any better.
Had it in 2021, taste was gone for only three days. Afterwards some things tasted off for a few weeks, chocolate tasted like ammonium. That’s gone now. Endurance was mostly gone afterwards, and I stil have trouble remembering names, even of people I’ve known a long time.
I had the name thing before covid was even a thing (sorry not belittling your pain just had to be a smart alek. really though I have always been so bad with names and faces im not sure I would notice if covid made it worse.)
Don’t worry, I get that reaction a lot. Also the “that’s just aging” reaction regarding both the forgetting and the endurance (stamina?). But if you can’t remember the names of people you speak every week, and who don’t have forgettable face and demeanor, that’s not normal for me. Also, if you suddenly are exhausted after walking a stair where this was no problem before, that’s also not normal.
yeah I get its ot the same thing and if your memory was sharp as tack before its going to be massive. One thing I am thankful for being born in the modern world is that my coworkers names always appears in teams. I get into trouble when im speaking with my screens are covering teams as suddenly I can’t get names quite right or tell who is speaking.
Lots of people do this. My work place displays last name - first name in Teams. My last name can also be a first name, and it happens more than once a week that somebody calls me by my last name.
Just a reminder that not only is covid not over, but in many places infections are on the rise again and people are still dying, while vaccines become less and less accessible, no other official measures taken (like recommending masks on public transport), and more and more long term effects of infection come to light.
As a vulnerable person, the fact that people talk about it like it’s in the past scares the shit out of me.
Same. I don’t even know how to respond to questions like this. It’s such a failure of our governments that people think loss of taste and smell from an infection years ago is the only lasting impact they’re experiencing. It’s a vascular disease that can damage every organ in the body and we’re being forced to experience repeat infections. Unfortunately most won’t realize what is happening until after it does, and there’s very few treatments and even little care for prevention.
I’m a disabled organizer focused on covid issues, and every day I hear constantly from people about the barriers covid has to their lives. Some are new barriers like new health conditions, increased precarity, and rising debt. Others are finding existing issues that were already hard to navigate become near insurmountable. Many of us haven’t had regular healthcare in years due to lack of covid safety or the system’s complete overwhelm. So many of us are fighting to just see a dentist without getting covid, and it’s nearly impossible.
And this is just from the folks who are aware of why covid should be avoided and what the current situation is, every day I talk to people who have long therm health issues from covid that now have to navigate a world they thought wouldn’t affect the. Covid has and will continue to impact every aspect of everyone’s life and it sucks seeing so many ignore it.
Edit to add- and yea, at least 7 million people died worldwide with over a million of that just in the US. The amount of people forever missing loved ones is hard to grapple with. A quarter of a million kids lost one or both parents, it’s had profound impact to their life trajectories that we’ll see for decades, and that’s not even accounting for the health implications they’ll endure along with the rest of society as we have continued repeat infections.
Others are finding existing issues that were already hard to navigate become near insurmountable. Many of us haven’t had regular healthcare in years due to lack of covid safety or the system’s complete overwhelm
I am part of this group, I was already struggling to get the kind of in-home care I actually need (because social services are direly and deliberately underfunded), now I won’t even risk it because I know people won’t/can’t avoid bringing that shit in to my space. And that’s just to name one of so many impacts it has had…
Otherwise I agree with everything else you’ve said, except that the government is failing, but only because I think they’re doing exactly as they want and expect to do, we’re (we being not only those already most vulnerable in society and to covid, but by extension the rest of the working class) just an after thought and acceptable collateral damage.
I’ve been meaning to share this on its own, but it definitely belongs here too:
https://donotpanic.substack.com/p/its-all-out-war-on-the-vulnerable
Thanks for the link, it’s a good piece. And I definitely agree on it being an intentional path by our government not a failing per se. It’s not just the disabled that are and always have been afterthoughts, it’s everyone. Covid’s lasting damage is well-known, but that’s your problem not theirs, they have mitigations in place for themselves and the best care available if needed.
It’s very little but if you’re US based and want to remind your state officials that they’re killing people with their negligence, a group I organize with has a letter to send them about masking in healthcare. I really hope that this year we see actual progress on addressing covid instead of just ignoring it. We’re in the second highest ever surge currently, a lot of people are going to be sicker by November.
It’s not just the disabled that are and always have been afterthoughts, it’s everyone. Covid’s lasting damage is well-known, but that’s your problem not theirs, they have mitigations in place for themselves and the best care available if needed.
Well said. Accessibility and inclusion of disabled and vulnerable people has always benefitted society at large, but people are put under such pressure to “win”, never mind just survive, that they’ve completely lost sight of that (like you say - to their own detriment).
Thank you too for the link, the fact that wearing masks in the healthcare sector is even up for debate, never mind something that needs to essentially be begged for, is enraging, though you’d be relieved? to know that here in the UK they aren’t mandatory either… And the infection and deaths numbers show it. We’re also expecting potentially the largest wave yet
https://donotpanic.substack.com/p/four-years-later-two-million-infections?publication.There honestly are no words to express the frustration…
It also seems like most people think that if they are vaccinated they can ignore it entirely.
Vaccinated individuals still experience the first stages of infection and still develope a high enough viral load to be contagious. The vaccines are effective at decreasing the duration and severity of infection, but they can’t prevent it entirely.
People who know they were exposed should still isolate for a few days even if they are vaccinated.
Thanks for reminding me I need to start wearing masks again.
Yup, covid really did ramp up the ableism in society to a whole new level…
It’s not only that people think that because they didn’t feel that bad or have long term side-effects, covid simply isn’t that bad or have serious long term side effects, so in their own minds they not only don’t need to make any effort to protect themselves, never mind others (mostly already marginalised people they prefer to ignore in everyday life, so why not now), they also have a new (and constantly growing) group of people to scapegoat and gaslight and tell it isn’t really that bad because it wasn’t that bad for them, and that they should just “suck it up”.
I won’t even start on the part capitalism and the governments and media who uphold and serve it have played in making it this way, and how a desperate and divided population benefits them, which is why they’re never going to do anything about it…
The more you look the worse it gets…
I feel you. I’m a vulnerable person but in expected to just show up at work…
Totally lost my sense of smell for about 2 weeks, but it came back pretty quickly. The worst long term symptom has been a substantially heightened gag reflex. Talking while chewimg gum has become a balancing act or I start heaving, just brushing my molars is enough to trigger gagging some days, and brushing my tongue after my teeth is a sprint to avoid puking. It’s trash.
I got it at the end of 2020, before any vaccinations. It fcked me up good, made me struggle to cycle 2 minutes to the supermarket in the following weeks. At some point I mostly recovered, but not totally. My nose was almost completely closed, which also caused ear problems and a sore throat. I had a surgery done, which did open it up somewhat but didn’t fully solve the issue. I’m still having issues now. My nose is almost always very dry, sometimes painful, and also quite often not as open as I’d like. This also still causes ear and throat issues regularly, especially with cold dry air. Luckily my second run-in with covid (after vaccination) was only a temporary pain in the ass and went away without any issues after suffering for a week.
My sense of taste was dulled and my sense of smell was totally 100% gone(I’m certain I could’ve been sprayed directly by a skunk and still smelt nothing at all) for about a month, with them slowly going back to normal over the course of another month or so. I also developed minor brain fog, which still hasn’t fully left over 3 years later.
My wife and I had very different experiences. I had one bad day in bed and was fine after. She was sick for at least a week and lost her since of smell (and much of taste) for about 6 months with another 6 months recovering.
No long-term side effects from getting covid twice, my endurance didn’t really change after I got better but it was kind of depressed for a week or so afterwards, and my sense of taste was gone for about 3 or 4 days.
Other than that, my dad got it once and now he’s not alive anymore, so get your booster shots and mask if you want to.
