A case of Covid-19 was considered easy if there was no evidence of viral pneumonia or loss of oxygen and the patient was able to recover at home.
The sense of smell reappeared after an average of 18 to 21 days, the study found, but about 5% of people did not recover their olfactory function at six months.
Moderate to severe Covid-19
In comparison, the study found that only 4% to 7% of people with moderate to severe symptoms of Covid-19 lost their ability to smell and taste.
People with moderate Covid-19 showed “clinical signs of pneumonia,” according to the study, such as cough, fever and difficulty breathing. Those with critical illnesses suffered from severe respiratory distress and were more likely to be older and have “hypertension, diabetes, gastric disorders, kidney, respiratory, cardiac, hepatic and neurological disorders”.
The study, which was published Monday in the Journal of Internal Medicine, found a higher rate of olfactory dysfunction in younger patients compared to the elderly, but that association requires further analysis, the researchers said.
How to test your sense of smell
Is there anything you can do at home to test if you have a loss of smell? The answer is yes, using the “jellybean test”.
“You put the jelly in your mouth and chew it. Suppose it’s a fruit-flavored jelly: if you get the salt and sweetness of the jelly, you’ll know you have a functional taste,” Munger said.
“Then, while you are still chewing, suddenly release your nose. If you have a sense of smell, you will suddenly get all the smells and say “Oh! It’s really a very dramatic, quick response, “Wow,” he explained.
“So if you can go from sweet and sour to full flavor and know what the flavor is,” Munger said, “then the sense of smell is probably in pretty good shape.”
The scientific name for this process is retro nasal smell, where odors flow from the back of the mouth up through the nasal pharynx and into the nasal cavity.
What if you don’t have a jellybean? You can use other foods, said ear, nose and throat specialist Dr. Erich Voigt, director of the sleep otorhinolaryngology division at NYU Langone Health, in a previous interview.
“The sense of pure smell would be if you could smell a certain substance that doesn’t stimulate other motor nerves,” Voigt said. “If you smell coffee or coffee or if you smell someone peeling an orange – that’s the sense of smell.”
However, you have to be careful, because it’s easy to think you’re using your scent when you’re not, Voigt said.
“So, for example, ammonia or cleaning solutions, they stimulate the trigeminal nerve, which is an irritating nerve,” he said. “And so people will think, ‘Oh, I can smell Clorox, I can smell ammonia, which means I can smell it.’ But no, that’s not fair. I don’t actually smell, I use the trigeminal nerve. ”
Still not sure if you understand correctly? Check the internet for medical scratch and sniff tests.
Loss of smell is common
Of course, not everyone who takes an odor test will have a coronavirus. Any respiratory virus, such as a cold or flu, will have a temporary impact on smell and taste, sometimes even permanent.
“The amount of swelling that can occur in the nose due to the viral effect can prevent odor particles from reaching the tip of the nose, where the olfactory nerve is,” Voigt said. “When the swelling subsides, the sense of smell can return.”
But there are also neurotoxic viruses, some of which are in the common cold category, Voigt said.
“If they are neurotoxic, that means they damage the olfactory nerve and become essentially dysfunctional,” he added. “Many of these cases can recover the odor over time, but sometimes it is a permanent loss.”
A partial or complete chronic odor loss is incredibly common, Munger said, affecting millions of Americans long before the new coronavirus broke out on stage.
“About 13 percent of the population has a significant impairment of smell or taste,” he said.
In addition to colds and flu, other causes of odor loss include nasal polyps, tumors, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, and traumatic brain injury or head trauma, including whiplash.
“If someone was in a car accident or had a whiplash or head injury, this could have an impact on the small nerves as they go from the brain to the nose,” Voigt said. “So a whiplash can also cause a permanent loss of smell.”
A loss of taste is usually associated with loss of smell, as we rely on smell to identify flavors. But there may also be medical reasons: Some medications can affect the taste; chemotherapy and radiation therapy can certainly disrupt the taste; and then there are physical injuries, such as cut nerves during dental surgery.