Imagine a delicious cheeseburger or steak coming off the grill having a rotten taste. That’s the reality for a Des Moines, Iowa, woman who had COVID-19 in February.Kathy Olson said she lost her sense of taste and smell for a couple of weeks following her COVID-19 diagnosis. After recovering from the virus she was able to taste and smell again, but months later, everything tastes and smells rotten to her. Olson said she’s suffering from parosmia, which is a condition that distorts smell. She said it’s affecting her taste as well. “I had meat and it started tasting really rotten,” Olson said. Dr. Leyla Best with Unity Point tells sister station KCCI that loss of taste and smell is frequently associated with COVID-19, but about 75% of people regain those senses within a couple of months. “There has been different degrees of these symptoms persisting with COVID-19 symptoms, but those are initially persisting more at the beginning,” Best said.Best said it’s not common that people lose their sense of taste and smell, get it back and then lose it again.Olson said she’s been dealing with a rotten smell and taste for two months. She’s lost 28 pounds and can barely stomach most foods. “Wherever I was going, walking through the house, almost feeling like I was going to pass out sometimes,” Olson said. Olson said her doctors told her that parosmia lasts for an average of 10 months.
Imagine a delicious cheeseburger or steak coming off the grill having a rotten taste. That’s the reality for a Des Moines, Iowa, woman who had COVID-19 in February.
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Kathy Olson said she lost her sense of taste and smell for a couple of weeks following her COVID-19 diagnosis. After recovering from the virus she was able to taste and smell again, but months later, everything tastes and smells rotten to her.
Olson said she’s suffering from parosmia, which is a condition that distorts smell. She said it’s affecting her taste as well.
“I had meat and it started tasting really rotten,” Olson said.
Dr. Leyla Best with Unity Point tells sister station KCCI that loss of taste and smell is frequently associated with COVID-19, but about 75% of people regain those senses within a couple of months.
“There has been different degrees of these symptoms persisting with COVID-19 symptoms, but those are initially persisting more at the beginning,” Best said.
Best said it’s not common that people lose their sense of taste and smell, get it back and then lose it again.
Olson said she’s been dealing with a rotten smell and taste for two months. She’s lost 28 pounds and can barely stomach most foods.
“Wherever I was going, walking through the house, almost feeling like I was going to pass out sometimes,” Olson said.
Olson said her doctors told her that parosmia lasts for an average of 10 months.
