“What I miss the most is the smell of my son when I kiss him, the smell of my wife’s body,” says Jean-Michel Maillard.
© VALERY HACHE
Losing the ability to do something we take for granted like smelling a rose can depress people
Anosmia, loss of the sense of smell, may be an invisible handicap, but it is psychologically difficult to live with and has no real treatment, he says.
And it’s the price an increasing number of people pay after surviving a brush with the coronavirus, and some face an apparently long-term inability to smell.
“Anosmia separates you from the smells of life, it is torture,” says Maillard, president of anosmie.org, a French group designed to help the sick.
If you have the condition that you can no longer breathe in the smell of your first morning coffee, smell the cut grass of a freshly cut lawn or even “the calming smell of soap on your skin when you’re preparing for a meeting,” he says. .
© John SAEKI
You only realize your sense of smell when you lose it, says Maillard, who lost his after an accident.
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And not only are olfactory pleasures lost. She points out that people with anosmia cannot smell smoke from a fire, gas from a leak, or a poorly washed garbage can.
Eating is also a completely different experience, since much of what we appreciate in food is what we can smell, says Alain Corre, an ear, nose and throat specialist at the Hopital-Fondation Rothschild in Paris.
“There are dozens of causes of anosmia,” he says, including nasal polyps, chronic rhinitis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Now, the new coronavirus has been added to that list, Corre says, with the symptom only allowing a diagnosis of COVID-19 in some cases.
“When people lose their sense of smell and don’t get it back, we notice a real change in quality of life and a level of depression that is not insignificant,” he adds.
The problem is when the condition persists, he says.
“Being deprived of your sense of smell for a month is not serious,” says Maillard. “Two months, it starts to become a problem. But after six months, you are alone under a hood.”
“There is a psychological aspect to this that is very difficult to live with,” he insists. “Need help”.
– The search for treatment –
There is no specific treatment for the condition.
You need to address the cause, Corre says, but “the problem with virus-related anosmias is that often treating the viral infection has no effect on your smell.”
“According to early numbers, about 80 percent of patients with COVID-19 recover spontaneously in less than a month, and often even faster, in eight to 10 days.”
For others, however, it could be that the disease has destroyed their olfactory neurons, which detect odors. The good news is that these neurons, in the back of the nose, can regenerate.
Two Paris hospitals, Rothschild and Lariboisiere, have launched a “CovidORL” study to investigate the phenomenon, testing how well different nose washes can cure anosmia.
A cortisone-based treatment has been shown to be effective in treating cases of anosmia after a cold and offers some hope, Corre says.
Another way to address the condition is through olfactory reeducation, to try to stimulate associations that have specific smells in their memory, he says.
His advice is to choose five scents in your kitchen that are special to you, that you really like: cinnamon or thyme. Breathe them in twice a day for five to 10 minutes as you watch what you are inhaling.
Anosmie.org has even put together an essential oil reeducation program, in collaboration with Hirac Gurden, director of neuroscience research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). It is based on the work of Dresden-based researcher Thomas Hummel.
“As early as March, we received several hundred phone calls, emails from people who had COVID and were asking for help because they couldn’t smell anything anymore,” says Gurden.
Meanwhile, Maillard completed his re-education program last winter, using four scents.
“Today I have 10 of them,” he says, including fish, cigarettes, and rose essential oil. “I’ve even found a perfume I can smell!” He declares.
lc / jj / har / leg / kaf
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