hey Dr. Kandula with ADVENT today talking about really one of the most common questions that we
were getting and we're seeing kind of crop coming across our feeds in this COVID era which is a loss
of sense of smell is that related to COVID is it a cold what's going on you know and I think that
is an issue that as an ENT practice we've dealt with over our you know entire existence which
is something that happens that most people don't think about you know losing your sense
of smell happens the most common reason for somebody to lose their sense of smell
in the pre-COVID era was the common cold and there's various reasons why that can happen
but that happens at times and in for the with the common cold it sometimes can be a permanent
change and it's really devastating for folks who have a loss of sense of smell that's permanent
it really does impact their life overall you can't smell things you obviously you can't
taste a lot of things a lot of your sense of taste comes back to your sense of smell
so for instance to try to figure out if your milk has gone bad just by relying on your sense
of taste is almost impossible and so you know things like that you can't smell smoke you can't
smell you know gas leak there's certain very serious things that you know you never would
really think about unless you don't have your sense of smell now in this COVID era early on
like back in March you know when this was started out in China you know there started to be early
reports that there were a lot of people who were getting impacted with what we call anosmia
that's a fancy word for loss of sense of smell and early on it started to become obvious that there's
there's some connection here that's going on and so what we've learned is a significant
proportion of folks who have COVID have loss of sense of smell as one of their symptoms
and it's hard to get a good read on what do I mean by you know significant it seems based on some of
the studies sometimes it's more than half of folks who have COVID but have lost the sense of smell as
as one of their symptoms sometimes it can be the only symptom so if there are many folks who have
COVID who are really asymptomatic and you know one of the few things that they may notice is wow I
can't smell all of a sudden and and it can be kind of something that's subtle that until you
understand that it's there now becomes obvious it's one of those things that kind of sneaks up on
you so I think in this day and age if you have new onset loss of sense of smell I would really in my
opinion you know sort of say that that might may very well be COVID until proven otherwise I think
that's the safest way to going about it I think it'd be a reason to think to get tested I think
it could be a reason to think to maybe isolate or quarantine if it shows up out of the blue
folks are still getting colds these days and so it might you know come from something like that
but I would take it seriously I would take it as a sign that there's something going on you know and
and take some action thereof and you know now the reality with what's happening is just for those
that don't know your sense of smell comes from the top part of your nose we don't quite know but what
it seems like what's happening with COVID is that the COVID virus that's um attaching itself into
the lining of the nose and the back of the nose and the top of the nose um and and coming through
into the body in those directions is creating inflammation and creating damage or inflammation
in the cells that supports the actual smell fibers that that are up in the top part of the nose
and we think that's what's causing you know that's where the damage is being caused the good
news there is good news here is if your sense of smell is gone because of COVID studies are
showing that almost always that sense of smell is going to return it may take a few weeks it
sometimes may take a few months but I think for those that are kind of getting down in the dumps
that you may have been exposed to COVID but you may have COVID you lost your sense of smell
you can't taste very much things are sort of not you know as appealing as they once were that that
is something that's likely to come back so I think you know the good news is it tends to be temporary
the news is it's something to take seriously it's something to really take action on you know and
and I guess I would say at some point hopefully we'll be you know on the other side of this and
I'll be happy when we return to a day where sense of smell or smell loss is you know back
due to the typical run-of-the-mill cold versus the you know kind of current COVID situation so
Dr. Kandula with ADVENT for more information about advent please visit us on our website thank you
you