Bonnie Blodgett, author of Remembering Smell: A Memoir of Losing — and Discovering — the Primal Sense, talks to NPR about the smell hallucinations and anosmia that resulted from using Zicam nasal spray. You can listen here. Many thanks to Joe for the link!
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Amazing. Smell and taste, gone, after a host of vile phantom odors. What a hateful thing. No savor to food, just texture. I would drive myself insane: is the litter box clean, what about the refrigerator, is there some awful smell of which I’m unaware? I mean, this morning I thought there was a dead mouse in the cabinet. It turned out to be a bad potato. Without my sense of smell, I wouldn’t have known . . .
It is hateful…and frightening.
Terrific article. Anosmia is a terrible impairment, the prospect of which is frightening. I have a colleague who once was happy in her work as a fragrance consultant. She became anosmic after a severe sinus infection, and has not been able to smell or taste for over a decade. She told me how dim and flat life seemed without the rich variety of odors she used to enjoy. Her story compelled me to cherish more fully what is so often take for granted.
Oh, how terrible…I wonder if it was from the sinus infection or from something she took for the sinus infection?
I wonder too. Pharmaceuticals are tricky and often dangerous things– sad to think a medicine intended to heal could end up taking away an entire sensual faculty.
This article points out one of the big concerns I have about “natural” remedies, namely, just because something is natural does not mean it is safe. Zinc is a naturally occurring element, and is essential to the body’s functions, but the level of zinc found in these cold remedies is many times higher than what the body requires. It is also not “natural” to take it in through the nose–the normal route of absorption is through the digestive tract, NOT the respiratory tract. I tried the Zicam nasal swabs, and actually found them to be totally ineffective. I also was advised once to use zinc tablets (the kind sold as a dietary supplement) by putting one on my tongue and letting it dissolve. I tried this, and not only did it not relieve any of my cold symptoms, it made me nauseated and screwed up my sense of taste (although not my sense of smell). After using the zinc, most food was tasteless (yes, even more so than normal with a cold), and what I could taste was vile. Fortunately, both the nausea and the loss of taste were temporary, lasting only a few hours, but it convinced me not to use that particular “remedy” again.
Thank goodness it wasn’t permanent!
Those zinc lozenges really are nasty.
I remember hearing about possible severe taste and smell side effects from using zinc for colds when Zicam started to get very popular among my friends several years ago. I’m glad I stayed away now, how terrible.
Did any of you used the play the game when you were a kid, where you would ask everyone what sense they would be willing to give up, if you had to lose one? Smell was oftena default answer, because who needs smell, right? WRONG!
Oh, I think smell is easily the most popular answer — but then again, I don’t want to lose *any* of my senses.
I’d been using the nasal swabs without a problem for a couple years and they truly seemed to be helping (all of us but the DH are preemies so often get sick from Nov to April around here and try to boost the immune system however we can) but one afternoon I was out. DH grabbed the “melt away” variety you’re supposed to place on your tongue since the local drug store was out of the swabs, so I took one of those instead. Aside from the really strange, flat and almost metallic taste, I noted after swallowing it that I *had* no sense of taste at all. And equally frightening, my sense of smell was also affected. I totally panicked and went for the Altoids since those were the most strongly flavored item I had around and couldn’t even taste them. Finally after a couple hours, my sense of taste began to return, but it was particularly terrifying given I’m already out one sense as it is and depend so much on smell and taste to compensate for it. We’ve been looking for other immunity boosters ever since. A friend swears that Tylenol makes one that works, but I’m really skittish without knowing all the ingredients now and was shocked that something so dangerous was still on the shelves last time we looked.
My husband and I swear by eating tons and tons of garlic and spinach (cooked or not) in lots of dishes. It really helps with overall body health.
I swear by fermented food & probiotics as immunity boosters…get far fewer colds since I started eating fermented foods every day. But obviously I am not qualified to dispense medical advice, LOL…
Yes, kefir type foods have saved me a number of times from a variety of ailments. I don’t get to eat it as much as I’d like b/c the regular grocery stores around me don’t carry it and the organic stores are a bit of a drive, but I’ll do a month or so when I drink it three times a day. It really makes a huge difference!
Oy, I missed this post yesterday. How absolutely terribly awful to lose the sense of smell!!! I did use the Zicam through one bottle many years ago when if first came out, but didn’t really see much difference (and it’s expensive) so I never bought it again. And it just prickled my nose and made my eyes water.
Occasionally in the winter I use those cherry or orange flavored zinc lozenges, but haven’t done it much the past year as I was just being lazy. They do leave a weird numb feeling and flavor on the tongue. I am also lazy with vitamins and suppliments – they seem like a good idea, but taking them never sticks with me. Just too lazy/suspicious or they are too expensive. Eating well in the first place is the best solution. I do eat a lot of garlic though! THere is too much “medicine” we are pursuaded to take – natural or pharma – that is just bad news and poisons the livers, kidneys, etc. There should be more care given to choices of what to put in the body, and don’t trust FDA or doctors implicitly.
And, as regards “game” mentioned above, yes, I used to play that loss of senses game with my sisters/friends. I always thought that the loss of smell would be pretty bad. I was always very smell sensitive. I agree Robin that the loss of any would be awful.
Can I be frivolous here: my best medicine is to take on Shalimar and go to bed.
What does seem to help, other than resting in bed, is to drink a LOT of fluids, like about a gallon or more a day. When you are ill, especially if you have a fever, you need even more fluid than normal. During a respiratory illness, your body produces more sweat, urine, and mucus than normal, all of which are composed primarily of water. I also like to take a lot of hot showers, as hot as I can stand, which help to relieve the intense body aches. Another thing that may help is lemons. I can’t swear to the efficacy of this, and I am not a doctor, but–my lemon tree began producing heavily three years ago, and I have noticed that when the lemons are in season I tend to stay healthy. I use most of them in lemonade, which means I am consuming the juice fresh and raw.
I became concerned about many of the OTC cold and flu treatments some years ago, after reading (in Consumer Reports, I think) an article stating that most of them are essentially either useless, of potentially dangerous. The article claimed that analgesics can increase nasal congestion (so you trade one synptom for another); decongestants can dangerously raise the blood pressure; antihistamines are useless for colds and flu because the mechanism that causes congestion with these illnesses has nothing to do with histamines; and so forth. I have pretty well given up on pharmaceutical treatments for respiratory illnesses, with one exception.
Yikes! I hit Post Comment too soon by mistake. I meant to add that the one exception I make to using medication for a respiratory infection is to take guaifenesin ( an expectorant). I am very prone to developing bronchitis, and in fact have never in all my life that I can remember had a cold or bout of flu that did not result in bronchial congestion. I simply do not know what a “head cold” is. It gets so bad it hurts to breathe. I now know to start taking the maximum dose, extended release tablets as soon as I realize I am becoming ill. They are expensive but worth every penny. I am firmly convinced that if you do use this particular medication, you have to use enough to really do the job, and take it regularly, not just hit or miss, or you might as well forget it. I also make a point to start right away–if I wait until the symptoms are bad, it takes several days for me to feel better, but if I start right away, the chest congestion does not ever get really bad.