They ran smell tests on 2,956 volunteers with a history of COVID-19 infections and 569 who hadn't caught the virus. On average, the smell testing took place 671 days after participants had first been tested for COVID-19.
Of the COVID-19 group, 1,393 thought they had issues with smell, and tests confirmed about 80 percent of them did. Surprisingly, the other 1,563 people in that group didn't report any smell problems, but test results showed 66 percent of them had hyposmia or anosmia after their COVID-19 infections.
— Read more in Millions of Us Have Likely Lost Our Smell Without Even Realizing It at Science Alert.
My daughter lost her senses of taste and smell almost completely three years ago and is only now starting to regain it, but in a skewed way. So much of what she loved now tastes and smells disgusting. I am also affected as nuances in fragrances tested years ago are no longer apparent to me and I am completely anosmic to others.
Gosh, hope you will both improve…3 years is a long time.
My youngest sister lost her sense of smell when she got Covid in 2021. As of today she has recovered probably 30%. She is totally anosmic to almost everything. Quite dangerous in some cases. She can not smell gas from a leak or even smoke when something is burning.
That is hard, I hope it will improve more over time? But I know it does for some and not others.
When I got COVID two years ago I didn’t lose my sense of smell entirely, but it was really diminished. It gradually came back, though I don’t think it’s what it used to be: no way of telling if that’s normal aging or a lingering side effect of the disease. At least I can still enjoy the things I smell.
My husband lost his almost entirely, but in his case it was actually a good thing, because he doesn’t mind: he aways said if he could get rid of it entirely, he would. He never liked 95% of the scents I wore, and now I don’t have to worry about that any more — I can wear what I like with impunity. The only bad thing for him is that he gets phantom smells that he has to check with me about — do I smell burning, or gasoline, or rotting garbage? (No, no, and no, most of the time.)
I get phantom smells now too, primarily with air conditioning…just over the past couple years. If I have lost any sharpness in my sense of smell otherwise I honestly can’t tell, and it might be covid, might be age, who knows.