Covid Redux

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Back in Feb '21 I wrote here about my experiences with Covid.  Back then, 1st wave, regular old Covid... I did not have it that bad.  Maybe a day of feeling like the flu and then just kicking it waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I watched Ted Lasso.  I watched all 15 hours of Shogun.  I read.  I slept.  I isolated.  Eventually it just went away.  The worst was the after-effects; specifically, losing smell and taste.  I found it interesting, more than anything, at first.  Losing taste left me only with one sensation when eating: mouth feel.  I could distinguish hot or cold and shapes.  But everything just tasted like nothing.  Only sensation I got from smell was this weird 'rotting cucumber' scent - for everything.  At the time I was just days out from getting my first shot.  Got the second Pfizer after the Covid went away.  Then we got the Moderna booster, as I had read about improved immune response by mixing shots.

The lasting effects were no-to-diminished taste for several weeks, regular unique Covid-headaches for months and a loss of smell (and concurrent phantom-smells) for about a year.

Whelp... I got it again on Thanksgiving; whatever variant is current.  I figured I would be largely immune, having not only had Covid, but also the shots (no variant boosters).

Wrong.

This time around, the experience is much more flu-like.  Head and chest congestion.  Aching and tired.  No fever as far as I can tell, but definitely feeling run down.  Headaches.  Notably different from the Covid headaches last time - these just feel like run-of-the-mill cold-headaches.  Smell is diminished but I can still taste.

Big thing is, I'm glad I live in a place where I can just take care of myself as I would with any flu-like symptoms.  Very glad the lockdowns are far away.  Major sympathy for those folks.  

Edited November 26, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Spacescifi]

37 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Back in Feb '21 I wrote here about my experiences with Covid.  Back then, 1st wave, regular old Covid... I did not have it that bad.  Maybe a day of feeling like the flu and then just kicking it waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Eventually it just went away.  The worst was the after-effects; specifically, losing smell and taste.  I found it interesting, more than anything, at first.  Losing taste left me only with one sensation when eating: mouth feel.  I could distinguish hot or cold and shapes.  But everything just tasted like nothing.  Only sensation I got from smell was this weird 'rotting cucumber' scent - for everything.  At the time I was just days out from getting my first shot.  Got the second Pfizer after the Covid went away.  Then we got the Moderna booster, as I had read about improved immune response by mixing shots.

The lasting effects were no-to-diminished taste for several weeks, regular unique Covid-headaches for months and a loss of smell (and concurrent phantom-smells) for about a year.

Whelp... I got it again on Thanksgiving; whatever variant is current.  I figured I would be largely immune, having not only had Covid, but also the shots (no variant boosters).

Wrong.

This time around, the experience is much more flu-like.  Head and chest congestion.  Aching and tired.  No fever as far as I can tell, but definitely feeling run down.  Headaches.  Notably different from the Covid headaches last time - these just feel like run-of-the-mill cold-headaches.  Smell is diminished but I can still taste.

Big thing is, I'm glad I live in a place where I can just take care of myself as I would with any flu-like symptoms.  Very glad the lockdowns are far away.  Major sympathy for those folks.  

 

Hmmm... I got both shots, never had any boosters though.

 

I do not think I ever had covid-19, if I did it was at the beginning of it when I had flu-like symptoms and my family quarantibed me for two weeks.

 

I never lost my sense of taste though. So maybe it was just the flu?

Edited November 25, 2022 by Spacescifi

[Nuke]

i dont think i ever had covid, in fact i dont think ive even had so much as a cold since it started. i did have rsv like a month before covid hit, and that sucked. was out for a month or so. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Everything was kinda humming right along - just a humdrum flu - until I started feeling like I was gently drowning. 

O2 levels were a tad low (below normal, above hypoxia) and it felt like a thin fluid was leaching into my lungs. 

Basically the 'at home' treatment for this is asthma medicine.  I've got two inhalers and some cough syrup (trying to 'keep the lungs calm' to use the medical term).  

I now have major sympathy for asthmatics.  That sensation SUUUUUCKS! 

I'm entertaining myself by seeing what I can still smell and wondering if I could tell a difference in the sensation.  It's not often one considers how well they know (and can trust) their own nervous system.  It's a relationship we take for granted.

Imagine that one day you were rolling a pencil around in your fingertips and instead of 'pencil' your hand told your brain 'penny'.  You look at it.  It's a pencil.  Your fingers insist 'penny'.  It looks long and thin and hexoganal - it feels like a flat, embossed disk.  Which impulses do you trust? 

 

 

[kerbiloid]

The hearing.

If it fits in an ear, it's a pencil. If it doesn't, it's a penny.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I had a private theory that people who had been vaccinated would escape some of the pernicious aspects of having Covid. Like losing smell and taste. 

A reminder that vaccine does not prevent a person from being infected with a virus - rather it prepares the body to be able to fight the virus more effectively.  In other words, it makes severe disease less likely. 

My presumption was that the effective immune response might prevent the virus from shearing nasal cilia - once a leading theory for why folks lost their smell and taste.  That people exposed after effective immunization would not have to experience what I did. 

Apparently - that hope was blind.  My wife and daughter have both lost smell and taste.  Perhaps not as thoroughly as I did, but it's early in the progression. 

Interestingly - there is research showing that Covid interference with the function of the olfactory cells may be behind the lingering problem of Long Covid. 

https://nyulangone.org/news/mechanism-revealed-behind-loss-smell-covid-19#:~:text=Published online February 1 in,the molecules associated with odors.

*In most cases, the smell loss lasts only a few weeks, but for more than 12 percent of people with COVID-19, olfactory dysfunction persists in the form of ongoing reduction in the ability to smell (hyposmia) or changes in how a person perceives the same smell (parosmia).

... experiments confirmed that SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the immune reaction to it, decreases the ability of DNA chains in chromosomes that influence the formation of olfactory receptor building to be open and active, and to loop around to activate gene expression. 

... suggests that olfactory neurons are wired into sensitive brain regions, and that ongoing immune cell reactions in the nasal cavity could influence emotions, and the ability to think clearly (cognition), consistent with long COVID. "

[kerbiloid]

As I noticed, the "rotten" smell/taste change exactly matches the substances containing sulfur compounds, like meat, eggs, onion/garlic, sweat, etc.

It's a pity, there was no Head & Shoulders shampoo at hands to test this theory with selenium (a chemical analog of sulfur).

Edited November 27, 2022 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Whelp... There it goes.  4 days after testing positive... Smell is going. 

If I tear the skin of an orange and stick my nose right there... I get a hint of orange.  Stick my nose in the coffee and there is a sensation but it doesn't say 'coffee'. *

It's really interesting.  I'm getting a something that is more than just the feel of air moving past the membranes - kind of like a buzz that acts like a placeholder - 'information should be here'. And I know what should be there (my nose is in the pickle jar) but instead of 'brine' the signal only says 'wet'. 

This was one of the most pernicious aspects of my past run... The only question is how long and will I be plagued with phantom smells again? 

 

 

 

 

*it's fascinating - coffee does not smell like coffee, but I can tell a difference between the regular and the decaf.  Again it is not like a smell so much as an 'air feel'. 

Chocolate - not quite gone, but there is a very positive reaction to it.  Like I stick my nose in there and instead of 'chocolate' my brain just goes straight to 'good!' 

Edited November 27, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

The timing and pace of the progression is interesting.  I tested negative Wednesday, after my wife tested positive.  Thursday I was positive.  Friday evening was when I felt like I was gently drowning and worried about O2 and Saturday I basically only had the energy to convalesce.  Today (Sunday) I feel on the mend - but the nasal congestion is significant (sneezing and coughing - although, again the main 'treatment' is to minimize cough as we want to 'keep the lungs calm'.) and today is the day that I lost smell. 

That loss is progressing fairly quickly.  Cannot smell banana.  Smell is just like a potato or the wall.  I do get different 'sense' from each (banana is cool and waxy, potato is just a something and wall is dry) but otherwise?  They all smell like nothing. A jar of minced garlic has 'pungent' but not garlic - meaning those are different flavors in the spectrum of smells.  Orange still exists as a smell. Honey has a tang. Peanut butter has a mustiness. Salsa an acidic sweetness. Parmesan cheese smells like it should. 

Note on the nasal congestion - unlike flu or a cold, I've never been clogged up.  I can always breathe through my nose - but today and late yesterday is the first time I've needed a box of tissues nearby. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Orange and salsa are losing distinction. 

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The only question is how long and will I be plagued with phantom smells again? 

About a year.

Spoiler

Then you stop drinking coffee because why spend money on it when you anyway can't smell.

 

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The only question is how long and will I be plagued with phantom smells again? 

New releases of covid tend to be much weaker, so unlikely.
The smell change is caused by the irritated sensitive cells.

Edited November 27, 2022 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

9 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

The smell change is caused by the irritated sensitive cells.

Maybe:

Quote

 

COVID-19 causes longer-lasting disruption in chromosomal regulation of gene expression, representing a form of “nuclear memory” that could prevent the restoration of olfactory receptor transcription even after SARS-CoV-2 is cleared.

“The realization that the sense of smell relies on ‘fragile’ genomic interactions between chromosomes has important implications,” says Dr. tenOever. “If olfactory gene expression ceases every time the immune system responds in certain ways that disrupts inter-chromosomal contacts, then the lost sense of smell may act as the ‘canary in the coal mine,’ providing early signals that the COVID-19 virus is damaging brain tissue before other symptoms present

 

(From my link above)

 

9 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

New releases of covid tend to be much weaker, so unlikely.

One may hope!

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I can smell coffee again! 

Orange is faint.  Banana, nope. Garlic is just pungent and salsa is acid-sweet. 

Progress! 

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

NAPKINS !!!

Give COVID no chance to ruin your pleasure!

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

That kid with the pile of napkins was me, yesterday! 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Anyone who grew up in a 1950s-1970s house with a dusty electric wall heater in the bathroom might relate.  The kind where the rows of coiled wires glow a dull red and you have to stand close enough to maybe catch the towel on fire just to get warm, and the paint around the edges is permanently yellowed and cracked.... Makes the air smell dry, dusty and hot.  Picture one of those. 

Imagine walking into your kitchen and smelling fresh hot cat spray boiling off one. 

The smell permeates the room and assaults your nasal passages. 

I'm standing around looking for the heater and the cat (we don't have one - wife is allergic) and my kids, who are eating microwave sausage biscuits are staring at me funny. 

Phantom smells. 

No cat.  No heater.  But my brain is telling me that's what happened to my kitchen. 

At least I can smell coffee. 

 

 

 

 

... 

Covid is weird.  We've all had nasal congestion from a cold or the flu.  The kind where you get a stuffy nose and can't smell much.  Sometimes you cannot even breathe through your nose or one nostril. 

Covid is nothing like that. 

There is a sense of sinus congestion - but you can always inhale through both nostrils.  It seems like to make up for not smelling anything you are more aware of the air-feel of the inner structure of your nose and sinuses.  Each breath is an intimacy of air moving. 

You have a perpetual feeling that your lower sinuses (where you feel post nasal drip) and upper sinuses (the part near the eyes where you get a headache) are kinda clogged, but the main channel is open.  There is a 'ring' of hard cartilage (the part they always, painfully, shove the q-tip into when swabbing) - that part of each nostril feels particularly aware - telling you about the air passing by and the few smells it can discern. 

The 'I have a cold and can't smell anything' literally does not prepare you for the experience of Covid.  It's like becoming disabled.  It's one of the five senses - and probably the one we least think about and take most for granted...

But when it's gone, your brain is distressed in ways that you can't expect. 

Edited December 1, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I want to clarify something before it becomes an issue.  I don't seek to say that a (hopefully) temporary loss of smell is as life changing of a disability as a permanent loss of a limb or of sight or hearing, etc. 

My point is that to the brain - the loss of a sense is traumatic.  Smell isn't one or our 'primary' senses (not like losing smell would be for a rat or a pig or a dog - all of which rely far more on smell than humans do), but it does provide key information about things that can impact our survival. 

Ever bring a cup of milk to your mouth only to recoil at the last second - because although it looks fine - It's definitely turned?  Or been in a house when a candle lights one of the hand towels on fire? 

There are other things.  The smell of your infant child.  That special someone's neck.  The new barbecue place across the way.  Fresh bread. 

The brain loves and relies upon the senses it has known for a lifetime. 

I'm lucky.  I've only partially lost my smell (almost a week now) and based on past experience have hope it will return.  Even if it was less than a year last time... It did (mostly) come back.  So, yeah, I know the difference - but I'm sharing this stuff because it is also non-trivial. 

Edited December 1, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli