“The first smell I found was my dog's.
“After a mild Covid-19 infection in October, confined to flares of fever and great fatigue, Catherine lost her sense of smell.
For two months, this 56-year-old European civil servant, elected local in Carqueiranne (Var), no longer felt anything (res).
And then gradually, like memories that come to the surface, "it is first of all certain everyday smells that came back first", relates Catherine, before she completely covers her olfactory faculties.
"In phases, with moments when I felt unpleasant odors, as if distorted, then finally a normal evolution", she emphasizes.
These unusual scents, as modified and inadequate, Catherine is far from being the only one to have encountered them.
These distortions of smell, which is referred to as “parosmia”, are even characteristic of olfactory disorders caused by Covid-19.
A phantom smell of burnt plastic
"All the stinks, especially fecal type, for me it was the aroma of tabbouleh," laughs Nataly.
The cleaning products, the detergents, the flowery perfumes, it smelled a horrible acrid odor, and the traces of the exhaust pipes, for me it was chlorine.
"
This unemployed 54-year-old resident of Seine-et-Marne also lost her sense of smell following a Covid-19 contamination.
Except that she never found it.
She is one of those called "long covid", those people for whom symptoms persist for months.
Nataly also sometimes smells of burnt plastic or cigarette smoke that does not exist.
A phenomenon of phantom odors called "phantosmia".
Another one of the many mysteries of Covid-19.
She regains her sense of smell… thanks to the Covid!
For her part, Claire-Marie experienced an astonishing little miracle.
While this 64-year-old retired teacher had gradually lost her sense of smell due to polyposis, a sinus disease, she suddenly found it when she contracted Covid-19.
A counter-intuitive prodigy that Jean-Michel Maillard, specialist in the loss of smell, explains by his taking cortisone.
As a chronic asthma sufferer, Claire-Marie had taken it in large quantities to avoid a severe form of Covid.
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“The first scent I smelled again was lavender, because of all the bags I have in my cupboards, a scent that makes me feel good,” recalls the former librarian.
By undertaking an olfactory rehabilitation, Claire-Marie then found nearly fifty smells in a few weeks.
" A real joy.
"
