St. Joseph’s Health Care pioneering experimental smell treatment [Video]

Researchers at St. Joseph’s Health Care London are working on a treatment for people that lost their sense of smell during a bout of COVID.

Loss of sense of smell and taste is a common symptom of COVID-19. It can also be accompanied by parosmia, a disorder that turns normal odours into a stench.

Rebecca Bruzzese suffered from parosmia after a bout of COVID, “Coffee was the worst,” she said. “It smelled like hot garbage.”

The smell of many foods was so bad for Bruzzese that she lost 30 pounds.

The disorder can also be accompanied by phantom smells, with Bruzzese regularly believing she was smelling natural gas, or cigarette smoke, “Not having a reliable sense of smell was very disorienting and anxiety provoking,” said Bruzzese. “The natural gas smell was the worst. I live in a condo and would contact the building manager to investigate. I was borderline neurotic …