Coping with Parosmia has been quite the journey. My experience with food is completely different now and It’s often unenjoyable.
If you are coping with parosmia post covid like I am, my goal is to offer you some hope and solace. It’s a real loss and it’s normal to grieve and feel sadness. Food is a wonderful gift to the senses and it brings so much joy to our lives! To have it taken away so suddenly can feel depressing and sometimes overwhelming.
But please know, there are lots of us out there struggling with this offensive smell and taste distortion. You are not alone.
In fact, there are a few support groups and helpful articles that I will connect you to throughout this post. In my research about parsomia, I have also found recovery stories! Know that there is hope your normal sense of taste and smell will return.
But First, What is Parosmia?
Parosmia is a condition in which the sense of smell, and therefore taste, is distorted. For example, aromas that would normally smell pleasant, such as the light fruity scent of a strawberry, instead will smell like rotting food. Some have even described their distorted smell experience as rotting flesh.
According to this article found on WebMD – “This happens when smell receptor cells in your nose, called olfactory sensory neurons, don’t detect odors and translate them to the brain the way they should.”
These olfactory nerves become damaged when there has been a total loss of sense of smell. As total loss of smell and taste has been a trademark symptom for COVID-19, this article reports that nearly half of people who took part in a study experienced parosmia about 2.5 months after contracting the virus, and their symptoms persisted for about 6 months after the onset of symptoms.
Will I Recover From Parosmia?
Yes! it’s absolutely possible to recover from post COVID parosmia and it’s even likely. The nerves damaged in the olfactory system can grow back and regenerate. We will likely have our sense of smell and taste return to normal with time. I have seen as little 6 months and as long as 2 years for recovery time.
The most encouraging news I’ve come across yet from this article by abscent.org is that parosmia is actually a sign that our proper smell function is returning!
Parosmia is considered a phase of smell returning. It can be a long phase that they say that requires patience. However, it’s a phase nonetheless!
There’s a Good Chance Your Parosmia Will Go Away
It may not be forever! My biggest fear in all of this is that I would never enjoy the beauty of wonderful tasting food again. I found this abscent article very reassuring!
In fact, at about 4 months into experiencing parosmia I have been able to add in more foods than I could initially. Hopefully that is a sign of recovery!
Abscent.org has been an excellent and encouraging resource for coping with parosmia or any kind of smell distortion and loss.
I also came across this reddit page in which someone with parosmia asked and shared about what foods they could or could not eat. There are lots of comments from other’s suffering from parosmia sharing what they can and cannot eat.
This information could be very helpful to you because while I will be sharing here the foods that I can tolerate and enjoy, everyone is different. Some of the commenters could eat foods that I could never eat right now, and the foods there weren’t able to eat are the foods that get me through.
The most encouraging part of this thread however, is that the original poster came back a few times to update that they had experienced improved symptoms and finally that they had fully recovered!
Coping with Parosmia in Pregnancy
Discovering that I had parosmia was a bit of a mystery to me at first, because it began when I was in the first trimester of pregnancy.
For me, my first trimester comes with many food adversions and extremely sensitive sense of smell. At first, it just seemed like a ridiculously intense first trimester until I started talking with my dad.
At the exact same time as me, (and we had covid around the same time as well) he found that normal things were tasting strange. The more I talked with him I realized that we were experiencing very much the same food aversions and the more I looked into it, I became certain we had the same condition.
There were so many foods I could not eat in the first trimester with parosmia. I would find a food that worked and the next week it became disgusting to me. It was stressful never knowing what foods were going to taste horrible and what would be normal or even tolerable. Many of these difficulties are normal in pregnancy, but add in the parosmia and the whole experience was constantly overwhelming.
The good news is that if you are pregnant and struggling with parosmia in the first trimester, it became immensely more tolerable for me in the second trimester. This could be due to the nature of the first trimester being more sensitive than the second, an improvement in my parosmia, or both. It’s impossible to know for sure.
Supplements for Coping with Parosmia in Pregnancy
I highly recommend taking a high quality, food based prenatal vitamin to keep nutrition up since your eating options are limited. The one I take even has extra vegetable powders in the capsule, and that helps me feel like I’m covering my bases a little bit more. You can find it on amazon here.
Finding a protein shake flavor that is tolerable might be an easy way to keep up protein or round out a meal. I have found that I can’t do anything chocolate or peanut butter flavored, so I stay within the vanilla category. Often almond or cake batter flavors work as well.
Foods I Can Eat While Coping with Parosmia
Now for the fun part of this post – a list of foods I have found to still taste delicious and satisfying during my parosmia experience!
Now, there are more foods than listed here I have found to be tolerable, but they still have a hint of the bad taste.
I really wanted to give you all a list of foods in which I have experienced very little to none of the bad taste. However, do keep in mind that this condition looks different for everyone, so what may taste delicious to me may taste off to you in vice versa.
The more I talk to others with parosmia, we all seem to experience the bad taste fluctuating some from day to day. Some days certain foods taste fine and other days they do not.
However, the foods listed here have been my tried and true foods that have tasted normal throughout my entire experience.
That being said, let’s start with the most fun food category of all – desserts!
Desserts
Vanilla Ice Cream – You may think, how boring, but oh no! I have a specific brand that is exceptional and you need to check out. Before I even had COVID my husband and I discovered this most incredible vanilla ice cream and we were obsessed with it for months. We would eat it and comment on how surprised we were that this plain old vanilla ice cream was so incredibly rich and delicious.
So go find an Aldi grocery store in your area, and buy their Speciality Select Super Premium vanilla Ice cream. Trust me, you will never look back! I am also able to handle the Speciality Select Super Premium dulce de leche falvor, but I’ll warn you, it’s very rich. It’s also labeled as a seasonal item so it may not be available at all Aldi stores.
If you want to go with a cone (and like a child, I highly recommend you do!), I have found sugar cones to be the best tasting as opposed to cake or waffle cones.
White, Vanilla, or Almond Cake – So if you have a birthday coming up you can still have birthday cake! Yay!
Original or Carmel flavored Cheesecake – I was so thankful this delectable dessert still tasted absolutely normal and delicious!
Underbaked Sugar or Snickerdoodle Cookies – I have found that if anything gets a crispy cooked edge, it can bring on the bad taste. Keep your sugar cookies underbaked and you should be able to enjoy them!
Coffee Cake – This may vary from recipe to recipe and be dependent on how crispy things get on top of the cake. However, after I discovered my parosmia a custard coffee cake from a local restaurant was actually one of the first desserts that tasted normal and incredible to me!
Drinks
DRY Botantical Soda in Vanilla – All beer, alcohol, and fun bubbly drinks have tasted bad to me. I would feel kind of left out at gatherings, until this soda! I like that the can resembles a hard seltzer. Plus, the dryness of the drink makes it feel more sophisticated than sipping on soda. ( but most normal soda has the bad taste anyway) Not to mention it’s way more healthy because of the lower sugar content! I have tried the cherry flavor of this drink and it had an ever so slightly off taste, but it was tolerable. I’m interested to try the ginger flavor as well!
Oolong Tea – Oh how I have missed hot coffee or tea in the mornings! Alas, coffee and black tea with their strong, bitter flavor taste absolutely horrible. Green tea was tolerable, but still tasted off. Oolong is made from an entirely different leaf than any other tea, so it tastes completely normal and I still get my warm cup of morning caffeine.
For a fun coffee shop drink and if they have oolong tea at the shop, you can order a London Fog made with oolong instead of earl grey tea. It’s a delicious drink made with frothed vanilla flavored sweet milk and tea!
General Foods
Peaches and Nectarines
Cherries
Plumbs
Carrots
White potatoes
Summer sqaush and Zucchini
Lettuce
Cucumbers
Steamed Broccoli with butter and salt
Steamed Cauliflower with butter and salt
Roasted Chicken
Shrimp
Pasta with Cheese Sauce – see my easy recipe here.
White Rice
Cinnamon Bagel (not toasted) and Plain Cream Cheese
Cinnamon Butter Croissant – see my simple recipe here.
Cesar Salad
Oatmeal, but be very careful not to let it get scorched in your pot or it tastes bad.
Resource list for Coping with Parosmia
Abscent.org – They have tons of information and are completely dedicated to finding a cure for smell loss. They have resources for smell training and even smell training kits you can purchase. I find it to be a very positive place as well, which I greatly appreciate!
Healthline.com – This is a link to their article on parosmia if you are needing more education on the condition itself.
WebMD.com – A link to their article on Parosmia
Parosmia/ Phantosmia Support Group on Facebook
Parosmia Support Group on Facebook Specifically for Post COVID
I sincerely hope my post can help you in your journey of coping with parosmia.
Give yourself grace and time. Parosmia is a sad thing to experience. We’re faced with the loss constantly when we eat a meal three times a day.
It can be very frustrating and wearing. Doing your best to accept where you are right now and enjoying the foods I shared above can be the best way to cope.
I would say remain hopeful! I have heard of many full recovery stories, but the journey may be longer than we hope.
Stay strong! We’ll get through this together, with time on our side.
Have a lovely day friend!
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