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We social distance, usually wear masks in public, and stay up to date on our vaccinations. But all it took was one lady with a mean cough on a two hour flight a week ago to ruin that...or so we think.
The timing really sucks. I had plans for my weekend.
Same here - was real careful for years and got it for the first time a few weeks ago. Stuff still doesn't taste right.
After my ability to smell and taste were completely gone for 2 months I got bummed out enough to try smell training. I didn't buy the expensive kits, but did find strongly scented aromatherapy wax sticks that I sniff every day. If nothing else, going from "these all smell like nothing" to "oh that IS lemongrass or ginger" definitely brightened my mood. It's been 6 months now and I still can't taste tomato or smell lavender, but can now easily detect things like nail polish remover and eucalyptus oil. It's weird to take a strong whiff of rubbing alcohol and not notice a single thing. Good luck!
Oh wow - I got lucky then. It was a week of everything tasting like metal at first. It's still there now but like "at the edges" of the tongue if that makes any sense. There's a patch in the middle that's able to pick out ingredients / attributes well enough to enjoy some things again.
Thank you for sharing - and good luck to you too.
Exactly the same here. I tried to train my smell with essential oils like lavender, lemongrass, orange, etc. It took sooo long for me to smell anything at all. I am still just at around 70% of my ability to smell before covid, and it's been over a year now :/
Yeah I'm not 100% and it was unsettling how down I was getting about it. My boss still can't taste red meat 2 years later...I need to taste tomatoes again, they are my favorite. I hope your smell continues to return and you are fully recovered!
Do you, or have you ever had a fear from not being able to smell? Not having that in case of a fire or gas leak would freak me out but I never hear people talking about that
Funnily enough I was concerned about only my smells, I still have my wonderful husband sniff me if I'm unsure whether I warrant a shower. I'm more concerned about eating spoiled food, so he'll smell that for me as well. I guess I was also unconsciously banking on him being our gas / fire detector. And now I sound like a racoon, never showering, eating garbage, living in squalor.
Thank you, all the best for you, too :)
Hopefully you get your taste back fully in the coming months. I had COVID the first year in October, and it kicked my ass real good. It took a few months for mine to come back to what seems fully.
Man that would fucking ruin me. Sorry you went through that.
Is it still the case that not your smelling receptors are impaired, but that the virus crosses the blood-brain barrier and destroys/knocks out the brain region responsible for smelling.
Was in the same boat. Never really went anywhere since 2019 and figured it was ok to start doing professional related travel. Went to a conf in Vegas late August and came down with it the day I got back. Fuck traveling from now on.
I've had it 4 times, and the recovery was fun each and every time.
Get your hands on Metformin or paxlovid
Everyone I know who's gotten on a plane in the last 2 years has come back with covid. Without exception.
Yeah, sick people with symptoms won't cancel a flight sadly.
~30% of covid cases are asymptomatic so even if everyone who felt sick cancelled (this would also include many people with colds), it wouldn't make "closed metal box with inadequate air filtration with unmasked strangers for hours" a good idea
well yeah, it usually means throwing hundreds or thousands of pounds under the bus.
Maybe if travel insurance did its job and covered it then we wouldnt have this problem
FYI the covid vaccines don't protect from being infected (and infecting others).
But they are pretty good at preventing severe symptoms and long covid
That's not exactly true. While the vaccines don't prevent infection in all cases, they do significantly lower your chance of becoming infected when you're exposed to someone with COVID.
Same happened to my partner and I 2 weeks ago. It started with fever and chills Friday night, tested positive Saturday, started Paxlovid Sunday, fever broke by Monday morning and felt okayish enough to work (from home) on Tuesday. That weekend was a blur and we both still have a gnarly lingering cough, but not the worst thing in the world, even as someone with asthma.
I'm thankful to have avoided it for as long as we did. Not having to worry about overflowing hospitals, having access to Paxlovid, and hopefully avoiding any serious long-term damage thanks to the vaccines makes it a lot less scary than a couple years ago.
That sucks. Good excuse to stay in and play video games I suppose 😉
We got it on the way home, too. Much better than getting it at the beginning of the trip!
Just got it yesterday for the first time too. No idea how I avoided it for so long. Cheers I guess? :)
On the bright side, it didn’t happen just before/during your vacation. I have friends who spent their honeymoon with COVID
Were you wearing masks while on the plane?
Unfortunately masks are most effective when the person with COVID wears them, rather than people who are trying to avoid COVID, but human nature is such that people with COVID (ones who go out in public) are often ones least worried about it so least likely to wear a mask in the first place.
I had a similar experience where I went to a conference and masked up religiously around groups only to catch it anyway while my colleagues didn't mask and didn't catch it.
Sometimes you can do everything right and still fail (paraphrasing Picard).
A properly fitted n95 mask is very effective at preventing infection.
Simply masking around groups though isn't enough as it can linger in the air. The amount of effort to actually wear the mask everywhere you'd need to is pretty high and one slip up is all it takes. It comes down to trade offs at that point of how often you wear it.
