Parosmia:
Parosmia is a term used to describe health conditions that distort your sense of smell. If you have parosmia, you may experience a loss of scent intensity, meaning you can’t detect the full range of the scents around you. Sometimes parosmia causes things you encounter every day to seem like they have a strong, disagreeable odor. [healthline]
Noted in “When coffee smells like gasoline: Covid isn’t just stealing senses — it may be warping them,” Allyson Chiu, WaPo:
Similar accounts of parosmia and a related odor distortion called phantosmia, which causes people to smell scents that aren’t there, have flooded social media platforms in recent months. Facebook groups for those with covid-related smell loss and distortions now have thousands of members. Some say they catch whiffs of cigarette smoke everywhere they go. Others can’t identify the fetid smell that consistently assaults their senses. Yanna Casey, 25 of Atlanta, said the stench is particularly bad when she is around cleaning supplies.
My Arts Editor spoke of a fecal odor the other night, which I couldn’t detect. For the record, we were both very ill with “stomach flu” in late February, and have never had the antibody test.
