Anosmia and dysgeusia

I took a day off from the whole COVID situation yesterday (which I recommend you do if you can) and sat on the sidelines. I didn't see anything monumental to post about and the rest of the social media community posted great work. I didn't have anything important to add. I'm trying to figure out ways to take care of all of us in this order.

That being said, last night when I was scrolling around twitter before going to bed, I ran into many articles regarding the anosmia/hyposmia (loss/decreased of sense of smell) and dysgeusia (loss of sense of taste) in patients with COVID-19. Let's dig into this some more. By no means am I an ENT nor the most knowledgable person in the cranial nerves. This is a relatively new rabbit hole I'm digging into. Join me in this journey.

The reason why I am going into this is because it could be particularly helpful in the healthcare worker population because we are typically quite healthy and may be asymptomatic carriers. This could be the only symptom and may be worth considering self-isolation or testing (or wearing two bandanas instead of one). We can't get ourselves nor our teammates sick. Unfortunately, with how testing is going right now, people presenting with this do not meet criteria for testing or self-isolation.

The links to everything I am mentioning here are on my website: eddyjoemd.com. The AAO (American Academy of Otolaryngology) mentioned in a statement on 3/22 that we are receiving a good amount of anecdotal evidence "from sites around the world that anosmia and dysgeusia are significant symptoms associated with the COVID-19 pandemic." Is this something that's new? Well, no. ENT-UK states that "post-viral anosmia is one of the leading causes of loss of sense of smell in adults, accounting for up to 40% cases of anosmia."

This is particularly a big deal because a basketball player says he has it. Maybe the WHO and CDC will list it as part of the symptoms now.

Anosmia incidence:
South Korea- 30% of patients testing positive have had anosmia as their major presenting symptom in otherwise mild cases. (ENT-UK)
Germany- up to two-thirds “described a loss of smell and taste lasting several days”

While digging into this, since there is nothing in the peer-reviewed journals about the matter, I found it comical how many different news mediums published the same exact article just slightly re-written. You know, similar to what I have done here. Stay safe everyone!

-EJ

ENT-UK Document

American Academy of Otolaryngology— Head and Neck Surgery

Livescience.com

German Data

Rudy Gobert has anosmia

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