Following my recent bout with covid i had some mineral deficiency issues to work through. A side effect of these deficiencies seems to be a general feeling of hopelessness and doom. That is lessening greatly and i am beginning to feel like myself. I mean, something bad is always going on somewhere but when you feel like there’s no point to the existence of human kind…thats a different kind of depression that you should seek assistance with. My arthritis is back in full force so even when sleeping my legs are never still because my knees, ankles, and toes especially are just not comfortable at rest. However, i am not in agony the way i was the first time because i am already on 3 anti-inflammatory natural capsules meant to combat long hauler covid by breaking down a certain protein and reducing inflammation. All the progress i’d made with fatigue is gone. A one hour lunch break has turned into two or three hour lunch breaks, not by choice. I just know i cannot keep my eyes open and conduct myself professionally if i leave the car in this state so i go back to sleep until the time at which i hear the alarm and dont feel like i will vomit and my face will slough off if i dont close my eyes right this second. The fatigue is a problem. Im hoping it will lessen over time as it did the first time. Currently i have a number of trees to plant and im putting it off because to dig a tree hole is a four hour grueling endeavor through rock and i am not ready for this level of activity at the moment. The most pressing issue at the moment is my loss of smell. Its been weeks now and i expected to have fully regained my olfactory senses by now. Instead ive gone from being able to smell and taste nothing to being able to minimally taste sweet things, minimally taste salt, and i can barely smell what i know to be very strong scents. For example; i know that fresh chicken poop wreaks. So i will put my face an inch from a fresh chicken turd in an attempt to gage if my sense of smell is returning. It holds a faint scent of waste. However, i know i should be running to get away from the stench. I am glad some amount of smell has returned but it is not enough to properly taste food. Oranges have stopped tasting bitter to me, which i am thankful for, but they have no taste of sweetness to me either. Also, lemon does not taste sour. It is very strange. Lemonade only tastes sweet to me, not tart in any way. I am beginning to understand why my dementia patients wont eat. As we age we lose ability to taste. Sweet is the last thing that remains before we taste nothing. For some, opening sugar packets over their eggs and ground sausage will cause them to eat it, as sweet is still something they can perceive. However, others have lost all taste entirely and if you ask them they will say they are never hungry. I have always wondered about this. How can they not be hungry? Wont their body tell them to eat when it is void of nutrients and calories that it needs to survive and make energy? I suspect that our sense of hunger is more closely tied into the endorphins we produce after eating something perceived as tasty. I am no scientist or researcher. I am just a human making observations, so dont take my word for anything. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions. These are my opinions, not to be taken as fact. However, as someone who cannot properly taste food, i enjoy none of it, even the apples which i can register as faintly sweet. I bought a vegan ice cream sandwich recently in an endeavor to have a good experience with food. It registered that it was sweet, but i couldnt differentiate between the taste of the cookie and the taste of the ice cream. It was all just sweet. Nothing had a flavor of vanilla or chocolate. Nothing tasted toasted or caramelized. I am someone who was born a super taster. I absolutely cannot handle spice and i enjoy food very much because what is bland to others has a subtle flavor to me. However, i ate something spicy last week when out to dinner with a friend and it didnt even register that there were pepper flakes and seeds until the very last bite when i felt a faint tingling on my tongue. I looked down at the plate and realized i had been eating something with pepper flakes and seeds in the dressing. Food has become very “bleh” for me. I cant taste it so i am neither motivated to cook it or eat it. It is a boring and tedious chore. Interestingly, i have noticed that my body no longer tells me im hungry. I used to perceive myself as starving if i hadnt eaten in 8 hours. It would feel like my stomach was a hollow pit growling for appeasement. Now, i never feel hungry. I ate at 9 am this morning. It is currently 5 pm. I have not eaten again. I dont feel hungry even when i search the depths of my mind for any sign that i wish to eat or that i need to eat. It is no longer a physical need but a logical one. I have to force myself to fill a bowl or plate and sit and eat it. When i decide i have eaten enough for the continual function of my body, i put the rest in a ziploc baggy and release myself from the chore of eating. There is nothing enjoyable about it anymore. It is a task of shoveling. Shoveling pasta, shoveling rice and beans, shoveling spoonfuls of oat milk and protein powder mixed together…it doesnt matter whether it is a pickle or a fantastic 6 topping salad; i will either not taste it or minimally taste it. I did have some vegan parmesan garlic truffle fries that tasted enjoyable, crunchy, and salty. I wonder how much better they really are if i thought they were good in this state. They’re probably epic. I was excited to taste something but, they’re three cities over and i cant live on fries forever, id be 400 lbs rather quickly. I am waiting for my sense of smell to return. It did the first time. It could this time. However, i know patients in long term care who never regained their sense of smell post covid and im terrified ive joined them. I seem to have an amount of mucus stuck in my head somewhere because i have diminished hearing when i drive up into the hills on my early morning commute and my ears pop and wont unpop. I am hoping that the mucus is a factor and when it finally finds a way to drain i will get my sense of smell and then by result taste back. However, some covid documentaries suggest the problem is not that simple, that one may have to regrow olfactory nerves damaged by the virus. There is no guarantee it will happen. I am frustrated that i cannot smell or taste properly. I am frustrated that i am being told by peers that covid is no longer a thing and that there are no horrible symptoms now. I will agree its much better than the first strain was. Its no longer deadly to most healthy individuals. However, it frustrates me when people tell me im fine or im being dramatic or im imagining things. Im usually pretty in tune with what’s going on with me. I havent imagined an inability to smell/taste. I am relatively fine but it does not change that this one frustrating symptom lingers. One of the things that has become a huge problem for me is my tea subscriptions. I now have 29 different teas waiting for me to sample and rate them. They keep piling up but if i make the tea and drink it, it tastes like hot colored water. If i put stevia packets in it it tastes like faintly sweet hot colored water. I have so enjoyed imported and high quality herbal, black, and oolong teas…one of my passions is now completely inaccessible for me. The companies keep writing asking for my assessment so they can pick the next month’s teas based on my assessment of the last month’s selections and i dont know what to say to them. I cant rate the teas i cannot taste. They just keep arriving in the mail but if i cancel the subscriptions it means im accepting im not going to taste again. So, i just keep piling them in boxes on a shelf, for when i regain my senses. Then i will try them. So far, the only progress made is the recognition that if i douse food with stevia or soy sauce it has a salty or sweet flavor, but i do mean douse. I can also taste catsup, which i have been squirting on everything in an attempt to give the experience of eating some kind of point. Either the catsup or soy sauce goes with me to work for lunch. I typically eat breakfast and lunch and then skip dinner. Im not hungry. Saves time and money at least, and i seem to be slimming as a side effect. I occasionally buy things that would normally be irresistible thinking its got to taste of something, and it does, but it is a muted experience and i dont get the endorphins im looking for. Im hot and sweaty and a little dizzy when i stand. Thats how i know its time to eat again. I dont have a feeling of hunger but if i let it go long enough to result in low blood sugar, these are the side effects that will tell me its time to put food in the mouth again. Each time i put a spoon or forkful in and it doesnt register as what i know it to be, its an insult; salt in the wound. Tonight i have leftover pasta puttanesca. Yesterday i stopped and bought a poke bowl and spring rolls. I should have loved it. I ate it, took a nap, and returned to work. It was salty. I had added soy sauce. The lettuce was not sweet. The imitation crab salad was not creamy. The carrots did not taste like carrots. The edamame did not taste of edamame. Everything is the same: a vehicle for salt or stevia. Balsamic vinegar and catsup are also registered now. I am grateful for the progress but for a super taster, it is not enough in the right direction and wholly disappointing. The puttanesca sauce should be amazing, salty, and savory. It is bleh. What a crime.
