After getting COVID-19, food smells like garbage to these teen Quebec siblings. Here’s why – GLOBAL

May 17, 2022

For most of the past year, teenage siblings Audrey-Anne and Olivier Asselin have eaten a steady diet of tofu, pasta and popsicles – but not by choice.

It’s all they can stand – the few foods that they can stomach after contracting COVID-19.

Pretty much everything else smells like trash. Literally.

The pair developed parosmia, a condition that drastically distorts their sense of smell to the point that everyday scents make them sick to their stomachs. Olivier describes food they used to eat regularly as now having a tinny, revolting odour similar to the “bottom of a garbage bin.”

Researchers recognize parosmia as a potential symptom of long COVID, but what makes the Asselins’ cases so curious is that before the pandemic, it was extremely rare for children and teens to lose their sense of smell because of a viral infection. Experts say it’s even more unusual to see this phenomenon in relatives.

Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/8824085/parosmia-teens-children-covid-19/