Lessons from Anosmia: Smell and Taste

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teatray
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Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:33 am

Teafortea wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 4:11 am
Wow, I had no idea it was so controversial in the US.
It's "controversial" in Europe as well: EMA advises against use of Ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 outside randomised clinical trials. (EMA = EU's FDA)
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LeoFox
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Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:50 am

Teafortea wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 4:11 am
Wow, I had no idea it was so controversial in the US. True though, I got treated fairly early in the pandemic. Healthcare in France is free though, I don't think dr make a big buck by prescribing 5$ meds. My prescriptions in the USA used to be around 300 $ a month after the co-pay, here I pay 2 euros.
Anyway, i got my smell back and hope to never catch it again. Looks like paxlovid is a much better treatment now, a five-day course is about 530$. Yay, now that's a big buck :)
The quick buck early on was basically opportunities to rapidly and cheaply get products that were intended for something else, or were failing into the market.

The big issue with iver was that people wanted to dose themselves with products containing it intended for animals - the dose tends to be much higher and the overall quality much different, as you can imagine.

Ivermectin is intended to act against parasitic worms by directly inhibiting their ion channels. Accordingly, it was not intended to have antiviral activity. Of course some putative mechanisms of action against virus have been proposed more recently.

In contrast, paxlovid is intended not only to have antiviral activity but was developed specifically to target the protease enzyme component of that virus. There are two parts of paxlovid - one part is an old hiv drug that binds to an enzyme in the body that breaks down drugs - this one is not so specific against covid but it helps certain drugs to last longer in the body. The other part of paxlovid is a drug based on a molecule originally developed against the Sars in early 2000s that was never tested in humans because the virus petered out too fast. This one is specifically designed to target viral protease. The initial challenge was that the original version was designed to be injected, not taken orally. So there was some intense and painstaking medicinal chemistry to change the drug for oral administration without compromising its activity.

That said, the virus probably can (and has) find ways against something like paxlovid by mutation. There is also the issue that it interacts with the efficacy of other medicines since it inhibits that enzyme, which is leveraged by some drugs. There is also the issue with viral rebound.
Last edited by LeoFox on Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:59 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Teafortea
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Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:57 am

:o selfmedicating? Wow. Its only with Dr prescription here. Yikes
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LeoFox
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Fri Nov 25, 2022 7:04 am

Teafortea wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:57 am
:o selfmedicating? Wow. Its only with Dr prescription here. Yikes
Not just self medicating with a human medical product, but with animal product. Imagine the differences in dose and quality

https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/iv ... tores.html
people have been turning to the animal versions available at farm stores instead: a paste for horses, a “drench” for sheep, and injectables for pigs and cows. Facebook groups and Telegram chats have also popped up, filled with people giving questionable advice on dosage, side effects, and best practices for the antiparasitic. On an Amazon comments section for an apple-flavored horse paste, one commenter spewed false equivalencies about viruses and parasites before writing, “Flavor is bearable but then I am not a horse.”  
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Teafortea
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Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:46 am

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:
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TeaGrove
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Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:01 am

@Teafortea More often that not people don't just self medicate on themselves, they'll try to help their children or other vulnerables such as the elderly. A desperate person might read a success story online followed by dosage details and try it out :( More confidence because the doctor prescribing it is from a wealthy country.
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debunix
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Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:10 am

I was trying not to jump into the conversation with too much tea-unrelated discussion. Ivermectin is a great drug to treat horses for worms, and treat people to prevent river blindness, and when people were desperate, and there weren’t any effective drugs, or vaccines, they were desperate enough to listen to the people publishing shoddy suspect papers claiming effectiveness. And then that natural desperation became weaponized by politics, and made a real mess.

When you’re dealing with an illness that naturally resolves, in many or most patients, it’s easy to convince yourself— and your patients — that various random interventions helped them get better if you are sloppy with your experimental design and statistics. You don’t even have to be trying to scam people from the outset in order to convince yourself that what you’re doing is actually working.

I also recommend caution in the use of zinc, supplements, because too much zinc can definitely damage your sense of smell permanently. I have never deliberately taken a zinc supplement to prescribe doesn’t supplement any of my patients, or recommended that any of my friends or family take one, because I’m not convinced that they do any good, and I am convinced that they can do harm when used to excess.
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Teafortea
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Fri Nov 25, 2022 11:27 am

Yes I remember dr mentioning not to pass the 20mg of zinc per day as it causes the opposite.

This whole Iver story is shocking, wow animals doses for people. Now that is crazy. And I totally get the context now.

Now jm reading online stories about Iver. Where have I been all these time🤣. Wow.
Randy the Intern
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Fri May 12, 2023 11:47 am

Hello tea friends. Recently I’ve had the worst thing imaginable happen to me. I’ve completely lost my sense of taste and smell after having Covid. I’m not sure how long this might last because I’ve heard many different experiences. Some people get their taste back in weeks, and some never seem to completely get it back.

Personally I’m going to take a more proactive approach to regaining my senses. I want to try remedies that have helped others regain their taste and smell more quickly. One method that has caught my attention is sucking on ginger or garlic. I was wondering if anyone knew of any other remedies I could try?

Needless to say this is a dark time for me. Without my tea there is no longer any light in this world. Only darkness.
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Baisao
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Fri May 12, 2023 3:20 pm

I’m very sorry to hear that. Hopefully this information will help since it is science-based:

viewtopic.php?p=45447#p45447
Randy the Intern
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Sat May 13, 2023 8:05 am

Baisao wrote:
Fri May 12, 2023 3:20 pm
I’m very sorry to hear that. Hopefully this information will help since it is science-based:

viewtopic.php?p=45447#p45447
Thanks!
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mbanu
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Sat May 13, 2023 12:15 pm

Randy the Intern wrote:
Fri May 12, 2023 11:47 am
Without my tea there is no longer any light in this world.
Supposedly during lean years in China, people drank poor-man's "white tea" -- plain hot water. :) Not much flavor, but still an excuse to get together.

When people get older, it is common for their sense of taste and smell to fade, although not completely disappear. If you are worried that this may be permanent, maybe reaching out to some older tea-drinkers who can't coax much out of teas anymore to see if they have any advice on how to still make it an enjoyable experience might help. Plus, if your sense of taste returns, you still have new tools that will make it easier to have tea with others who find themselves in the future where you are now in the present.
Andrew S
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Sat May 13, 2023 8:49 pm

@Randy the Intern: I'm also sorry to hear that. As Baisao said, you can try some recognised form of smell recognition therapy. You should also consider getting proper medical advice.

I recall the initial period being the most frustrating, because I literally could not smell anything whatsoever. As I mentioned on that other page, my sense returned slowly, intermittently and in somewhat disconcerting or strange ways, before eventually returning back to normal.

Once I could recognise any smell at all (however frustrating fleeting that was - sometimes literally for just one second), I did try to expose myself to different aromas and try hard to sense, recognise, and differentiate between them, including in tea. It did feel like my mind was trying to fix itself and re-learn a bit...

During the period that my sense was either out or fleeting, I drank smooth simple tea like old cooked puer and liubao, because:
1) I couldn't detect aromas, and hence I got no enjoyment from teas which were all about complex or interesting aromas or flavours;
2) I could still feel sensations like bitterness, astringency, acidity, etc, so I wanted to avoid teas which had any kind of roughness to their mouthfeel (and I came to appreciate that there are many teas, like yancha, where the mouthfeel is interesting only when combined with aromas and flavours, but which is rather offensive taken by itself without any 'context'...);
3) old tea calms me down, regardless of whether or not I can taste it.

For now, perhaps consider staying away from teas which can be rough in any way, since they'll taste like rough water during this period. You might also come to understand how different teas make your body or mind feel and adjust accordingly.

Bear in mind that there must have been lots of us around the world who've had similar experiences. Also bear in mind that you may need to get proper medical advice or treatment (for which a tea forum is not a substitute).

Andrew
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Teafortea
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Sun May 14, 2023 5:05 am

I just recovered from another round of dreaded covid. This time I panicked so bad when I lost my taste and smell, for same reasons, my teas. To make it worse, all my new tea orders kept arriving hehe.
Dr said just wait and see. Believe it or not i caught another cold in between, lots of sneezing and then the next morning I realized my smell was back and then slowly the taste Go figure!!! I'm happy again. Can you find a snotty toddler to hang around ? :lol:
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aet
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Sun May 14, 2023 10:45 pm

Randy the Intern wrote:
Fri May 12, 2023 11:47 am
Hello tea friends. Recently I’ve had the worst thing imaginable happen to me. I’ve completely lost my sense of taste and smell after having Covid. I’m not sure how long this might last because I’ve heard many different experiences. Some people get their taste back in weeks, and some never seem to completely get it back.

Personally I’m going to take a more proactive approach to regaining my senses. I want to try remedies that have helped others regain their taste and smell more quickly. One method that has caught my attention is sucking on ginger or garlic. I was wondering if anyone knew of any other remedies I could try?

Needless to say this is a dark time for me. Without my tea there is no longer any light in this world. Only darkness.
how long do you have this issue?
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