I have had more free time than I’m used to lately, so I drew this slightly silly stream of consciousness comic about how changes in taste and smell as after effects of getting COVID in 2021 have impacted me. Mostly it’s a love letter to food. It was also an attempt from me to try to make a comic without planning it for 5 years and see where the mood takes me, so naturally there are a lot of detailed food illustrations (they’re the best).

Although I definitely dodged a bullet concerning what most people got slapped with thanks to long Covid, I ended up with Parosmia. Which is basically a neurological condition caused by damage to the olfactory senses.

In short, I got brain damage thanks to Covid and now my sense of smell is fucked up.

For the first year of having it I genuinely couldn’t remain in places where food was being cooked or eaten because it would be that bad I’d almost start throwing up. Like I would be heaving this shit was that bad. Food would smell and taste as what I can only describe as rotting and this impacted like half of what I regularly ate. So my diet was just utterly fucked. And that just ruined a lot of my social life too. I was literally at a wedding during this time period and I felt so rude for barely eating anything because I actually just couldn’t stand it.

I have smelt what a maggot farm smells like, which is essentially rotting corpses. And it was on that level of BAD. I am not exaggerating.

It wouldn’t only affect food though, but like a shit ton of other stuff. It’s actually impacted my life so bad. For the majority of people who got it thanks to Covid it seems that it went away within 18 months, but it’s been over two years since I got infected and I still have this. And odds are, if you have it for over a year, the chances of it being permanent are also more likely. Which fucking sucks ass, especially since I didn’t have a good relationship with food before and I had only just really fixed that.

Best part is there’s nothing I can do about it. There isn’t a cure so I’m just living with this now. I’ll admit it’s gotten a little better over time but two years on, most people recover from this shit by now. I think I’m just gonna have to accept I’m stuck like this for good and maybe one day it’ll just magically go away.

I WOULD find out that I can taste peach again by stubbornly taking the fattest rip off a weed pen anyways even if it tasted like rot.

hot take from a man with parosmia / is an actual vampire and cant have garlic or onions or i keel over and die, instant food or meat or whatever should come unseasoned 90 percent of the time and we choose our seasonings ourselves or are provided seasoning options in packets like pretzel salt. if this were the case i would be able to eat soooo much more food

parosmia affirmations my mint toothpaste tastes regular and normal and not at all like moldy meat 🙏 the smell of rotten onions actually accentuates this delicious quesadilla 🙏 i can exist within a 5 mile proximity of somebody frying eggs 🙏 i still remember what garlic used to smell like 🙏 etc

hey, to all of yall... does anyone have any tips for coping with parosmia (the aftereffects of covid where your taste and smell changes and everything smells unpleasant)? my stepfather has been dealing with it for a couple months now and i know it's just awful for him :(

En otras noticias... finalmente he logrado percibir un olor lo más cercano a su olor original después de casi 2 años y medio y por un momento casi ni me entero. Ahora que he comenzado a dibujar de nuevo, paso rodeada de mis lapices y por ende, también con viruta de lapiz en todas partes (por alguna, razón aunque tenga de esos sacapuntas con dispensador, siempre se me abre y me cae todo encima) y justo hoy senti el aroma, ese aroma tan distintivo y por un instante casi lo paso por alto hasta que me di cuenta de que LO SENTÍ! Lo senti tan real como es, no distorsionado ni distinto... lo senti tal cual es (o lo más próximo a dicho olor). No me quiero hacer ilusiones, pero si esto realmente es un indicador de que finalmente mi cerebro se esta recuperando... voy a inundar el país entero con lagrimas de felicidad.

this anosmia/parosmia shit is so annoying!!! it feels like my nerves are being rewired constantly. I went to light a candle earlier to make my room smell better (for guests not me) since I had finished cleaning, and I walk back in a few minutes later and it just smells like smoke!!! Not even the normal kind of smoke like from a campfire, but more like some kind of chemical was burning. I couldn't even smell the lavender!!!

Then I go to make lunch and as I'm toasting my bread, I get a brief whiff of what normal toasting bread smells like before the smell of strong burning overtakes my entire system. It straight up smelled like someone lit a tire on fire in my kitchen. I popped the bread out of the toaster and it wasn't even lightly browned!!!

And then I made a huge mistake. I wanted to season my broccoli with some garlic powder and salt. The garlic powder smelled normal for a brief moment until the strong smell of putrid rot took over. Like imagine you had left a bunch of produce in your fridge for over a month and it was just sitting there rotting.

It's so incredibly annoying and frustrating because it seems like this is developing slowly for me. Like sometimes my smell will be normal, then I get hit with these very bad and very strong scents. It seems like when I first expose myself to something, my brain expects a certain smell and so that's the scent I'll get for a fleeting moment until the parosmia kicks in. Sometimes my sense of smell will go away completely for a few hours or minutes.

The very first time I got covid I had completely lost my sense of smell and taste for several months. I didn't fully recover my senses until a year later, and now I'm dealing with this shit upon my third infection. And I haven't even mentioned the myriad of other symptoms I've been dealing with. Shit sucks!!!

Honestly that scene where Laszlo talks about how much he loved apples as a kid but now they smell like shit and decay its just a big mood if you have parosmia

on day 7 of havig covid and parosmia is starting to manifest <3 the air smells of smoke and sometimes food will taste smoked too. Smoked bread is not amazing.

Despite the parosmia you haven’t lost a considerable amount of weight, so you must have adapted slightly to it?

i have definitely adapted to it!! thankfully most carbs are very safe still!! that definitely helps lol

my main yucky foods are garlic, onion, chicken, egg whites, peanuts, and other things i am forgetting right now lol

maybe i missed the feeling of being starved.

I can’t tell if I have phantosmia or parosmia, or if everything in my entire house smells like the most indescribable awful smell that literally rouses me from sleep.

I was just in a silly goofy mood this morning and decided to ignore consequences and try to eat a snickers bar. INSTANT regret😭🤮 Why is it sour and burnt plastic flavor at the same time😩 I hate this shit

not my parosmiac ass trying to quietly eat my protein block while the citizen next to me is complaining about mask mandates

life with parosmia continues...I don't even count the months anymore