Overcoming COVID-Induced Parosmia: A Story of Resilience and Rediscovery

In this powerful and personal episode of the Rebel Health Collective podcast, I sit down with my cousin Brittany to discuss her life-altering battle with parosmia—a rare condition that distorts taste and smell—after recovering from COVID. This episode is extra special to me, as Brittany’s journey represents so much of what we stand for at Rebel Health Collective: advocating for those navigating invisible health challenges, educating on lesser-known conditions, and fostering resilience in the face of adversity.

Brittany opens up about the emotional and physical toll parosmia took on her daily life, from the foods she once loved turning into something repulsive, to the isolation she felt when even social gatherings became unbearable. But this is more than just a story about struggle—it’s about perseverance, hope, and reclaiming control over her health and well-being.

If you’ve ever faced an invisible illness, felt dismissed by the medical system, or struggled with your mental health while dealing with physical challenges, this episode is for you. Join us as we dive into Brittany’s inspiring journey of survival, healing, and finding strength in unexpected places.

Be sure to subscribe to the Rebel Health Collective podcast so you never miss an episode, and follow us on social media for more inspiring stories, health tips, and advocacy. Let’s continue building a community of empowerment together!

Share Your Story & Be a Guest On the Podcast: Please click HERE to schedule a time to introduce yourself and tell us a little about your story or expertise.

**Disclaimer: Please remember that the topics and information discussed in this podcast are for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare provider or medical professional before making any changes to your health regimen or implementing any new treatments. Your health journey is unique, and it’s important to work with your trusted healthcare team to determine what’s best for you.**

Transcript

Hey there, Rebels. I hope that this podcast finds you well and you're ready for another eye opening episode of the Rebel Health Collective. Today's episode is extra special for me because I'll be interviewing my cousin, Brittany, who has a truly unique and powerful story

Brittany's journey is something most people have never heard of and even fewer have experienced firsthand. So, Imagine losing your sense of taste and smell for months. No, actually over a year, only for them to return in the most unexpected way.

What Britney has been through will not only surprise you, but will also offer hope and understanding to anyone struggling with an invisible challenge. From the impacts of COVID to navigating a rare condition called parosmia, Brittany's story is a powerful reminder of the mental and physical hurdles that can completely alter one's life. She'll take us through the realities of how everyday activities, like eating, became terrifying. the social isolation she endured, and the mental strength it took to push through a condition with no clear treatment. 

Whether you've heard of prosimia or not, Britney's experiences are going to open your eyes to a whole new world of health struggles that many are silently enduring. And through it all, she offers a beacon of hope for those still in the fight. So sit back, open your mind and get ready for a story of perseverance, survival, and the courage it takes to reclaim your life when your senses and everything you know are literally turned upside down.

Let's dive in.  

hey, Brittany, thank you for joining us today. I know you have a super interesting story that I can't wait for myself to get to know a little bit more about. And then I think it's. It's going to be something that a lot of the listeners out there probably have never heard of and even fewer, if they have heard of it, have even experienced.

So, I'm going to turn it over to you

okay yeah, so, in September 2021,  I didn't really realize I had gotten COVID until like I put my deodorant on and I couldn't smell it because I use the spray deodorant. So it was like really weird. But then I was like, I knew that was  a symptom of COVID. So I was like, I'm pretty sure I've got it.

So I took a test, obviously came back positive.  But, lost my taste and smell. That was about the only symptom I had. And It was  weird at first not being able to taste anything. It was  like, all I could get was like, sweet, salty.  Stuff like that. But I ended up dealing with that, like no taste and smell. I thought it would just come back in like a couple of weeks. Like most people I've heard, but my taste and smell was gone for six, like six months.  So I never fully recovered from it in six months. And it actually took my dad that long when he got COVID to get his taste back. So I was thinking maybe I'll be like him and it's just a long drawn out,  Thing and then I'll just get my taste and smell back, but  it never did fully come back but there was like a turning point we went to a movie with our friends and It was  one of those movie theaters where you can have dinner and I was still eating Everything at that point.

It was just like my taste wasn't, I couldn't taste it real great But I was still eating everything so I had gotten some chicken tenders or something that night and For a minute there, I was like,  tastes like,  it was like, maybe I'll get my taste back.

Cause I said, I  could taste a little bit more flavor than normal. So I was  like in a good mood about that. I was  positive. But literally the next day, I think this was like right around Easter. Um,  we were going to aunt Cindy's, my aunt or aunt Cindy's to have dinner. We went to Walmart beforehand and I got a bag of, These Fritos that I always eat.

They're the they're like the barbecue kind. And  I typically , snack on those all the time, never had an issue, but I ate one that morning and it tasted really funny. I was like, okay. I told my husband Tyler, I was like,  this tastes really gross. I don't know about these chips.

There's something wrong with them.  And that was  the first time I really noticed something  happening with my taste in a bad way. So that evening we went to dinner Cindy's house and she had ham and the normal fixings for, an Easter meal. I guess we just went over there that year.  I mean, everything just tasted weird, especially the meat. And  that's one thing with parasmia,  which is what I, then found out, like I started looking into it and researching it and found out this, what it is, because there's certain foods. With parosmia that trigger it worse than others.

And meat is a big one. So the meat tasted really rank. All I can say to a person to make them understand, like what this food tastes like, what all the food was tasting like to me  is like vomit. It tasted like vomit. So  I was going through a process in the beginning where I was just suddenly just losing everything that I was originally able to eat.

I was able to eat everything at one point and then it would be like,  one day I would have Mountain Dew,  my diet Mountain Dew, which I drink every day, and it was disgusting, so I couldn't do that anymore.  And I literally went down to a diet that consisted of something a two year old would eat. Um, I was eating Kraft Mac and Cheese,  I was eating grapes. What else could I eat at the beginning? Applesauce. So every day for lunch, I would have mac and cheese cup, grapes,  and applesauce. And that was it. And that's what I was eating to sustain myself every day.  And I was too scared to go outside of it too much because like I said Everything that I put in my mouth for the most part outside of those three things tasted throw up.  A lot of people will have safe foods. So those were my safe foods at the beginning.

And then, I transitioned from those  Unfortunately, your taste will change again so you'll be able to eat certain things at one point, but then those go bad. So then you're like, in this whole thing what is in these safe foods that I've had previously that I could probably eat, in something else? And I found cinnamon, which was in, I had cinnamon applesauce, so it was like cinnamon. So I started eating, and I'm joking you, I had for three months straight,  I ate the Sam's Club Cinnamon French Toast Sticks for lunch and dinner with milk. Milk was  my protein, and that was  the only thing I could eat.

And unfortunately with this disease, the main thing that people can eat are carbs. So it's unhealthy

things. So nothing, nothing,

That's convenient. 

unfortunate.  Yeah, so nothing healthy. I've lost, I lost all green vegetables. I could barely eat anything, but like I said, I was eating French toast sticks and I got used to it, it was like too scared to eat.

I was horrified. I just didn't want to  have anything. That's gonna make me get ill, cause it's a lot of trial and error and I'll never forget. Mom even brought me a cheeseburger one time. She was like begging me to eat because she's so worried about it because  going from a full  diet where you eat.

A variety of foods every day and obviously overindulge  to basically eating like three things that you get really burnt out on over and over again that you don't want to even touch.  I stopped eating. I just got bored with it. I was like, I don't want this.

I don't enjoy this. So basically  in the first three months of that whole like hit or miss of does this work or does this not work?  I lost my complete interest in food  and I lost 60, no, 70 pounds in three months. So literally dropped 70 pounds. So at this point, I felt like it was an eating disorder, which,  parosmia is not an eating disorder, it's a smell disorder.  So basically with this disease your nerve cells in your nose, they aren't shooting correctly. They're not shooting off.  When you eat,  you have a variety of molecules that you're getting. Just for example, like in one thing, there might be 300 molecules. Okay. To get the right taste. But for me,  I was not getting all of those molecules. My body was only getting me maybe two of them. If that makes sense. I'm trying to just break it down and make it more understandable, but,

um, 

So you would eat, let's say a chicken nugget. And that was one of the foods that you couldn't tolerate. Was it the taste in your mouth, like from your receptors in your tongue, or is it actually caused by like the receptors in your nose and that the smell that comes into your nose and it  overpowers. 

The taste in that sense. I mean, I don't know how the two are connected, but it's the actual smell that, that the disease is. Okay. 

Yes, it's your smell, the effects, because your smell affects your taste,   like if you get a cold. and your nose is stuffed up, you can't taste the food. So, it's  the same thing.  When your nose doesn't work, you can't taste.

For me though, and for Rasmia, it's not actually, you can't taste anymore. It's gone past that level. Now you can't you're tasting things incorrectly.  So, the taste is distorted. , it was terrible . I mean, like very scary, obviously, I was very limited on what I could eat.

I couldn't go to restaurants at all because not only was my taste disgusting, but everything that I smelled was also

So. one of my questions is obviously when you ate, it didn't taste 

good  but 

if your husband was sitting next to you at the cheeseburger, that would also 

affect you.

 Yeah.  Tyler was really affected by this too  I went to a Mexican restaurant with my family after church. I sat in there and I only made it about 15 minutes before I had to get up and go, literally go sit in the car   the  worst smells, worst tastes, I'm going to say, are onions, coffee, meat, and spinach. There's probably, oh, garlic. Garlic is another. And egg. So there's a lot of things  that are triggers. So when you go to a Mexican restaurant, one of the main things that sticks out a lot are onions, because they use onion in almost all of those dishes. But it's also the oils that they cook things in makes the food gross as well.  A lot of people with parosnia can't eat certain oils that things are cooked in.  But anyway, long story short on that, I went and had to sit in the car.

So if you can picture that, like my days of going to a restaurant were pretty done. Like I wasn't going anywhere and it makes it like you're very secluded. Parasmia can affect you in multiple ways,  your health, but also your mental  state. Cause you're just, Now you're just like everybody else around you can eat normally they can all go in a restaurant What do you do for social activity?

Most times you're gonna go out with your friends You're gonna go out and go to a restaurant, you know You're going to go out with your family to a restaurant, but for me, I literally stopped doing that. So Tyler was going to a lot of things by himself like if his family wanted to go out to eat at a restaurant, I just avoided it like the

plague and it was  a fear thing,  I just literally would rather sit here at home by myself You know and it was hard. It was very hard, 

so, a lot of times , he would have to go eat by himself with his buddies, he'd go out with his family outside of that. If he wanted to have anything out to eat, he would have to find places close by, cause he would want to bring it home because he doesn't want to go sit at a restaurant by himself, It was draining on his bank account because  he doesn't want to cook a meal because he's gonna be the only one eating it and it's gonna go to waste You know, he's not gonna eat all that food.



Were you guys able to eat at the house or would cooking, if he did tacos and did, ground beef, could that smell of the 

house and affect you?  

yes, I would either sit upstairs in  our bedroom with the door closed,  which is still didn't matter. She'll have wafts like it was through the house, like the smell, but especially when he's cooking with a lot of seasonings. But a lot of times too, I would have him open the windows  because I could not breathe downstairs. I could not breathe that food in. I was literally going to throw up. So, yeah, it was making it difficult for him to do that  stuff. And then it's He would eat anything. Like, a lot of times he would go outside.

 He would go outside and sit on the patio and eat his food outside. It was pretty safe to me, so that I didn't have to smell it. So, just imagine, like, how difficult all this stuff is, because that's literally the one thing that you do with people is you eat, and you don't really notice how  important that is to you until that's taken away, so.

definitely. I mean,  I'm thinking through it in my head. If I was going to go hang out with people, there's in one way or another, there's food involved. And like you said, it's, maybe you go  to a restaurant  with friends you haven't seen in a while, or you go to a birthday or you go to an amusement park.

There's food everywhere.

And even like when we got into 4th of July and stuff  we do  outdoor, eating places, that have food trucks and stuff. You'd think it would be okay cause you're outside. It is better, but those trucks still reek. So  you can't get away from it at all. You're literally living in.  Just trauma left and right. You can't get away.  And then at the end of the day, I'm not trying to sound funny here, but  your spouse,  they eat all that food and unfortunately,  your smell sort of messed up that his breath, I couldn't even, handle it. I couldn't even handle it. So  say, give him a kiss. Good night. I had a hard time doing that. And I'm not saying it's anything against him. Like he, it's not cause he didn't brush his teeth or something. It's just unfortunately the smell of this food just lasted and never

went 

you're just super sensitive and 

just never smelled it like that before. Wow.  

And so 

I lost my smell and taste when I had COVID as well. And I think it took three weeks for my taste to come back and it took a little longer for my smell to fully come back.  And so you experienced that, which a lot of people did.

A lot of people lost their smell and taste, but you were able to eat fine. Then none of this was affecting you during that time. And then you mentioned, you had those chips and then that Easter dinner and did it  ramp up from there  and then did it start getting more intense, I guess, is a better way to ask it. 

yeah, it was like a, it was like a gradual thing. I could say it was  fast because obviously you never would have experienced this before, so it's oh my gosh, everything I'm putting in my mouth is gross, but.  the beginning I did still have some things that I could tolerate better, but,  then it got to that point where it's okay, everything, I'm losing everything, everything is bad. Like I couldn't find anything. And it was very scary. Um, when I went over to the French toast sticks, I honestly just ate those because it was at the beginning.

I actually enjoyed them because it was something different than the other things I was eating previous to that. So it was like something different. To look forward to, but then, you finally get burnout on that.  I was just eating them to survive. That's all I was doing. Like I literally ate to survive, but there were some days I'd sit here cause I work at home,  so I'd sit here and I wouldn't eat until 6 PM. Like nothing.  I would drink water. That was it. And then I would be like, my mom would call me throughout the day. She's have you eaten anything? I'm like, no. And she's you need to get in there, get something. Make something, do some oatmeal or, like everybody want to give suggestions, of things.

But  nothing worked.  I was like too scared to try things, , I mean, there's days where I would eat nothing. I'd literally go to bed, and my stomach would be growling,  but I had no desire to eat food.

So,  it was just awful. But, yeah. I could say this is a mingle, like, all this is based off your smell, but it affects everything. And obviously your diet, You know, because mostly people like I said are going down to carbs only. They're not eating any  vegetables. So I was so worried that everything about my health was going to be messed up.

But  when I went to doctors,  they'd be   doing blood work on me to check things. And at all of my levels, it would be normal. There was nothing wrong. So I'm like, that doesn't make any sense, If you're not eating, how are you sustaining yourself?

Yeah. Especially if you're not getting  a good variety, like you mentioned earlier, if you're not getting fruits and vegetables and meats and you're just eating, cinnamon toast sticks and stuff like that. 

You'd think something, a red flag would come up somewhere. 

Oh yeah. Yeah, I guess I can lean that into going to the doctor. Obviously I went to the doctor early into this, as soon as I was like I  can't do this every day. And I went to my doctor and actually saw the nurse practitioner first. So she was real great.

She was trying her hardest to do something, like  you're pulling at straws is what she was doing. Cause unfortunately when I got this too, this was new and nobody knew about it. So  my doctor's office, they were  completely lost.

They were trying to give me suggestions, get you with a dietitian. That was like the first thing. Well, the dietitian took six weeks to get into and I was like, God, I understand I can't wait six weeks. I'm on the verge of starvation. So I need to talk to somebody sooner than that.

And they were very sweet.  Somebody ended up calling me like, literally days after that appointment, after I got referred to a dietitian. And she asked me like, what are some foods that I could eat at the time. I was trying to think of safe options. And it was like, giving me things with protein in them, like beans and,

try these and try that.  was just all hit or miss. And none of the stuff that she told me none of it worked. know, so 

any idea what you guys were dealing with or was she just trying to find, I guess, more bland foods  that are, More highly tolerated. 

I think that she had another case that she's heard of where somebody was

dealing with this, but I don't think he was completely familiar with it. I think it was still new to her, but  she , understood it a little bit, so, and I think too, just like her being a dietitian, she  knows about food, she knows about what to recommend.

So  I think she was just doing her best  pick things that she thought would be safe around what I was able to eat, with avoiding things that I told her I couldn't have. But yeah, it didn't work out really well. So,  I was still sticking to what I was actually eating. Um, I'm just a bad person about being a creature of habit too.

If something works for me, I don't stray away from it. And I'm too scared to do things that are going to make me  sick. 

Yeah, this is, I mean, this is a little different than a doctor telling you to eat your broccoli. I mean, when 

you literally can't tolerate something,  

I can totally understand the hesitation and trying new foods when the second it goes into your mouth. You feel like it's coming right back out. 

But I went back to my family doctor and actually saw my doctor, and, she's pretty straightforward, and she did say this is just new we don't know much about it, I told her the only thing I knew from researching that group, a lot of people were going to ENTs, because obviously your nose and throat, you can get somebody to look at your nose, maybe they can do an MRI, maybe they can find that it's another issue, maybe it's not prosmia, because I'm self diagnosing myself, even though I'm pretty sure that's what that is, So she was like, yeah, she's I'll give you a referral.

But there was like really nothing else that she could do for me,  outside of that. And  you lose hope every time you go, they're not sure what it is either. So you can't be mad, but it's just frustrating. So, yeah, I went to an ENT. That was  a bummer.

I was really going in there  positive because I was like, all these people Had ENTs that did more than most doctors would for their parosmia. , so I was like, maybe she'll do something  different or she'll be able to look into it more. And as soon as I sat down, she was like, this is not something that I can do anything for. There's no surgeries. You wouldn't want a surgery for this because you don't want to do anything to your nose that you can't. Turn around and change back, so that would be like permanent damage if they were to do some  surgical procedure on my nose, and  the only good news she gave me was  if you're going through this means that you're healing. So parosmia.  They say  it's a healing thing. So if you get it, that means you're gonna get your smell and your taste back, is what she said. She said just don't know the matter of time that's gonna happen. So it's nice to know, but it's also something hard to believe because you deal with it and you feel like you're gonna be dealing with it forever.   The last thing I could think, there was people suggesting the Mayo Clinic because they handle a lot of weird diagnoses and, They are able to look into things like this, weird things like this, and they're the ones that usually can figure it out.

So  I ended up just doing it. I actually contacted them and I put in, a form and they came back and they accepted me as a patient. Like I thought that I was getting in there and  Maybe get a diagnosis.

Maybe you're going to be some treatment, but when I had my pre registration, which was over the phone,  I would have had to go out of state to actually go there.

So the registration appointment was over the phone and this person I talked to, I  told her the same thing I told the other person.  previously. And she was like, I don't know why they've admitted you here. Cause we can't do anything for this. So  it was just a low blow. I mean, I thought that I was getting somewhere.

I thought for once, I was like looking forward to this and then. She was like, yeah, we can't do anything about this. This is not an issue that we can take care of. So, canceled my appointment and I was just basically done. There was a lot of things going on at that point where I was just giving up.

 I told a lot of people,  this  just, is what it is now. This is what my life is. I had to go to counseling. I  had to get on anxiety medication. I  was. literally just depressed all day, every day. And  I just felt like I was not going to get out of this rut at all. And I mean, there are certain things that I was told that I could do to  help with it. The number one thing that anybody's going to recommend for prosmia is smell training. And that's like the one thing they all say it's going to work or help you out. But basically you get this kit, you can get it off Amazon. It's like the, All these essential oils and vials and you're supposed to just sit there daily and smell them so I had two kits with  five different vials in each one one of them's like eucalyptus they got lavender cinnamon  And I would do that, and it was funny, I talked to Aunt Kathy a lot.

So she'd always be telling me, you're doing your smell therapy today. Like she'd be trying to keep up on it and I'm like, yeah, no. Cause I didn't, after doing it for a certain amount of days first of all, they stunk cause they, they didn't smell right.  So they were nasty.

But. They say though, if you're smelling these enough, you'll be able to smell them correctly. And I don't, I didn't give it enough time. Unfortunately I was not patient enough and I stopped doing that. They say other things are like random things like vitamins you can take.

And I got a couple of the vitamins that they recommended. , but honestly I was at a point where I was like, I'm almost just wasting money,  I'm listening to all these people's theories and stuff and when you have pros me, you're literally desperate. So you'll do anything.

There's people in these groups that would just recommend things. I was like, yeah,  maybe I'll try it. But, then you  think logically 

Maybe that person just got over it. 

As they were trying that new thing. Yeah. 

Exactly. And then, they came out with this big like the one thing that they said was a solution for parosmia, the only thing they said was a solution for parosmia, and it's a stellate ganglion shot.  And it's literally an ejection. You get in your neck.  And they say what it does is it reboots your cells.  So, your nose cells, like the cells in your nose, they say it should, maybe reboot those as well. But the problem is, this is a injection that's not covered  by insurance because there's no real reason why you would go get this, and also too, the only like main person that did it at the time was this doctor in Texas. So  I actually saw this woman on TikTok that I just randomly came across. I searched perosnia on TikTok and I found a few people that were dealing with it at the time really bad as well. And this girl actually went to see this man and she was like counting down the days and she traveled there by herself and  went to see him and he injected her in her neck,  like they do this with an ultrasound, I guess.

And then they find the spot that they're supposed to inject. The needle into and then once they do it, they let you sit in the office for a minute and then what he has you do after that is go out and get food like you go get something that you haven't been able to eat. So she went to Chick fil a and got some chicken and she's it's not successful.

She's this is still gross. Like she couldn't eat it.  Um, So she came back and he ended up giving her another injection in the other side, like on the other side of her neck.  And she did the same thing. She sat there, went through, went to go get the food.  Same thing. It didn't taste right. She was really bummed out about it, obviously.

She was like crying. She cried that whole evening. I would too, because there's other people that Gone through and had a stellate ganglion block done and they had a Reese's cup afterwards and they're like, oh my gosh This tastes correct. Like I can actually taste this. I can taste the peanut butter.

Correct, Like  it tastes as it should and so there's a lot of that that was becoming very popular So there's a lot of people in this group that were like Posting videos and some of them had young children. I couldn't imagine if I was dealing with this, how I was as a 30 year old woman,  I couldn't imagine my child going

through it.

have enough trouble trying to get 

Bryson eat a balanced dinner as it is. I can only imagine

Yeah. Seven year old boy, I think that went through and got the shot, but he actually was one of the ones that said it was successful, but I'm to the point where you said. I'm  thinking this is maybe it's not the shot that was actually working. Maybe it's that their taste was actually,  who knows?

You never know. That, that was a very popular thing. Many people were starting to get invested to it. I'm telling you what a shot, each shot costs a thousand dollars. So people were paying two grand out of pocket to get this and some up from a lot of them that didn't work. And not only that they were traveling to Texas if they didn't live there.

Yeah. So they were spending money in hotels and, travel if they were driving or they were flying, the expense that you have to put in to get that done for it not to work. I was just like, yeah, I'm not even going to do it. Which I never did.  So  I just  let it ride out, I obviously got to the point where I was like used to It wasn't great was in a state where I was like, this is what it is right now And I'll keep on I guess eating what I can   I was starting to get, I should say, I was starting to go to restaurants again.

I was getting more comfortable with going because my smell was still  bad. But, I was able to actually go in and sit in a restaurant. And it's really bad at first when you walk in. 

But then it  goes away after you stand there for a minute. That's  like how it became. So  I think Tyler finally just got fed up with going to restaurants by himself, so he's can we just go somewhere, please? And I was like, yeah, so, slowly I was starting to be able to eat grilled cheese at home. Um, and that was like one thing that I was like, okay, that's something I could eat at a restaurant. Because for the most part, that's on a kid's menu, so I remember we went to Bubba's. It was like one of the first restaurants we went to together. And I got a grilled cheese,  but they didn't make it like normal.

And I like, it was really funny, because if you go to half of the restaurants out here, they were putting it on a hamburger bun.  It was like a basically a pizza bun. The hamburger bun, they'd put the cheese on it, and then they'd cook it on the s the grill, and then they would use some  oil in there, or whatever was on the grill would get in it, and it was disgusting.

I was like, that was my first meal out, I was like, maybe I can do this, and I was like, I was  gagging. I couldn't, I ate literally one bite of the sandwich and I think I got sweet potato fries to try because maybe I can do sweet potato, because I, sweet, I was like, I couldn't eat the fries.

It was all the oil. And the grease and whatever they were cooking with. So it was still to that point where I was like, yeah, I can't eat any of this, but I was able to go to restaurants. So I basically went to restaurants and I would sit there and watch everybody around me eat.  And sometimes I would bring my own like food. From home, like I would literally walk into these places with a lunchbox, and I have like my cheese sticks or whatever I could eat at the time, like sitting in there and I would literally pull this out and eat this food at the table with him so I could have something. Cause  it sucks to go to sit somewhere with somebody and eat and you're just watching them  eat this food and you're like, okay, it's, you're almost  not human.

That's what I felt like I was no longer a human,  with everybody else is going out to a restaurant eating. I was eating nothing. I don't think it was until probably around fall that  I was officially like, okay, I can eat more.  Like I did go out to stores and look for what I thought were safe ingredients and buy things and bring things home to try, but I wasted everything.

So. That's another thing that didn't make you want to be like, Oh, let's go try something today. Because it costs money and groceries are not cheap anymore. So, when Thanksgiving rolled around, everything was free. So I'm like sitting here, I'm like, I got all this food here. I can actually try and I don't have to pay for it.

Like I can just try and if I don't like it, I don't have to eat it.  So I was able to eat the most food I could eat in a whole year at Thanksgiving. I had mashed potatoes and I could eat them. I could eat,  I think I could eat green beans, plain green beans. Because  Tyler's grandma, when we went over there, actually was like very considerate, which was really nice of her,  I feel like she was really thoughtful of me  I was able to eat green beans, I was able to eat mashed potatoes, I was able to eat pumpkin pie.  It was  the one turning point where I was like, oh my gosh, I can actually eat all this this is a lot of food, that I can actually eat. So, I'm not even lying to you after that point, I was eating Thanksgiving dinner every day.

I was just eating random Thanksgiving dinner foods  it was all sides. But it was nice because if you think about it, Cracker Barrel,  that's one restaurant that has a lot of those kinds of countrysides. I was able to go there.  I could eat their pancakes. So, we got to where we weren't going anywhere, and now we were going to one or two restaurants every single night.

Every time I would  gain something new, Tyler would be like, Okay, let's go there and eat, because it was something new for him to eat,  so we started getting restaurants back and I was able to eat more and more.

I mean, I just kept trying more things So I was less scared  but then December rolled around and I found out I was pregnant. So  I was like, how is this going to affect this? Is this gonna be good or bad? Like obviously it's great that I'm pregnant but I was also very nervous because they already talk about, pregnancy, women have distorted tastes,  with a lot of things, like a lot of women get things that just make them nauseated.

And I'm like, I've already been dealing with this for a year. So  I don't know that I want to go through it more, but like you have no other option. So  it was  scary. But  before all that, I  got, what did I get back? I got French fries. I could eat French fries. I can get grilled cheese.

I can eat mashed potatoes. I could eat macaroni and cheese.  I could eat sweet potatoes.  I eat basically any  side that you could think of. I eat ramen noodles that was  like the random stuff, but when I hit my first trimester with her, me and Tyler went to Smokey Bones  it's like a barbeque restaurant,  and I got, what did I get that night, I got a thing of, cornbread because I, I went in there and everything stunk. I was like, Oh no. And I felt nauseated. I think it was  my first day of really feeling nauseated with the pregnancy so I was like everything about that restaurant made me want to throw up. And I was like, Oh Lord. We're going backwards, I  got a loaf of cornbread. Which is like an appetizer there and I got a thing of french fries and I couldn't eat either of them . So my first trimester I went from all that food. I told you to literally I went backwards I regressed all the way backwards and I could eat  white rice, cheese sticks, water, and oatmeal in my first trimester

with Nora. I couldn't eat nothing else. And I kept calling the OB's office, like OBGYN, because  when you first find out you're pregnant too, you don't get to get seen for a very long time. It's a very long wait between the pregnancy test and like actually seeing a doctor. So, I would be calling that office like twice a week Hey guys I've lost 10 more pounds and  A matter of two weeks.

I need to know if this is okay for this baby is she gonna make it? Is she gonna be okay?  And you're like, Don't worry about her.

She's taking everything she can from you.  So basically I was like, great.  I can't eat, but as long as she's all right, I guess it's fine. I just, I couldn't think it was a, I didn't think it was okay in my brain, though. I thought  I was gonna have a miscarriage. That's all I could think of. I was so terrified at the whole thing. Because I wasn't sustaining myself. So I was like, how am I sustaining a child? It was just weird,  but second trimester hit, and I think Nora was tired of white rice. I think this baby was like, yeah, we can't be doing this, much longer.

So I ended up eating You know, I tried cereal. Oh, cereal was the best during pregnancy. I ate so much cereal. I was eating cereal and then gradually, I don't know, I'm gonna say,  I don't think any of these little random things that they told us helped at all,  all these suggestions these people put out, but I'm gonna say get pregnant when you have parosmia  swear I think it's a cure.

I think that baby healed me from the inside out. I don't even know how to describe it, but I hit my second trimester and I just started being able to eat everything. Like it came in waves though, just like it went out gradually.  The food was coming back gradually. So it was like slowly picking up new foods, but it was way more quick than, and it was great. It's like the main thing that I was eating during pregnancy was Mexican food for some reason that was just like my favorite thing I was eating it all the time. So basically Nora is pretty much comprised of  a roast compoyo  I was like, Mexican connoisseur. We were going to Mexican like every night to the point where and we don't get tired of Mexican food But we were getting to that point.

I was pretty much burning Tyler out on it. But yeah, by the time I had her  I was basically eating everything again the only things I still cannot eat to this day is peanut butter  But  outside of that, I think I have everything that I know of, like there might be things I don't eat that I don't know that still tastes nasty, but nothing is bad now.

It all tastes good.  There's still some stuff that's okay, am I tasting this correctly? Because you almost have to relearn the taste, but  yeah, to this day I can eat everything. I've   gained all my weight back, which is not great. Because, after going through a year of, well, that was more than a year of starvation.  You can eat again, you really  go nuts. And then you also have  baby weight added on top of it, carrying another human gained a lot of weight you know what, I'm okay with it. Cause today I am, I'm healthy. I did just get blood work done. My cholesterol is actually down like from where it used to be.

So that's great. I just need to start working on getting back in the routine of a diet. Because, beforehand I used to, be on weight watchers. I lost a lot of weight with that previous to all this parosnia stuff. I lost 60 pounds. I was working out six days a week. And, like working out was not an option with parosnia. I stopped doing all workouts because I had to keep every  calorie that I had in my body. I couldn't burn it off. So, I had to quit Orange Theory. I was doing that.  And I had to cancel that membership because I was just wasting my money on it. Because, it was too much.

I mean, I burned 400 to 600 calories every class. So, I couldn't do that for my health. Which sucked. So now I'm, like, trying to put myself back together. I mean, I got food down now, so I'm just like back to trying to figure things out, but I'm also a new mom, so that's 

About to say we, we struggle enough over here trying to get to the gym regularly, just because of the 

craziness of our schedule with a little one. 

Yeah? Mm hmm. There's no gym for me, but I'm tell you what, she's enough of a workout. She weighs 23 pounds

Yeah.  Bryson broke the 30 pound mark. So 

lugging him around definitely. Well,  build some arm strength. 

 Oh, yeah. Just chasing them, but I'm loving it right now. We're in a good spot. I mean, I'm just grateful to be able to eat again. It's one thing you should never take for granted being able to eat. And, there's a lot of people out there that are very strict with themselves, and I was one of those people, but nowadays, I'm like, you know what?  Eat the donut because if you ever lose the ability to do that it's just the worst thing. I think it's one of the worst things I've ever experienced in my life. And unfortunately, there's still people that are dealing with it. Like that group that I was in on Facebook, I'm still part of it.

It's a lot quieter. So I'm glad to see that because I think a lot of the people were dealing with it at the peak of the time I was. So I feel like a lot of us have healed at the same time. But there are still people out there that are, they're suffering from prosmia and that cannot eat. And, see some posts that pop through in there and it's so sad cause there's people like, just what can I eat?

What ideas do you have? And I am the first one that will jump in there and be like, Hey, here's a list of foods that worked for me. Let me give you what I could do because you just know what  they're  going through, it's a very scary place to be. Cause even though you have people around you, support you they don't get it.

You know, nobody gets it.  You're by yourself pretty much. And so that was great having that group. Sometimes it was great. Sometimes not. Cause there was a lot of people that are very depressed. Like  people  came on there. That said they were contemplating committing suicide because of this.

And. They said they just couldn't go on anymore. And it was like, Oh my gosh,  that was the severity of what this put people in their mindset and everything else is that they wanted to end their lives over this situation.

Yeah. And

that's, I mean, obviously being family, I knew that you were going through this and, you Some of the details of the eating side of it, but I never really thought of the mental health side of it. I mean, you talked about you and Tyler's relationship where, you're not able to sit down and have dinner together and talk about your day.

There's what, lose an hour plus your time. If. You have to make your meal and maybe he can be in there, but whenever he's either eating or making his meal, you've got to be somewhere else, completely separate, not just sitting in the living room. But  the mental health side of this is an impact that I had honestly never thought about, being isolated to your house, not doing social things, not being able to eat the anxiety of it.

That there's a lot on both the physical side of your weight and, the nutrition, but a whole lot on the mental side of it as well. 

yeah. Oh yeah. I think the mental outweighs it, even though it's bad that you can't eat, like that's the main issue, but your mental state , it  makes everything go. So it was just bad. There's so many nights. So I would just like. Like I said, I  go to bed and I just wouldn't have ate anything cause I'm just like over it, no, I don't want anything.

I'm not going to, I'm not even going to bother with this right now. And you just go to bed, your stomach's growling and I just sit there and cry. Like you're just like, there was nobody that could help me. And I was in this situation and I felt like I was not going to get out of it. Cause that's what it feels like.

You feel like you're in this for good. This is your life now. Just get used to it. You think you're gonna go to the fair next year and eat all the food, yeah, that's not happening. So just get adjusted to it now. You might be able to eat a grilled cheese, but that's about it.

I couldn't cope sometimes. So  all I would do is cry.



Especially when you're not able to get any answers from it either. If someone would have said a year from now, it'll come back. It would have sucked that it's a year away, but at least, Hey I'm going to be able to eat again. It's going to come back. It's going to be okay.

But going to doctors and not be able to get answers just because, they didn't know, I mean, there's not a treatment for this.  There's not a protocol. 

There's nothing out there that, that in itself is just terrifying because you have people in 

that group that seem to be, the closest to what's going on.

And some of them are.  Are healing and getting their taste back and all of that. but who's to say that's going to happen to everybody.  It totally could not. There's a lot of uncertainty in that. 

Right? And even if they said hey, this is what I did, do this and you'll get better that didn't work for everybody .Everybody was different. Everybody's safe foods were different. Everybody's things that triggered them were different. Everybody's this worked for me,  it doesn't work for everybody.

So there was no set set in stone  thing for this at all. You're just out there, like, surviving. That's what you're doing. Like literally surviving day in and day out and just doing what you can. 

After the Mayo, 

did you ever see another Doctor or try to get into another specialist or anything at that point. Or did you just , stick with your PCP and  ride it out? 

I just did I  gave up on doctors I was still seeing a therapist like obviously the middle side of it, the good thing was   gradually,  towards the fall time, I was getting more food in.

So I wasn't as concerned because I was getting more

calories and I was getting more, I was able to eat more. So I was able to have a little bit more of the normalcy come back. It wasn't there all the way. Okay. But it was way better than what I was experiencing

in the beginning. So I like 

bright spots where, you were 

able to go out and at least sit with your family  so that's  what I guess kept you going is, things are looking up, there's things that are improving slowly, but I'm not in this, I'm Dark hole where I can't go out anywhere.

Can't eat anything and all of that. 

exactly. It was gradually just getting better. So I felt like I didn't need the doctors as much anymore. And I  knew that even if I did go back, it was going to be same situation. Because I think that if I went to a doctor today, unfortunately,  and tell them you have parosmia, they're still not going to have anything for it.

There's nothing there. They've done research. There have been groups out there that have done some research on smell disorders. And it was very popular when I initially got my parosmia. And they were very promising,  they did podcasts and videos and they'd be like, yeah, we're really looking into this.

But I think that fizzled out. I think that's stopped. So unfortunately I hope that this was just a strand, whoever was in that strand of COVID.  And I hope whoever had it, when I had it got over it, like I did, because if not, and this is like a thing that just keeps reoccurring, I don't think that. The medical field is going to put money into this, like to actually do anything. So it's one of those things, if you get it,  you got to deal with it until you get over it, 

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. There's a lot of, diseases similar to this, where  it's just not a big enough impact where it doesn't bring on clinical studies. It doesn't get funding . It's not something major  like cancer or Alzheimer's where there's so many people impacted by it right or wrong.

It just doesn't get the attention and the funding. So 

 that's definitely unfortunate.

Yep. So I just pray to God that nobody else has to go through this ever again.   I almost have PTSD when people tell me I don't have taste and smell. I'll be like, oh my God, I hope you don't get what I got, I hope it comes back right after. And for the most part, it does. A lot of people have been very lucky. I have not met personally anybody that's actually gone through this but

Yeah, I was reading earlier , that roughly 10 to 15 percent of people. That lose their smell and taste are affected by this. So, not everybody loses their smell and taste from a virus and then from that population, it's only 10 to 15 percent are impacted by this.

And it could be, anywhere from a week to a year more than a year. So, it's definitely, A wild unknown for sure. So I really want to thank you for coming on and sharing your story. I know we got into some of the mental health stuff, which is always good to get into, because I don't think we talk about it enough and, you see 

people that are, Having these issues or chronic illnesses or these,  weird one off diseases 

and there's a lot of mental health impacts. There's a lot of people that struggle with the aftermath of that. So I appreciate you for being open and vulnerable in that. And  want to turn it over one last time to see if you have anything you want to leave for those that are listening. 

Yeah, I'm just, would like to say that, if you're going through this, keep fighting because you'll get through it. You will. I believe everybody does. I know it just takes time. I'm glad that you had me on today because I feel like this is something that affected my life. So greatly that I'm always going to be a big advocate of trying to put the information out there, at least get it out because a lot of people just don't even know about this. Like you said, you never heard of it, like a lot of people don't hear about this. So it's a very serious issue. But I appreciate you having me on.  I appreciate you let me speak about it, because I think it's great to be able to get that out there for people that have never heard about this

Yeah, definitely. Any way that, you can get some information out there. Like you said, you went on to talk, maybe, someone might search for this on Apple or Spotify and you could have totally helped somebody. 

Yes. Yes. And that's what I was doing. You pull it straws with

this. So. Anything out there, it's great that you're doing this. It's great that you're putting this out there, because a lot of things right now, people are still going through it. It's just a little bit of hope, 

yeah. And if that's all that we can put out there in the world I'm okay with that. 

Yes,

Well, Brittany again, thanks so much for joining us and really enjoyed talking with you. 

no problem. It was nice talking to you, too. 

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