A TikToker has hopped on the app to detail her intense experience with parosmia, a long-lasting side effect that can be brought upon by COVID-19 and disproportionately affects women under 30.
In the TikTok, which currently has over 1.7M views, @hannahbaked (Natalia) reacts to another user saying she has parosmia and details that although she didn’t know the name of her condition, she has been suffering from it for ten months now.
For those who don’t know, parosmia is a rare condition that affects smell and taste, and can turn even the simplest of smells into foul-smelling garbage. It basically distorts your senses and makes eating incredibly difficult, but usually goes away after three to six months.
Natalia, however, has been living with it for ten months, and friends, it sounds like pure fkn hell.
“I don’t think anyone understands how much this affects your daily life,” she says in the video.
“It’s not just that foods taste rotten, it is that, but it’s garbage. It’s sewage, it’s gasoline, it’s ammonia, it’s vinegar, it’s mould.
“It’s not even ‘imagine if all foods tasted like your least favourite food’, it is a step further. It’s garbage. It’s sewage,” she continues.
https://www.tiktok.com/@hannahbaked/video/7030525419069672709
She then goes on to detail her experience with developing an eating disorder, which was brought upon by the fact that keeping food down was incredibly difficult.
“It was affecting me so much that I developed gastritis, where every single meal I was throwing up bile,” Natalia said.
“I have a severe ED, because it’s not that everything tastes bad, it tastes like sewage. It’s been ten months and the doctor told me that if it didn’t improve in a year there’s a chance I won’t ever get [my taste] back.”
“There is no research. There is no cure. There’s just hoping,” she continues.
“I am malnourished. I can barely eat. Wear your mask. Jesus Christ. I’m never going to be okay again.”
In a follow-up video, she details further which foods (for some reason) are quite tolerable to her. Although it doesn’t make sense to Natalia, strawberry yoghurt and chai lattes are quite bearable.
@hannahbaked Reply to @hannahbaked i can try to answer more questions! #parosmia #parosmiapostcovid #BetterTogetherChallenge #PlutoTVDecades #VansCheckerboardDay
A study published in May that looked into people with long-lasting parosmia due to COVID-19 found that 70% of sufferers were women aged under 30.
There are no known cures for parosmia, but the current recommendations include ‘smell training’ and a series of lifestyle changes to avoid eating certain trigger foods, which differ case by case.
@shleeeeeeeeee Reply to @pew.pew_pewww parosmia is affecting mostly women 😭 #parosmia #parosmiapostcovid
It goes without saying, friends, but wear your fkn mask. I would very much like for nobody to have to go through this.
