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More than a decade ago, Chrissi Kelly went to bed and woke up meaningless.
He had a severe sinus infection, when he went to bed, but he did not expect to wake up and be completely unable to smell.
Kelly, who was 53 when it happened, said that the terrifying experience was similar to “looking in the mirror and seeing nothing.”
Kelly suffers from a condition known as anosmia.
Losing its sense of smell can happen when the human body is infected with a viral infection. In fact, many people reported that it was a key symptom of COVID-19.
Kelly, now 65, has recently reached the headlines as the first patient in the United Kingdom in receiving a promising treatment that involves plasma platelets in platelet rich (PRP) derived from their own blood, which can help restore their meaning of smell.
Determined to raise awareness, he founded the initiative of the Abscent Network and the support initiative to help other people with the condition, and now has shared his personal trip with us to shed some light on what it really is to live with anosmia.
How was the experience of losing your smell?
“I lost my sense of smell only one day to the next,” Kelly shared. “I had this terrible sinus infection and had been using nasal spray, and I remember being so miserable, and I went to bed that night, and when I woke up in the morning I had no sense of smell.
“And as many people will have experienced, after a certain period, I began to obtain fantasmia, which is the perception of the ghost smell. And then, after that, I began to recover a bit of my sense of smell, but everything was distorted, what is called Parosmia. “
However, after talking with many people who also have the condition, he acknowledged that this is not the case for all: the loss of smell is a more gradual process for some people.
“The problem is that many people do not realize when they are losing their sense of smell, because it is very gradual,” Kelly reflected. “A lady told me” I didn't realize that I had lost my sense of smell until I was shopping with candles with my daughter, and then I realized that I couldn't smell anything. “
These differences are due to the fact that anosmia can be caused by a variety of things, not only by a viral infection, as Kelly had done.
According to the Abscent website, head traumas, allergies and nasal polyps (benign growth in the lining of the nose tissues) can also lead to the loss of smell.
The website also establishes that other factors such as aging, medicines, radiation treatment for head and neck cancers and exposure to hazardous chemicals such as pesticides or solvents can also play a role.
How does the loss of your smell impact your daily life?
“We are very funny about our sense of smell, you don't miss it until it is gone,” Kelly said. “You do not understand how significant it is the sense of smell for our well -being until we lose it.
“It's like looking in the mirror and seeing nothing. It is a very strange state to be. “
He also described him as “losing his pleasure.”
“Now that does not mean that when you have a sense of healthy smell, all smells are good,” Kelly acknowledged. “But, all who really have a deep loss of smell always say:” Oh, even if I could only smell the bad smell, it would be happy. “
Kelly also added that anosmia can affect all parts of life, including social relationships and interactions, since the smell is considered part of our limbic system.
“The limbic system is that center of your brain where we have things like emotion, memory, personality, flight or struggle, sexual attraction, so smell feeds all those things,” he explained. “It is a very direct and immediate line for those things.”
And if this is cut, it can have a negative impact on your mental health.
“When you start losing the sense of smell, you can gradually depend,” Kelly said. “People feel isolated, angry and separated from the world because people don't understand them. This can lead to changes in their intimacy behaviors. “
There are also vital security concerns that entails not being able to smell.
“If I can't smell, I don't know if there is a gas leak in my house or my neighborhood,” Kelly said.
What advice would you give to people with the condition?
Kelly said the first step for people should be to consult a doctor, and also recommended joining her free CKOS community group.
“People need to understand how this condition is affecting them, that there are ways in which they can work with their family and know that it is normal to feel isolated, depressed and angry,” Kelly said.
The main thing that has really helped Kelly is smell training.
“I discovered something called smell training nine months after losing my sense of smell,” says Kelly. “It is a fairly simple procedure. You have four things that you smell twice a day, for 20 seconds, with a pause in the middle.
“And you are taking small and small smells, instead of large, long air breaths.”
She emphasized that it is crucial to involve her memory and any emotion linked to those memories of specific senses to help restore neural networks.
