 |
http://www.senserely.com/referral/77777aa6
You’re out to dinner with some friends at a great Italian restaurant that just opened. Everyone is waiting for dinner and a bottle of wine is opened. You all start enjoying the wine and everyone says, “That is a really nice bottle of wine”. Your wife says, “Isn’t that great wine?” You oblige and say, “Yes”
Dinner comes. All types of pasta, seafood and meat dishes all loaded with garlic, herbs, seasonings and spices. Everyone is oohing and aaahing over how good everything is and when you’re all leaving the restaurant, one of your friends asks you how your meal was. You politely answer, “It was really good!”
The only problem with this scenario is that you did not taste one bite. Oh you ate the food but due to a condition known as “Anosmia”, you are completely unable to smell or taste anything.
I came down with Anosmia in October of 2005 while on a trip to New York. I’d suffered with chronic sinus problems for years. I’d lived on pills, sprays and the like to alleviate the problems. During 2003 and 2004 I started to develop nasal polyps and went to an ENT to have him take a look in my sinuses to see what was going on. As I said I’d lost my sense of smell and that was what I was worried about.
After several tests he informed me that I had numerous polyps in my sinuses that had to come out. If I was lucky, THAT was what was causing me to not smell anything as they could be blocking air passage to my olfactory nerve.
Anosmia (the loss of sense of smell) is typically caused by one of 4 things:
1)Viral. This is when you catch an upper respiritory virus (head cold) that for some reason, simply kills off the nerves in your olfactory. If this happens you are virtually assured that your sense of smell will never come back.
2)Heat trauma. Again, like the above, should you suffer a blow to the head from a fall. It is possible that you will become anosmic. It is unlikely that your conditioin will improve.
3)Congenital. Some people are born this way. They have never had the ability to smell and since your ability to detect flavors comes from smell, they too cannot taste flavors.
4) Inflammation. This seems to be my situation as my sinuses have been either inflamed or blocked. People in this category have some reason to hope.
It is estimated that there are 2 million people that have this condition. There are some specialized clinics that try to help people but they are usually unsuccessful.
Since people with anosmia cannot taste food, there can be depression that results from this. Also, since eating for some is a very social event, some “anosmics” might become less likely to enjoy the company of people when eating.
Technorati Tags: 
