The 34 years old Pasquale Hester calls her life ‘miserable’ as she can no longer enjoy her favorite food after recovering from coronavirus. Hester is suffering from weird COVID-19 after-effects which have made her unable to eat anything except raw veggies and mild cheese. Anything else that she eats, she feels as if she is eating petrol made food.
This woman was infected with coronavirus in March after which her senses of smell and taste were affected.
Much later, the researchers acknowledged these two as common after-effects of COVID-19 but for most people, these senses went back to normal after some time.
In case of Pasquale Hester who works at a child behavior center manager in the UK shares that she has only left with a few dietary choices as she can’t eat anything other than this. Health experts believe she is suffering from a distorted sense which is medically called parosmia which has made her life turned upside down.
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Pasquale shares she never considered being a vegetarian because she loved meat and couldn’t possibly give up on that. But this virus has changed her life leaving her with no choice than to eat veggies only. She expresses that she hasn’t really enjoyed eating in months and now she feels almost hopeless.
All her favorite foods are no more enjoyable to her as she can’t eat them.
She experienced a change in her smelling sense and taste buds when the coronavirus first emerged in the UK. But other than these, the only symptom that she experienced was ‘nasal congestion’ which doctors assumed was hay fever and not coronavirus.
After three months, when her tasting sense returned, she noticed that something is terribly wrong as she can no longer eat anything. Everything especially the fried food gives her a pungent chemical-like aroma making her feel as if she is eating or drinking petrol.
She searched online for her the reasoning of her symptoms and eventually reached to a Facebook support group for COVID-19 patients where all of the patients were experiencing similar symptoms after recovering.
After her case has been highlighted, the NHS has added these side effects in official information on COVID-19. Although NHS reports that these senses get back to normal within a few weeks or months, in the case of Pasquale they are not getting better, only going worse every day.
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Pasquale shares that she never thought that her sense of taste is gone forever. After months of the pandemic, when the cases were finally declining and the lockdown was lifted, she thought that her senses are still not coming back.
Although she can still smell some foods they don’t smell normal or right as before.
She also narrated how she was near a McDonald’s and the smell of fried food made her lose it. she is unable to feel the real taste of food calling the taste that she feels is paint-like, or petrol like. She is even experiencing toothpaste to be extremely disgusting that she is unable to clean her teeth. She says there is no way that other people can relate to her condition hoping that doctors will be able to help her someday.