h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How long is the longest anyone here has lost their sense of taste and smell for after a cold? (or succession of colds in my case). I can breath more or less normally through my nose past few days but it has been around 2-3 weeks since I've been able to taste my food or smell anything but the very strongest of odours/flavours, and even then, only faintly and they don't really smell/taste right.

Really missing tasting food Not to mention not knowing if I'm standing near a smelly person or not!

Sounds very odd (I presume you have done some research) I don't know what causes it

"Not to mention not knowing if I'm standing near a smelly person or not" [Winnoch2]

I'm puzzled that that would bother you. If the person next to you is smelly, wouldn't you rather not be able to smell the person?

Yeah, but i'd breath shallower.

I've briefly asked Dr Google but not in any great depth. It seems that in very rare occasions a cold can lead to permanent or longer term damage to the olfactory nerve and associated apparatus, but a bit early for me to be worrying about that yet

However once all cold symptoms have totally gone, i'll go to docs if still no improvement.

Some people have an over sensitive sense of smell

I once ate raw rhubarb stalks, and lost my sense of taste for a week.

I went through about two years of altering/changing sense of taste and smell, but that was clearly due to medications, and eventually resolved itself to more or less back to 'normal'.... - I miss though the heightened sense of smell I had at that time, though some of it still lingers on, and especialy being extra able to taste and smell more .... dilute scents and tastes; my short-lived green tea obsession has now vanished and coffee once more tastes like coffee, which is rather good Never had it go wildly bonkers though, from just a cold just enjoy teh altered perceptions whilst they last, some people pay good money to get altered prerceptions afterall

My father smoked and worked at a chemical plant and had anosmia (no sense of smell) for years. Then after he quit smoking and retired he went to an ENT who cleared his sinuses with some drops (he said his face became a faucet). His sense of smell returned with a vengeance. He could smell a mosquito's fart at fifty paces.

That image will stay in my mind for days.