What is it like to live without your sense of smell?

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Whether it's a fresh summer breeze, melted chocolate, or your favourite perfume, different smells can mean a lot to us. But what if you woke up one day unable to smell anything?Anosmia is the loss of your sense of smell, and is often caused by a viral infection.

It affected many people during the Covid pandemic, and still affects many in the UK today.Chrissi Kelly lost her sense of smell in 2012, at the age of 53.

After going to bed with a severe sinus infection, she woke up completely unable to smell. She has compared the moment of realisation to “looking in the mirror and not seeing anything”.Now 65 years old, Kelly has recently made headlines as the first UK patient to receive a promising treatment for the condition, involving injections of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) derived from her own blood, which may help restore her sense of smell.Determined to raise awareness, she founded the AbScent network and support initiative CKOS to help other people with the condition.

Here's everything she has to share about the condition.“I lost my sense of smell just from one day to the next,” shared Kelly. “I had this terrible sinus infection and had been using nasal spray, and I just 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 started to get phantosmia, which is the perception of phantom smell.