The One Symptom That Predicts How Bad Your Coronavirus Case Will Be

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

COVID-19 has made its way across the world over the past several months, with more than three million people infected with the coronavirus so far, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). However, not every case of COVID-19 looks the same. Some people report no symptoms, yet test positive, while others endure relatively mild symptoms. Some cases are so severe, they are fatal. As of publication, WHO is reporting nearly 300,000 COVID-19 deaths globally. All of this uncertainty can be troubling. So if you do begin to suspect that you are infected, is there a way to know how severe your COVID-19 symptoms may become?

According to recent research, possibly yes. A survey of COVID-19 patients at Kantonsspital Aarau in Aarau, Switzerland that was published in the Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery journal on May 5 shows a correlation between the severity of a patient's loss of smell to the severity of their other COVID-19 symptoms. (Those other symptoms can include shortness of breath, fever, and cough.)

The study's principal investigator Ahmad Sedaghat, MD, associate professor and researcher for the University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine, said in a statement that 61 percent of COVID-19 patients surveyed reported "reduced or lost sense of smell." Comparing this to their other reported symptoms, researchers were able to draw some possible conclusions.

"If the anosmia, also known as loss of smell, is worse, the patients reported worse shortness of breath and more severe fever and cough," Sedaghat also said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/the-one-symptom-that-predicts-how-bad-your-coronavirus-case-will-be/ar-BB13QeKi?li=BBnb7Kz

[Wounded Bear]

1. K & R...for visibility...nt

[dmr]

2. Once Trump gets it, I wanna know how he's smelling.

Not him, of course, he stinks; but if he can smell the Whopper in the Burger King bag.

That's all I want to know.

[SergeStorms]

10. Trump smells...

like the south end of a northbound jackass.

[Hugin]

3. I'm firmly screwn, then.

I've had almost total anosmia since my nose and sinuses were obliterated in an accident when I was an infant.

[BComplex]

5. I just hope you don't get it at all, then, Hugin.

I hear the headache is really bad, too.

[Hugin]

7. Thanks, BC.

And, right back at you!

[LuvNewcastle]

15. Smells are linked to memories for a lot of

people. Since you can't really smell, do your memories trigger other senses in interesting ways? I guess it's an odd question, maybe even a stupid question. I always have scents and odors that accompany my memories and when I read your post, I couldn't help wondering how I would remember things without my sense of smell.

[Hugin]

23. Since you asked so politely and in the interest of scientific inquiry...

I'll answer to the best of my ability.

For the record, I prefer to think of myself as one of the olfactory impaired.

A little of my personal history, first. I had a few surgeries to correct the injury in my childhood and adolescence. The final work was when I was in my early 20's.

That was a doozy. I'm sure you've heard of the shock in suddenly restoring the sight to a blind person. Well, that procedure gave me a sense of smell for the first time in my life and it was overwhelming. It was too much. I was supposed to return in around a year to revise the surgery and make it permanent. I never went back and I gradually returned to my smellessness in a few months. Of course, my ENT did not approve.

Why? You may ask. I found the vast majority of the smells I encountered to be un-pleasant. It really disrupted my eating and appetite. You live in a very smelly world, my friend.

So, as you can see, I have all of the wet ware necessary for smell. It's not exposed to where it can detect the odors. My taste is limited to the buds and five tastes of the tongue.

Fine wines are totally wasted on me.

I don't know if it's related or not, but, I do have a mild synesthesia. There is a very specific range of colors for which I don't see the colors. (it looks black to me, but, I'm told it's a few shades of reddish purple) When I'm looking at something of those shades I taste a berry like taste in my mouth. Frustratingly enough, these colors are very common in clothing.

As far as memory and smell... I had a girlfriend once and she is/was a lifeguard. Now, whenever I 'smell' a particular brand of sunscreen, I think of her. I'd bet it's more of a taste carried by the oil. That's one of the few smell related memories I can attest to.

[LuvNewcastle]

26. Thanks for the reply.

I was wondering if other senses would try to fill in the void of not having a sense of smell. Sounds like the synesthesia might be one way to cope. Sounds like you're smelling with your tastebuds, too. I can see why it would be shocking to suddenly gain your sense of smell. People just get used to smelling odors and learn to ignore them, I guess. But I think the good smells make up for all of it.

[treestar]

20. It's the loss

So if you have none you won’t have a loss. Or you won’t be able to know by what that loss would have been. So you may not be screwn!

[gristy]

4. All those words and not a correlation coeficient or a scatter plot to be seen

:sigh:

[barbtries]

13. I've been watching youtube videos

made by people who have or had the virus. Many of them report the loss of taste and smell, and most of them never needed to go to the hospital and are now recovering or have recovered. It's only anecdotal, but this report seems premature to say the least.

One young woman whose family had it was never really sick beyond a headache and, yes, loss of taste and smell.

The only person I know so far who had it did not experience a loss of his sense of smell but said that his sense of taste was definitely affected. He was sick for 3 weeks and lost 20 lbs that fast. He also never went to the hospital, but his course was pretty bumpy, mostly I think because it laid him out. Like he couldn't move.

It's really hard to know what information to take to heart and what to note and move on. Just from my anecdotal experience I am skeptical about this. I would hate to see ERs flooded for this particular symptom.

I also think every home should include a pulse oximeter. It took a couple weeks but I did finally get mine from Amazon. I think the oxygen saturation level is the one symptom that would send me in, and of course if I couldn't breathe. I would call my doctor if it was under 95 for any length of time and find out how low it should be to push the panic button.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. Great, but what I want to know is...

how bad is it going to be for me if I get it before I get it. And yes, I do know that isn't knowledge we possess right now.

[diane in sf]

8. Loss of the senses of taste and smell are also zinc deficiency symptoms.

From my reading on the topic: About 80% of colds are caused by corona viruses, zinc can speed recovery with colds. Men need more zinc than women as its concentrated in the testes in men and eyes in both sexes. Men have a higher death rate from this disease. People over 80, obese people, people with diabetes, people with high blood pressure, people deficient in vitamin D all have higher death rates. People with blood type A have a higher mortality rate than people with blood type O. Type As have more clotty blood. They tend to have survived cholera epidemics more than blood type Os, so they are more concentrated in places where there were cities in the Middle Ages.

So some of these one can do something about in advance. I take 5000 iu of vit D with food with fat in it and zinc every day. Good food sources of zinc are shellfish, organ meats, pumpkin seeds.

I think I had Covid-19 starting just after Christmas and several weeks into January with two weeks afterward being short of breath and still tired. It went all around this town starting in mid-December. But it was so early everyone thought it was a strain of flu not covered by recent injections. No one I know died, but one person with COPD was hospitalized. I’m exposed to lots of sick students every semester. I rarely get ill. This was unique, I’ve never had completely congested lungs with completely clear sinuses ever before. My lungs gurgled for 2.5 weeks, I was exhausted, only got out of bed to eat and feed the cats. I self-isolated and ate food I’d put up in my freezer and food my friends left on the porch for me.

I’m waiting for Kaiser or California to have a good antibody test available. In the meanwhile I isolate, mask, only go out for food shopping. Wouldn’t want to catch or spread this. It is currently raging through a badly run nursing home in this town. And this county, being the Mississippi of the Bay Area does not require masking and is reopening restaurants soon.

[Evolve Dammit]

9. I hear ya. I was so sick in January with similar symptoms. Waiting for the test, but they say there

is no evidence you are immune or partially immune?? even if you had it. So what do you do with that?

[Silver Gaia]

12. Diane, I had the SAME thing in that exact same time period.

I'm just up the road in the Sacramento area. I fell ill on December 27, and was very, very sick until mid-January, although I had intermittent mildly elevated temps until February. I'd had both flu and pneumonia shots, so wasn't sure what it was, just that it was horrible. I noticed the same thing you did: that it went straight to my lungs with no sinus congestion. I remember the fatigue being so extreme that whenever I got out of bed, I felt like I was walking in water. It was extreme, and was like no other illness I've ever had. My husband and daughter also had it.

Like you, we are waiting for an antibody test, but are staying home. We self-quarantined in late February. I am the only one of us who goes out for anything, and I've been wearing masks for that since early March. I am also curious to know whether, IF we have antibodies, and IF these antibodies confer immunity, that extends to the more virulent version of covid-19 that is on the east coast.

[diane in sf]

24. The one we had was bad enough. Maybe we had the version like cowpox that gives immunity

to smallpox. I would hope they’re similar enough to confer immunity.

[diane in sf]

25. Lol, you knew I was talking about Solano County. I got turfed out of SF by rich people in 2014

when my landlady died, after living there for about 40 years. Vallejo was where I could buy, so I would not be tossed out of my home again. The nice people here are the best; friendly, inclusive, weather is awesome, but ...

[Warpy]

22. I had the same thing in NM in March

and yes, there is no way to mistake it for the flu. Fortunately, my sense of smell was only mildly depressed and I never did gurgle, although I did have rhonchi and expiratory wheezes. I also had the headache they're starting to call one of the common symptoms with >50% of patients reporting it.

Since tests were in short supply and would have done nothing for me, I didn't bother. I will be waiting for a decent and reliable antibody test to come out.

Nursing homes don't have to be badly run to get this one. Even with daily testing, they're all at risk, as someone who is negative at the start of a shift could easily be positive by the end of it. That's just how this works.

Once we have a reliable antibody test, people could be screened for working with vulnerable people. As of now, that isn't possible, and there won't be a pool of people who have recovered from this for a long time. We might get the vaccine first, but I'm not holding my breath on that account.

[SergeStorms]

11. Wonderful!

It's full blown allergy season here in western New York, and I won't be able to smell anything again until around the middle of June.

[SheltieLover]

14. TY, Yo!

[TrogL]

16. I've never had a functional sense of smell

I can sort of pick up gasoline, heavy smoke and really strong perfume.

I was at a community event having to do with neighbourhood improvement. One of the complaints had to do with a bad smell along one street. I pointed out that if I could pick it up, it must be pretty intense.

So if I can’t smell the roses...?

[47of74]

18. My mom's sense of smell stopped working as well last year

And she asked her doctor about it too at a recent checkup. He told her in addition to COVID-19 it could be any number of things.

[ananda]

17. Does this mean the cv is attacking their vagus nerve?

??

[Tanuki]

19. Another recent study found just the opposite.

https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2020-04-27-loss-of-smell-associated-with-milder-clinical-course-in-covid-19.aspx

"Following an earlier study that validated the loss of smell and taste as indicators of SARS-CoV-2 infection, researchers at UC San Diego Health report in newly published findings that olfactory impairment suggests the resulting COVID-19 disease is more likely to be mild to moderate, a potential early indicator that could help health care providers determine which patients may require hospitalization.

The findings were published online April 24, 2020 in the journal International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology .
......


“What’s notable in the new findings is that it appears that loss of smell may be a predictor that a SARS-CoV-2 infection will not be as severe, and less likely to require hospitalization. If an infected person loses that sense, it seems more likely they will experience milder symptoms, barring other underlying risk factors.”

......


Patients who were hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment were significantly less likely to report anosmia or loss of smell (26.9 percent compared to 66.7 percent for COVID-19-infected persons treated as outpatients). Similar percentages were found for loss of taste, known as dysgeusia.

“Patients who reported loss of smell were 10 times less likely to be admitted for COVID-19 compared to those without loss of smell,” said senior author DeConde, also a rhinologist and head and neck surgeon. “Moreover, anosmia was not associated with any other measures typically related to the decision to admit, suggesting that it’s truly an independent factor and may serve as a marker for milder manifestations of Covid-19.”
(More at link)

[uponit7771]

21. Dang it