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my husband had e in april,after the initial physical worries,he is now experiencing the residual effects,has anyone lost their taste and smell,does it come back? i have tried stronger tasting food,if he comments on this its to say , left with a peppery taste lasting for days,can anyone comment on this?
I had a piece of liquorish 4 days ago & I can still taste it. I find it's worse when my throat feels dry for any reason. I can smell & taste, but I have found that texture is as important to me.
As for appetite I'm never hungry or full.
Michelle
I have had problems with taste and smell and hearing.
Stuff just tastes bad, even to this day, sometimes things taste so bad, I can't eat them, won't even feed it to the dog. lol
Smell, my sense of smell is crazy wild. It's like dog senses. Some scents are overwhelming while other people can't even smell it or barely smell it. I get some weird looks, but that's me.
And in the beginning I had what I could only call... dog hearing. My hearing was so acute I could hear my neighbors talking from inside my house like they were in the room next to me. I was very sensitive to sound, still am. That's why I spend so much time alone in the quiet.
I deal with noise by isolating, I do sometimes get lonely, but for the most part, having the quiet is 100x's better than people and the noise. Noise makes my anxiety worse reallll quick.
It's like I am being overtaken and the sound gets louder and louder once it starts bothering me.
Under the sound of the tub running while bathing, I keep hearing the phone ring, but it isn't ringing.
Sounds can keep me awake, I use a fan every night to create white noise so I can sleep without being woke up.
It also makes it cooler in the room and I just love it cooler, so glad that summer is over and the snow is on it's way.
Well, hope this helps. I feel like I was jumping all over in this post. Oh well, some days are just like that.
~hen
Hello -
I had exactly what he has. I had 'E' 18 years ago. The first 6 months I could not taste anything or smell anything.
Because of that, I lost a lot of wait. I mean, if I didn't really remember what all this food was and if I couldn't smell or taste it, then why eat what I should. At the hospital, they just told me I had to eat. At home I knew I needed to but, again, I didn't enjoy it. I really didn't mind not smelling things. I had a 7 month old at the time so a dirty diaper was no biggy for me. :-)
Thankfully, my taste came back about 6 months after I had 'E' - Everyone knew. "oh yum!' was so often heard. I gained enough weight back because of that.
My smell hasn't come back, however. But that's O.K. It really doesn't bug me. As long as someone else notices if I forget something is in the oven ;-)
How is his memory?
Hello Misseaster,
I had E two years ago and lost much of my sense of taste and smell, I still do not have the same palette as I used to have. I can taste a little bit but not alot, mostly just the strong simple tastes of sweet, salty, and spicy without being able to differentiate between subtle flavors like basil and arugala. I agree with Michelle, texture becomes more important. Give him time, once he gets adjusted to the taste changes his appetite may come back, I still eat voraciously:)!
Like Hen, I can hear things that most people can't & the same with smell. I knew someone smoked when I first met them, but they hadn't smoked in days.
Michelle
I had "E" 15 years ago and lost my sense of smell but my hearing got more sensitive. My sense of taste has been affected but not too bad.
I can't smell anything that has a strong smell like garlic, mangoes even fertilizer. Yet I can smell a potato and skin but not body odour. Doesn't make sense except I now know that my nose is working it tells you if it's sweat, spicey, flowery etc the basics and then it sends the messages to the brain. The brain should then retrieve the memory of the smell and you'll smell it. My nose does it's job but it's the connection to the brain that isn't working properly.
One thing I've noticed is that I'm more aware of the texture and temperature of the air I breath. I can tell you that there is a smell in the air because the air is warm or thick which usually means it's a bad smell for those who can smell. I walked into the house one day and said "What's burning ?" My husband jumped up "Oh the chicken" He had been cooking and forgot what was on the stove. When he came out he asked me "How did you know they were burning?" I said that there was a warm thicker feel to the air and my first thought was smoke.
Have your husband take notice of everything else. I used to smell the rockmelon to see if it was ripe. Now I know just by looking at them. It took me a while and a few trials to know what to look for but there are so many other ways than using sense of smell.
Appetite is another issue. I had to teach my body to recognise when it was full or empty. Once again this is learned behaviour that we lose with "e". We have to teach our bodies to sleep again and do the basics in life.
I don't know about others but now and again I have recognised a smell. Once it was coffee, wow for a brief moment I smelt it and then just as brief it was gone. Another time I smelt the beautiful smell of rain as it first falls and I just wanted to stand in the carpark and cry tears of joy. I take these signs as my brain is reconnecting and one day I'll prove the doctors wrong again and get my sense of smell back in total.
Have a lovely day and remember to smile.
Cheers Sandy
Hen, thank you so much for writing. I too hear the phone ringing almost every time I shower or run bath water, but I hadn't really associated it with encephalitis. Now that I think about it, that's when it started.
Ugh, hen. I can't stand white noise. That's because unlike most people who hear ringing in their ears, I hear white noise all the time! It has only gone away one time since I had meningitis. For about a week, it disappeared in one ear after an acupuncture session.
If I get tired, I will also hear ringing or buzzing in my ears. Sometimes if I'm really tired, I will hear multiple tones. I think of it as my personal symphony!
Luckily I have never had problems with taste or smell (knock on wood) although the tip of my tongue is numb and I have pins and needles around my mouth.
Cathy
Has anyone kept hearing a song or music long after it's gone. I mean, it's like I continue to hear it playing even though I know it's not still playing. I'm not remembering it, I'm hearing it, but not like a thought, like there's a tiny radio or speaker in my ear and the record is playing over and over.
Here's the thing. I don't usually listen to music cause, for the most part it seems to get louder and louder until I find myself losing patience and becoming angitated.
But at the gas station, they play music over the loudspeakers and even after I get the gas and leave, I keep hearing the same part of the song I heard over and over.
Talking doesn't stop it, humming a different tune doesn't stop it. I don't know what stops it, but it does stop, and for that... I am grateful.
Oh and in the beginning, I could not stomach the sight or smell of food, except for Ensure. Thank God and Joe for the Ensure!
~hen
~hen
I have songs go on & on in my head even though I haven't heard them for awhile. Certain songs remind me of things & I think that might be why.
I always have to have backround noise, but mostly it's the TV. I have it so low no one else can hear it.
Michelle
thankyou so much all of you,its not been agood week for dave ,he has been a little down,reading all your replies has helped alot for me,i really feel as if you are all in my living room having a good chat,thanks.
Sometimes I will hear the phone ringing or the doorbell ringing if there is some similar tone going on at the same time.
One time, though, I was sure one of my medications was making me hallucinate. I would lay down to sleep and very distinctly hear the doorbell ring. The first time I went to get the door, no one was there and I thought the neighbor kids were playing pranks. It rang again, and again no one was there. Pretty soon I stopped answering the door. This went on for quite some time, and I was just sure either I was going schizophrenic or my meds were making me hallucinate.
Then one day I went up into the attic to get something. I scuffled some loose insulation, and the doorbell began to ring like crazy! It wouldn't stop. I discovered that mice had chewed the wires and they were getting crossed and making the doorbell ring. I wasn't hallucinating after all.
Cathy
Cathy you talk about hearing the door bell ringing and thinking you wee going crazy. I would stand up and go to the phone, my husband would ask where was I going. It was only when I got to the phone it would then ring and I'd pick it up. That was really spooky as I did it all the time. How did I know it was going to ring ?? We wondered is there a sound it makes that the human ear can't hear. As my hearing was extremely good, could I hear it ?? Has this happened to anyone else ?
Cheers Sandy
Hi I had the E in 89 and I lost my taste,smell buds and they still haven't come back and I wish they would but I'm used to it by now So I eat stuff now I never would before
Hmm. . . Sandy, quite often there is a delay where a connection is made but the phone hasn't rung yet. There could be some slight electronic buzz or sound that most people don't hear after the connection is made. Or, maybe you are psychic :)
Cathy
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