Anosmia

I lost my sense of smell over a year ago, following a cold. This means I've also lost much of my taste sense. Some of the little pleasures in life - early morning dew in Spring, chips at the seaside, roast beef just coming out of the oven - are sadly now much diminished for me.

My first appointment with the ENT consultant was a couple of months ago. He was a very straightforward, up-front kind of guy. After peering up both my nostrils with his head-torch (a lot more powerful than the one I carry for geocaching, I suspect) he told me he had good news, and bad news. The good news - he couldn't see anything. The bad news - he couldn't see anything. Often, how one has lost the sense of smell is never discovered.

In order to rule out anything nasty happening up at the top end of my nose, near the brain, the consultant organised a CT scan, which I underwent a month or more ago.

I had my follow-up appointment on Thursday (the wheels of the NHS still grind slowly). He showed me the pictures from the scan; it's really quite interesting seeing what the inside of your head looks like. Fortunately for me, I didn't have anything really nasty in there (well, nothing physical anyway!). It transpires that my sinuses are bunged up with polypoidal tissue. He has prescribed a 14-day steroid regime. This is what they call a reducing-dose regime; an initial dose (60mg) for 3 days, then you taper off by 5mg a day for the next 11 days until there are no more to take.

I'm not particularly looking forward to this steroid regime, having read up on the side effects. I've decided to start it after the weekend; that way if I do suffer any bad side-effect, I won't be pitching up at the hospital on a weekend day, when hospitals are usually under-staffed.

Alongside the tablets I am prescribed a nasal corticosteroid spray; this is designed to help maintain the work done by the steroid tablets blast - and I am to use this nasal spray for the rest of my life..

This treatment is unlikely to reverse my loss of smell; or if it does, such reversal would be transient, I am informed. However it will hopefully mean I can breathe more easily, without the feeling that I have a permanently blocked up nose which is what I currently experience.

Whilst looking up some material for this blog post I came across an NHS article on anosmia which mentions the NHS Smell and Taste Clinic. They carry out an operation to clear the sinuses, called BiCASS: Bilateral Computer Aided Sinus Surgery. The success rates are apparently quite good. I'm going to wait and see what - if anything - the steroids accomplish, then have another chat with my GP with a view to getting a referral to that clinic.