S2:E5 Gemma I Parosmia V: Phantom Smells of Smoke

Fatigued Podcast

We round out our Parosmia Series with Gemma who experiences parosmia and it's equally evil twin: phantosmia. For those who don't know, phantosmia is an olfactory hallucination that makes you smell things that aren't there. For Gemma it's a persistent smell of cigarette smoke (which was one of her least favorite smells to begin with). It makes mealtime unbearable and alienates her from sharing that time with her beautiful family. However, she's brilliant at turning lemons into lemonade: when she first tested positive for Covid, she made a public facebook post of her symptoms to help other people recognize the virus in themselves. Fortunately she was able to prevent friends from sharing the virus with vulnerable family members! She wrote to us after spoke to her, "I also had messages from 2 lovely ladies from Florida and Georgia asking for advise. I was glad something positive came out of me catching the virus and sharing my symptoms to help others. I was surprised my post reached america from england." It's nice to see social media helping others in a time like this.