Case of parosmia in a teenage girl post COVID recovery

A young girl got symptoms of sewage like smell and taste while eating food. If she was having the food she liked (eg burgers) the smell would not come but on eating home made food the smell was so strong that she stopped eating. She would also feel feverish after eating and would then go to sleep. This was causing weight loss and difficulty in studying for exams since she was sleeping a lot.

These symptoms were there since a month. She had recovered from COVID about 3 months ago and hence the diagnosis was COVID delayed parosmia. Neurological examinations showed no issues. I gave her homeopathy nat mur with pyrogenicum for a few days but there was no change.

The sewage smell is usually due to olfactory lobe epilepsy triggered when one has to smell food. The normal medical treatment is high doses of gabapentin. She did’nt want to take gabapentin. Gabapentin modulates GABA and opioid receptors. The homeopathic which does this via increasing endorphins and enkephalins is staphysagria.

Yesterday she was given homeopathy staphysagria 1m. Today morning all complaints were gone. She has no foul smell, appetite is back, feverish feeling and excessive sleepiness has gone.

There is just one published case of delayed parosmia post COVID till date where the patient had these symptoms of sewage like smell on food. However there are many cases like this with ongoing issues of weightloss and debility.

Update 

The patient was well from staphysagria and then developed the foul smell again. On questioning about the trigger she said she had eaten some spicy food after which it restarted. This was a clear case of thuja. Homeopathy Thuja 1m was given for a week which resolved her issue.