One of the weirder symptom of COVID-19 ( whisker lossandCovid penisaside ) is the disease ’s ability to take out your sense of odour . appropriately , there ’s a unearthly way to get that common sense of smell back : having a boastful snuff of your own bloodline .
Around one in five hoi polloi who get COVID-19 write up some stratum of personnel casualty of smell , abouteight week after being infected . Smell training – sniffing unassailable smells several fourth dimension a twenty-four hours over the course of several month – has shownsome effectivity in regenerate olfactory property . However , harmonise to rhinolaryngologist David Rosen of Thomas Jefferson University , even the most effective smell retrain therapies only restore patients ' good sense of smellby around 35 percent .
For another potential treatment – being studied at the present moment – it ’s time to snort your own platelets .
Platelet - rich plasma therapy , Rosen explain toDrug Discovery News , has been around for about 40 geezerhood . The discourse works by encouraging spunk in the olfactory system to heal themselves .
" If a nervus that goes to the finger and allows it to move gets cut , it probably wo n’t work again if we put it back together because these nerves ca n’t reclaim very well , " Rosen told Drug Discovery News .
" But we can regenerate olfactive neurons by jumpstarting the body ’s own ability to fix itself with plasma . Platelets have a lot of growth factors that tell the torso , ' okay , start making stem cells and start differentiating those into nerve cell . ' damage neural tissue is not easy to revivify , but in this example , we get out with it because of the neuroplasticity already in this system of rules . "
The treatment take little appliance made from cellulose and soaks them in the affected role ’s own plasma . The widget is then packed into the back of the olfactory organ , as high as potential , where it will reside for some time . In the first minute after this , 80 percent of the platelet - rich plasma is take in , while the remainder gets slurped up over the next few days .
Rosen is make winner with the treatment of COVID-19 patients in a pilot study involving several twelve affected role . However , he is aware he involve more data to back up the results he ’s seen so far , comparing the treatment with those who have undergone smell retrain . His team will before long begin a placebo - controlled study , and hopes to go through a stage II trial soon after that .
" I saw a patient role yesterday who had only received two treatments so far , and she told me that green goddess smelled like pasture to her again and cocoa tasted like burnt umber , " he add . " I ’m excited to see multitude getting back to their normal biography . "
