Anosmia and alcohol – taste it or smell it?

If you have a normal sense of smell, pause for a moment and think how much you would lose in terms of your experience of life if the world were entirely odourless. You might think you wouldn’t miss much, that you could easily do without it. I managed without it for many years, my sense of smell declining gradually, until I woke up one morning and realised I couldn’t remember what anything smelled like any more.

You don’t need a sense of smell to function normally, unless you work as a perfumier of course, but take it from me, one’s experience of life is so much more muted when one cannot smell, like viewing the world in black and white instead of colour. As a writer too, I found it difficult when penning descriptive passages because so often we use scent to implant an instant impression of our invented world. For example I don’t need to describe the smell of lavender to you. It just is. You know at once what I mean. But how authentic was I being, it being so long since I’d smelled anything myself?

The cause of my anosmia was nasal polyps – quite common in middle agers – small, benign growths in the mucus membrane of the nose, probably the result of long term exposure to allergens. The current western medical approach is to shrink them with a short course of steroids and antibiotics. If this doesn’t work, a minor surgical procedure is necessary, but it’s recognised that in both cases the polyps will probably grow back unless you take a tiny daily top-up dose of steroid based spray or drops, unless you can identify the allergen and permanently remove yourself from it.

After treatment my sense of smell returned, and was reliable for several months. Indeed it was super sharp at times, so I could experience the world of scent to a degree others could not – until I woke up one Sunday morning without it, and spent the whole day in a misery of anosmia again. Bummer!

The reason for my relapse?

Unsure at first, but I have a liking for single malt Scotch whiskey, also wine, and had enjoyed a drink on the previous evening. The complex aroma of a single malt is something that can transport me to another plane and, unlike lavender is not so easy to describe, unless you’ve experienced it yourself. I don’t actually have to drink it – just put my nose near it, so I’ve been grateful to have my sense of smell back, then I can indulge my former passion. But could my tipple have caused a return of anosmia?

By way of experiment, I refrained from alcohol and my sense of smell returned within 24 hours. Then I took a glass of wine – not terribly strong – just a soft red table wine, and I waited. As I took my first sip, I could smell the wine – pleasant, fruity, earthy, warm,… but by the time I’d finished the glass I could smell nothing, and it took a full twenty four hours again for my sense of smell to return. I’ve repeated this on numerous occasions now. If I don’t drink, my sense of smell remains intact. If I take a glass of alcohol, the anosmia returns, sometimes within minutes.

QED

I’ve always had my suspicions about alcohol, now confirmed, at least to my satisfaction. If it doesn’t actually cause anosmia, it seems to aggravate it – in my case anyway.  You don’t need to over-indulge; a single glass will do it. I’m hardly a perpetual drunkard, but I’ll admit  a glass of wine or malt whiskey was a regular companion, once the sun had slipped below the yard-arm. It seems I have a choice though: do I want to taste it, or smell it? I know which I prefer. If you’re anosmic like me, and you like a drink, you might not be doing yourself any favours.

Michael reluctantly lowers his pen, and signs the pledge.

Damn!