After a month of head injury due to accident, I lost my taste and smell sensation. Is this permanent?

Question

Hi doctor,

I met with a bus accident three months ago, and due to this, I had a head and neck injury. I, later on, discovered that I lost my sense of smell. It did affect my taste buds too. I can only taste salt and spice. I started feeling like I am choking on food substances (most times, it feels like spice) even when I have not taken anything from last month. Also, I feel like I smell within my throat to my nose (I do not know how to describe it). But I still cannot perceive anything normally. What does this mean? Will my sense of smell come back?

Answer 1

Hi,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

Thanks for explaining in detail regarding the problem in concern. Loss of smell post head injury is mostly due to damage to the olfactory region due to trauma. As a result, the uptake of odor molecules and their effective transmission to the brain will be hampered causing, decreased perception of the smell. Since your smell and taste centers are very closely located, decreased olfaction will also lead to a reduced taste sensation or sometimes altered taste sensations. I would suggest you get an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of the brain with emphasis on the olfactory region so that we will get to know for sure whether all the segments involved in olfaction are intact or not. I hope this answers your query. Do let us know for further queries. Warm regards.