Most people who lose their sense of smell after COVID recover it naturally within six months. Self-reported data suggests about 95% of patients reach that milestone. But objective testing tells a more nuanced story: when researchers measured smell function directly at 12 months, 42% of patients still had some degree of olfactory dysfunction, even if they thought they’d fully recovered. The good news is that several strategies can speed your recovery and improve outcomes, whether you’re a few weeks in or still struggling months later.
Why COVID Takes Away Smell and Taste
SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t directly attack your smell-detecting nerve cells. Instead, it infects the support cells that surround and maintain those neurons in the lining of your nasal cavity. These support cells express the ACE2 receptor the virus uses to enter cells, making them a primary target. Once infected, these cells trigger intense inflammation, die off, and collapse the tissue structure that smell neurons depend on. Without that scaffolding, the neurons lose function or die too.
What most people describe as “losing taste” is usually a loss of flavor perception, not true taste. Flavor depends heavily on smell: aromas travel from your mouth up through the back of your throat to your nasal lining while you eat. When that pathway is disrupted, food tastes flat or bland even though your tongue can still detect sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Objective testing shows that only about 20% of post-COVID patients have genuine taste loss. For the rest, restoring smell is the key to restoring flavor.
Olfactory Training: The Best-Supported Recovery Method
Olfactory training is the most studied and consistently recommended technique for rebuilding your sense of smell. The idea is simple: you deliberately sniff a set of strong, distinct scents twice a day to stimulate nerve regeneration in the olfactory lining. Think of it as physical therapy for your nose.
The standard protocol uses four scents: rose, eucalyptus, lemon, and clove. You can buy essential oils of each or use olfactory training kits sold online. Sniff each scent individually for 20 to 30 seconds, ideally once in the morning before breakfast and once in the evening before bed. While sniffing, focus on trying to recall what the scent should smell like. This mental effort appears to help the brain rebuild its connections.
Commit to at least 24 weeks. Studies show that training for a full year produces better results than stopping at 16 weeks. In clinical trials, 59% of patients who completed olfactory training experienced a meaningful improvement in smell function. Progress can feel painfully slow, with small gains appearing gradually over weeks or months, so patience matters. Some people swap in new scents after the first 12 weeks to keep challenging the system.
Supplements That May Help
Omega-3 fatty acids have anti-inflammatory and nerve-protective properties that appear relevant to smell recovery. Two out of three clinical trials found that omega-3 supplementation improved olfactory function over a period of at least three months. In one study, 93.5% of patients taking 1,400 mg of omega-3 twice daily regained smell function within three months, compared to no change in the control group. Another study found that 2 grams of omega-3 daily combined with olfactory training for 12 weeks produced significant improvement in smell sensitivity. A third study using omega-3 for only two weeks found no benefit, suggesting you need at least several months for results.
Zinc has a long-established connection to taste and smell function. In studies of people with taste and smell disruption during respiratory illness, zinc levels were lower than normal, and zinc supplementation helped reduce symptoms. The evidence in COVID specifically is still limited, but zinc is inexpensive and well-tolerated at standard supplemental doses.
Nasal Treatments and Medical Options
Nasal corticosteroid sprays can reduce inflammation in the olfactory lining. A meta-analysis of clinical trials found that these sprays improved smell scores at the two-week mark compared to no treatment. However, the benefit faded by four weeks and was not significant for people whose smell loss had already lasted longer than a month. This suggests nasal steroids may help most during the early acute phase of smell loss rather than for persistent cases.
Vitamin A nasal drops are a newer approach with promising early data. In a trial of 124 patients with post-viral smell loss, 37% of those using vitamin A drops (10,000 IU daily, two drops per nostril) achieved a meaningful improvement in smell function over eight weeks, compared to 23% who did olfactory training alone. Larger trials are ongoing to confirm these findings. Vitamin A plays a role in maintaining the cells that line the nasal cavity, which may explain why delivering it directly to the area helps.
Dealing With Parosmia
Some people don’t just lose their smell. Instead, it comes back distorted. This condition, called parosmia, makes familiar foods and scents smell rotten, chemical, or otherwise wrong. It often appears weeks or months into recovery as damaged neurons begin reconnecting, sometimes incorrectly. Common triggers include coffee, onions, garlic, eggs, fried or roasted meats, bell peppers, and even toothpaste.
The most effective day-to-day strategy is controlling how much aroma your food releases. Hot foods give off far more volatile molecules than cold ones, so cooling your meals can make a real difference. A roast chicken might be unbearable, but a cold poached chicken breast in a sandwich is often manageable. Cooking methods also matter: the browning reaction that occurs during roasting, frying, and baking at high temperatures releases the specific volatile compounds most likely to trigger parosmia. Steaming, poaching, and other low-temperature methods produce fewer of these compounds. If coffee is a trigger, try cold brew, which releases fewer aromatics than hot-brewed coffee.
Parosmia is generally a sign that your olfactory system is actively rewiring, which means recovery is happening. It can last weeks to months and typically improves gradually. Continuing olfactory training through this phase is recommended, even though it can be unpleasant.
Procedures for Persistent Cases
For people who haven’t recovered after many months, a procedure called a stellate ganglion block has shown anecdotal promise. This involves injecting a local anesthetic near a cluster of sympathetic nerves in the neck. The theory is that some persistent smell loss results from overactive sympathetic nerve signaling in the head and neck region rather than permanent structural damage. Blocking that signaling may restore normal blood flow to the smell-processing areas of the brain and the nasal lining. In one documented case, a patient regained partial smell within 24 hours of a first injection and complete recovery after a second injection three days later. However, the evidence is currently limited to a handful of case reports, so this remains an option to discuss with a specialist rather than a proven treatment.
A Practical Recovery Plan
If you’re trying to get your smell and taste back, layering multiple approaches gives you the best shot. Start olfactory training as soon as possible and stick with it for at least six months. Add an omega-3 supplement at a dose of around 2,000 mg per day. If you’re in the first few weeks of smell loss, a nasal corticosteroid spray may help reduce inflammation during the acute phase. Ask about vitamin A nasal drops if your loss persists beyond a few months.
Track your progress, but don’t check obsessively. Improvement tends to be so gradual that you won’t notice it day to day. Instead, test yourself every two to four weeks by sniffing familiar items like coffee, peanut butter, or soap, and note whether you detect anything new, even faintly. Many people describe recovery as a slow fade-in rather than a sudden switch being flipped. Faint, distorted, or partial smells are signs that your system is rebuilding, not signs that something is going wrong.