When Crystal, a Sparks resident, contracted COVID-19 in 2021, she lost her taste and smell for nine months. Just as her senses began to return, new complications emerged — fatigue, memory fog, and a dramatic 85-pound weight loss. Over the next several years, she cycled through doctors and nutritionists, tried smell training, and searched for answers, only to be told by some physicians that her symptoms were “all in her head.”
“I was put through many medication trials and also diagnosed with mental illnesses because of this, with some saying that it was just OCD or making it up for attention. That was the most painful thing to hear,” Crystal recalls.
The toll on her physical and mental health has been profound. To this day, she still cannot eat and enjoy chocolate, drink a cup of coffee, and many fruits and vegetables taste different from what she remembers. She has been left to navigate years of insufficient treatment, natural remedies, and isolation–while holding onto hope that her health, and her joy in food, will one day return…