Re: Can I regain a sesnse of smell once it is lost?

Hi,

This is surely an interesting question. Your physician's comment seemed to be centered on the extent of the injury suffered by the neurons. If the neurons were traumatized (if neurons were pinched or stretched, or even if the surrounding tissue was swollen), then after the initial injury went away the neurons could heal and one would regain their function. But if the neurons were too damaged, as if cut from a rapid blow to the face, or so traumatized from the tissue being swollen that the neurons became pinched and damaged, then the neurons may have died and been degraded by the body. Thus, the neurons that project into the brain center for smell could not be repaired as no new neurons are able to replace the dead ones.

Some day it would be nice if there was a treatment where stem cells injected into an area would turn into neurons and potentially be able to grow to the correct sites or follow the paths of particular types of neurons (such as olfactory ones) to the correct sites. People are currently using transplanted nerves to repair nerve damage. For example, one can take the nerve out of the leg, and stick it in the back of the eye after cutting the optic nerve (eye nerve) and the old nerves out of the back of the eye follow the transplanted nerve so the growing nerves can be directed to a correct target. This work is being conducted by Dr. Albert Aguayo in Canada ( http://reporter-archive.mcgill.ca/Rep/r3201/aguayo.html)

I wish you had had better luck regaining your sense of smell. The wierd taste in the back of your throat is possibly due to the taste receptors picking up the chemicals that other people are picking up with their chemical receptors in their noses.

You might like reading some short stories on conditions simliar to yours by a very famous neurologist. Dr. Oliver Sacks.
The reading is easy and fun.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985)
Paperback, Touchstone Books, ISBN 0-684-85394-9
The bestselling collection of clinical tales from the far borderlands of neurological and human experience.

Here is his www site: http://www.oliversacks.com/writing.htm

Yours,
Robin Cooper