Not exactly—although an MRI w/wout contrast may show some microvascular ischemia or cortical volume loss. Based on the study there may be some clues from secondary inflammatory markers, but those aren’t specific (other things can elevate them beyond long COVID).

I think this will likely remain a clinical diagnosis for several years until we understand more.

That is interesting. Psilocybin has been shown to grow new brain neural pathways. It does seems plausible.

https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(21)00423-2

Holy crap, now that you mention it, im pretty sure I've felt something similar from shrooms

To educate downvoters: Yes, “essential oil” health advice is a common bullshit indicator! But! They’re the standard pharmaceutical for this task, found in kits like this one used to train food and beverage scientists. Any diverse set of strong familiar smells can work.

I worked in a related field and got my ass kicked by long COVID shortly after the start of the pandemic. This is a good starter on the biology involved, a journal article from Nature, unpaywalled: https://web.archive.org/web/20220623072436/https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01628-9

Treating anosmia from brain damage is the same for post-COVID as for a car accident or getting gassed in WWI: you diligently breathe in the olfactory training kit and try to vividly remember those smells.

Pull quote: “Sometimes, the sense of smell recovers spontaneously after injury. The olfactory nerve is the only cranial nerve that can repair itself when damaged, and olfactory sensory neurons — cells in the upper part of the nose that recognize different odorant molecules — renew themselves periodically throughout life.“

edit to add, extreme sympathies to anyone who has found themselves experiencing this!

e2: corrected link

regarding your edit there, I guess most people stopped reading at 'essential oils' without knowing where this was going.

this is one (the only?) actual medical use for these things - their main thing is that they smell in a certain way that is consistent, so you use them to retrain your sense of smell. that's it. no taking internally or applying to skin or whatever. just take the stopper off the wee bottle, sniff and repeat for as many bottles as you can be arsed.

when I had covid-19, I didn't have so well defined scents on hand, but I did have several colognes I could sniff, and I knew fairly well how they were supposed to smell and could use those to gauge my senses. fun times, they were...

Clever! An actual legit medical use for essential oils!

Try reading before you down vote.

Speaking only for myself, what really threw me off was the following:

Apologies if you’ve already tried this or something similar, it doesn’t work for everyone, but I got mine back by using essential oils to restrain [emphasis mine] my olfactory system.

I think that if I'd realized that you meant to say "retrain" here instead of "restrain", I would not have been so quick to initially dismiss it as obviously nonsense.

That could be long COVID but it could also unfortunately be the after effects of heavy drinking. Did your brain issues start after you had COVID?

Thanks for sharing a hopeful anecdote about long COVID, they’re few and far between. I’m glad you got better.

A sinus headache is distinguishable from a regular headache, so I wouldn't discount the leaky blood vessels possibility.

Good point pointing out the difference between a "leak" and a "bleed," though: if your brain is bleeding, that's a full-blown emergency.

Indeed, I'm not sure even testing is sufficient. My family recently got it (my wife and I visiting my parents), but thought nothing of it for a week. My father had a sore throat, my mother had watery eyes and some nasal congestion. My father masked indoors (because I don't want a regular cold either) and chalked my mother's symptoms to seasonal allergies (the cars were covered with Pine pollen all week). Then, on the drive home, my wife felt off. 10 hours in the car together. She slept in the guest room that night and, just for grins, tested for Covid the next morning. She was positive. We called and had my parent's test - both positive. I tested negative so I packed my things and rented a hotel room for the week and worked there alone. I tested every other day and was never positive, but I cancelled all my client meetings.

I still never "got it" but...is it really feasible I didn't have some low level? This is my second trip in a car for multiple hours with someone who tested positive the next day. Granted, I'm about 4 vaccines in (2xOG, 1 updated, 1 XBB variant), but so is my wife. I have to think that I had some sub-clinical level of viral load, or at least below the antigen test threshold, but I'm thankful I escaped symptoms.

And sometimes mild enough to be mistaken for allergies

Same. I was so (oddly) proud of my streak. Then my spouse brought it home from a meeting with friends : P

Finally got it for the first time last week, tested positive on my wedding day 😭

Yeah, this is my 65-year-old aunt. Never got covid she says - and yet she's been sick more than once since 2019. She just never tests - so she never gets covid! Easy!