Before I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease (PD), I only knew one thing about it: that it causes tremors. I had never imagined the rich tapestry of symptoms that I now get to deal with from day to day. I imagine at least a few of my readers are in that head space, as well. So, from time to time, I like to talk a little about the lesser-known symptoms of PD. Today’s Parkinson’s symptom: Loss o’ Sense o’ Smell.

I don’t remember when I lost my sense of smell. This is largely because I didn’t even realize that I was losing it. During one of his comedy routines, George Carlin used to ask, “Y’ever notice, your own farts smell OK?” Well, I had actually gotten to a point where I believed my farts were completely unscented. Then a niece received a set of fruit-scented markers for Christmas. The next time I visited, she wanted me to smell each of them, and I obliged. The first one seemed to barely have any scent at all, and they got less detectable as we progressed. Still, I didn’t realize I had lost my sense of smell; I thought it was just because I had a cold. Some months later, on a day trip to Riverbanks Zoo (Columbia, South Carolina), my travel companions rushed through the penguin house, while I meandered slowly through it. When I finally emerged, they asked how I could stand the smell inside the penguin house. I had smelled nothing. I even went back in for a minute and focused on my nose: still nothing. Some more months went by, and I found myself completing a survey on PD. The question came up: Which o’ the following symptoms have you experienced recently? One of the choices was “Loss or change of sense of smell”. And so, I screamed to the heavens: “So THAT’S what’s going on!”

You’ve probably heard that the sense of smell is very closely related to the sense of taste. This seems to be unfortunately true. I have talked to a few fellow PD sufferers about this particular symptom, and most said that they had lost both smell and taste. Some said that eating is now just an annoying task, since everything they eat comes across as being totally bland. I appear to be the odd one out (who woulda guessed?); my sense of taste is still “normal”. In fact, one of my favorite things about my travels is getting to try different foods around the nation. Speaking of which, my next trip may be to a “fudge festival”. I’ll probably gain about 20 pounds on that trip.