Olfactory disorders are divided into olfactory hyposmia and olfactory loss. The causes are mainly as follows: ① nasal turbinate hypertrophy, nasal polyps, tumors in the nasal cavity, etc. block the nasal cavity and the airflow cannot reach the olfactory mucosa.
(②Viral infection of upper respiratory tract, atrophic rhinitis, olfactory neuritis, chemical gas injury, skull base fracture, intracranial diseases (such as tumor in the skull) and other diseases can cause olfactory nerve damage.
③Some patients with SARS may experience loss of smell after the disease or during treatment due to neuronal damage by SARS virus.
④Some drugs such as betamethasone inferior turbinate closure may also cause loss of smell.
After treating the primary disease causing olfactory disorder, most patients choose to give up the treatment because there is no painful discomfort, it neither affects breathing, nor sleep, nor delays work, only that they can’t smell and eat, and there are few doctors and techniques specialized in treating olfactory disorder. As a matter of fact, smell disorder gives patients a lot of disadvantages and even dangers in life, such as eating without the normal sweet feeling, not being able to perceive the rotten food before eating and eating by mistake, even not being able to smell the toxic gas (gas, hydrogen sulfide, etc.) and causing tragedies (gas poisoning, hydrogen sulfide poisoning), or even not being able to smell the burnt smell and delaying the discovery of fire, losing the time to call the police to put out the fire or save themselves. The opportunity to escape.
In fact, the inability to smell is also a kind of disease, which is known as loss of smell or smell disorder in medical science. Therefore, it is recommended to go to otorhinolaryngology department of regular hospital for comprehensive examination and evaluation of nasal and intracranial disorders and treatment of the primary disease. It is difficult to treat patients with neurogenic olfactory disorder even after treatment of the primary disease.