Zicam 2

My wife and I both had similar success with Zicam, Michael. We love it. Unfortunately, the trial lawyers are already starting to rain on the parade. From this site: http://www.zimmreed.com/FSL5CS/news/Zicam.html

"you or a member of your family may be suffering from Anosmia and have experienced loss of smell or taste from the use of Zicam, you may want to consider your potential legal claim for this loss."

And from here: http://www.onlinelawyersource.com/zicam/zicam.html

"... the popular homeopathic product may lose popularity and be the target of much more litigation in the future."

I used Zicam for about a year and loved and praised the product for cutting the time cold symptoms stuck around. One day at the office people were complaining about something being cooked in the Microwave being stinky and I did not detect any odor. When I got home later that day, my wife was changing our granddaughter's diaper and commented "wheew, this little girl is stinky"; once again I did not detect any odor. After these incidents I went around and sniffed various items, deodorants, perfume, onions, etc., and could not detect any smell from any of them. Prior to this discovery my sense of smell was tremendous, I was able to smell a minute gas leak in a very large building. In addition to losing my sense of smell, tastes of many items, especially berry based products such as red wine and berry jam were extremely distorted. At the time, I did not relate my problems in any way to the use of Zicam. I went to my doctor for the problem and he sent me to an ENT doctor who could not find any reason for my loss of smell. A few weeks later, after discussing the problem with my daughter in San Francisco, she researched on the Internet loss of smell and found many articles on loss of smell after using Zicam. So far I cannot prove Zicam is the source of my problem but it is the only thing that makes sense. My life has changed drastically since losing my sense of smell, I can no longer smell morning coffee or bacon frying, the wonderful smell after a rain, my granddaughter's baby lotion and so on. There are now very few drinks that have a decent taste. As a man who always enjoyed good food and drink, a big part of living has been altered. As I said above, I cannot prove Zicam is the culprit but I tell friend and aquaintances about my problem and let them be the judge for their own use. Most of my friends knowning what my sense of smell had been no longer are willing to risk using Zicam. I also do not think it is worth the risk.

I used Zicam once while visiting my mother because I felt I was getting a cold. I immediately felt that it was too strong on my nose and blew my nose. I have not been able to smell or taste ANYTHING since. It has only been five days but I am very scared because I just happened to look up Zicam on the internet to see if I was experiencing a side effect and found that this seems to be a problem for many people. I plan to see an ear, nose, and throat doctor soon. I'm hoping I will regain my sense of smell and taste soon. If not, this product should be taken off the market immediately. I would not risk using it!