In my previous posts about Zicam I've noted that it's helped me twice overcome a cold more quickly than I would have without it. Well, I'm getting sick again, and that's three times in seven weeks, which is highly unusual for me. I rarely ever get sick.
I wonder if taking Zicam is somehow preventing my body from completely eliminating the sickness? Once I start taking Zicam I'll feel better in a couple of days, but then a few weeks later I'll start coming down with the same cold again. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
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.