Wow, very similar experience here, except the sweetness I smell isn't likable to rotten meet, but rather sort of like aging strawberries/fruit. I smell this semi-sweet fruit-like smell particularly strongly with anything alcoholic, including hand sanitizer. I had covid anosmia for about 6 weeks during December-January '20, but this sweet smelling parosmia has only been around the last 2 months or so. Such a mystery to me.
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Yup, now that you mention it, aging strawberries is a nice description. Funny that it's universal.
I wonder if we have special "wiring" for enhancing human-produced smells? Kinda like how the brain is capable of distinguishing human faces by small details that we don't see that well for other species.
I do miss those odors, to be honest...
Interesting! Yes, I believe there's a genetic component here to how covid impacts sense of smell/taste long-term.
What I'm just surprised by is how my smell totally recovered after 6 weeks, but then months later this semi-sweet aging strawberries smell kicked in (with many things, but mainly ethanol-containing products). My covid experience itself thankfully was fairly benign too.
If my olfactory neurons repaired themselves, then what triggered disrepair months later?
To be clear, I've been on the keto diet since January, and that definitely can produce fruity alcohol breath as a natural byproduct, so when I ran this concern with my GP, they said it's very likely not covid, and more likely my diet. But that didn't quite sit well with me, and now that you and others on here mention your experience, I'm more convinced this is some kind of odd post-covid long-term effect. TBD!