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Smell and taste disorders can be thought of on a spectrum, anywhere from total loss of smell, which would be anosmia, to a blunted sense of smell. Anytime our sense of smell is affected, it's going to affect our sense of taste. Remember that our sense of taste is just basically there are a group of taste buds on the tongue that help us come up with our rudimentary ability to detect taste. It's bitter, sweet, salty, and sour. Beyond that, our sense of smell is the big driver of how we taste and appreciate things. It can be anywhere from, again, a total loss of smell with anosmia, to a blunted sense of smell which will blunt our sense of taste.

Treatment options for smell and taste disorders would be, first, to contact your physician and possibly get in to see your ear, nose, and throat, head and neck surgery specialist who has advanced training in both the diagnosis and treatment of smell and taste disorders. If you are someone that suffers from allergic rhinitis or chronic sinus and possibly with nasal polyps, you would come into your ear, nose, and throat, head and neck surgeon's office and have a full evaluation. After examining your ears, nasal passageways, oral cavity, [inaudible 00:11:14] and neck, we would do a specialized test with a small pencil-sized endoscope that we would place in the nose after decongesting it and placing some anesthesia in it to look at the extent of possible chronic polyps or disease that would be causing the obstruction.

The people at risk for developing smell and taste disorders, probably the biggest group would be those suffering from chronic sinusitis, particularly those with nasal polyps. Nasal polyps are inflammatory lining of the nose or nasal mucosa that gets adenomatous, and they act as basically a conductive block. They won't allow odorants or other molecules to get into the olfactory grove area and allow us to perceive how things smell and taste. Additionally, those with allergic rhinitis - allergies, hay fever, and chronically suffering - will have more inflammatory lining of the nose and drainage that would also act as a conductive block. People suffering from choric allergies and chronic sinus disease as probably, as far as number-wise, those that would be most at risk for smell and taste disorders.