Losing your sense of smell after having Covid is obviously very disabling and can sometimes last several months. There is no real solution today, except perhaps that of Cryotera, a cryotherapy center, located in Bezannes, near Reims. According to a recent study conducted with doctors and published in a scientific journal, exposing your body to freezing temperatures for several sessions would restore your sense of smell.
A three-minute session at -110 degrees
The large glass cryotherapy cabin looks like a kind of cold room. Four people can stand on it. Isabelle and Laura put on a swimsuit, mittens, a hat, socks and a mask. A little worried, they are about to do their first session. Both lost their sense of smell several months ago due to Covid. “It’s disabling and psychologically, it’s not always easy,” explains Isabelle. “Cryotherapy is my last hope,” she sighs.
Bastien Bouchet, the founder of Cryotera, will guide the young women during their session: “We open the door and we will be at -60° for thirty seconds”, he explains. “It’s already huge!” Laura exclaims. “It is,” confirms Bastien Bouchet. “But at the same time, it’s dry cold. After thirty seconds, there’s a door that you can see between the two airlocks. We’re going to go into the therapeutic airlock where we’ll be at -110° for three minutes” he continues, before encouraging his customers to enter the cabin.
Of the 30 participants in the study, 28 partially regained their sense of smell
This freezing cold will perhaps allow young women to regain their sense of smell, lost after the Covid. This is what tends to prove a study that Bastien Bouchet conducted with doctors. “Out of a population of 30 people who performed two to five cryotherapy sessions, 28 people had an improvement in this olfactory function”, he explains. So how can we explain it? “Understanding why we have this loss of smell is already a bit difficult”, recalls Bastien Bouchet. “So to understand how we can recover it by the cryogenic chamber, for the moment there are only hypotheses and still question marks”, he concludes.
However, these initial results are very encouraging and give hope to many patients. It should be noted that, for the moment, cryotherapy only seems to act on the loss of smell, not that of taste. For a cure of five sessions at Cryotera (which has eight establishments all over France), count 195€, partially reimbursed by many mutual insurance companies.