Are they sure that the Zicam is causing the loss of smell? I had hayfever for quite a few years. Still had my smell—it may have been diminished somewhat. I’m not a big one for taking pills or other medicine so I’ve never tried Zicam. In 2002, I got a doozey of a cold in the early summer. It affected my smell. I couldn’t smell anything for the longest time (years after the cold ended). It has come back somewhat, but it is still diminished and slightly off. Things don’t smell like they used to. The only way I can describe it is that it’s like a radio not being quite tuned in to the station that you want. At times I will also smell phantom odors.
Difficult to tell, since the cold symptoms it is meant to treat can be associated with a loss of smell as well. Then too, one's sense of smell can't be measured as easily as say, vision or hearing.
Long ago I came to realize that I had lost my sense of smell. I kept having colds and sinus infections. Much later, when being tested for allergies, I was told that it can be the result of those very same allergies. I once and a great while might smell a bit of somethings, but not for long. And sometimes I am not sure if what I smell, can be smelled by others either, very weird.
It can be a bit like being blind. Smell really adds an important dimension to life that I miss. I also had to teach my daughter at a young age what gas smelled like because I worried I wouldn’t know when there might be a gas leak.
It can be a strange kind of disability, one that others are totally unaware of.
These people probably have allergies, and it is NOT the Zicam.