When you are in a California car accident, you may sustain injuries that impact your life in a number of different ways. A traumatic brain injury can seriously change your life. A surprising development after a head injury or a facial injury is that you may end up with a loss of smell or taste.
Most people take their senses of smell and taste for granted. These are senses that you may barely think about until something happens to them. Losing these senses can affect your life in ways you may not expect, and living without them can not only reduce your enjoyment of life but also may compromise your personal safety.
California Car Accidents and Head Injuries
It’s fairly common to hit your head when you are in a vehicle collision. You may end up hitting your head against the steering wheel, the dashboard or the window. In an especially severe accident, you could be thrown from the vehicle and hit your head on the ground or debris when you land.
There are a variety of different ways that a trauma can injure your head and brain. You may experience a concussion or a fracture of your face or skull. The brain can be damaged by the force of impact or from being jolted and shaken around if you had to suddenly stop. In severe injuries, the brain itself may be damaged, and some of the nerves of the brain can be bruised or sheared.
Losing Your Sense of Smell
Both mild and severe brain injuries can cause you to lose your sense of smell, and it’s the loss of the sense of smell that can cause you to also not be able to taste your food. Experiencing a loss of smell from a trauma is called posttraumatic anosmia.
The degree of anosmia that you are experiencing may be evaluated using a series of olfactory tests. These tests will try to determine whether you can distinguish between different smells or at what threshold you are able to notice an odor.
How Your Loss of Smell Can Harm You
There’s no doubt that losing your sense of smell and taste can reduce your enjoyment of life since you won’t be able to enjoy your food in the same way you have up to now. You also won’t be able to appreciate pleasant scents such as flowers or freshly cut grass.
Anosmia can also cause you to have safety risks including:
- Inability to detect toxic chemicals or fumes
- Inability to smell smoke or a gas leak
- Inability to recognize when food is spoiled
- A tendency to add too much salt or sugar to food
You may lose an excessive amount of weight since eating is no longer pleasurable. You may feel depressed or have mood swings, and you may experience a strain in your relationships because of what has happened to you.
After an Accident
When you have been injured in an accident caused by someone else’s negligence, it’s important to be thoroughly checked out by a medical professional. Your doctor can evaluate the extent of your injuries and begin a treatment plan.
It’s also important to get advice from an expert in the field of personal injury law. A traumatic brain injury is likely to lead to very serious consequences, and one of them is that your sense of smell or taste may not be the same. You deserve to be compensated for your injuries and possibly for pain and suffering as well.
Contact Megeredchian Law by filling out the form on this page and one of our lawyers will get back to you very soon to find out what happened and how we can help.