This time of year is all about tasty food.
But Jim Mattos hasn’t been able to enjoy stuffing and yams the way the rest of us do for years.
Jim lost his sense of smell ten years ago, and couldn’t figure out what caused it. He couldn’t taste food entirely either.
When he went to see the doctor about it, they did an X-ray. They found instantly what was wrong with him.
There were dark spots all over his sinuses and nasal cavity, indicating that he had chronic sinusitis.
Chronic sinusitis is also known as rhinosinusitis. It causes nasal passages to become inflamed. For it to be chronic, the sinuses have to be swollen for over two months, even with medication.
And shockingly, Jim isn’t alone. A 2014 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 28.5 million Americans are affected by sinusitis every year.
He decided to get an operation done to drain his sinuses. Dr. Vijay Ramakrishnan operated on Jim, and he described what having chronic sinusitis was like.
“Think when you get a cold, how miserable you are,” says Dr. Ramakrishnan of the condition.
He spoke about the sugery, too. “In general, it’s about a 50/50 that they’ll get their sense of smell back.”
For Jim, that was a good enough chance. He went for the procedure, and in November, he could finally smell again.
“It really felt like a personal miracle when the sense came back,” said Jim.
Now, he’s eating all of the food he hasn’t been able to taste for the past ten years, and enjoying it, too.
