All music (and to a less extent voices) sound terrible to me since the stroke. How many people experience this and how often will it recover?

Hi Theresa,

Thank you for your questions. We are sorry to hear about your stroke in August and hope you are going ok with your recovery.

Stroke can impact how we process (receive, organise, and make sense of) auditory information and can change your level of hearing (the volume) and also what noise sounds like (e.g voices can sound robotic). Have you spoken to your neurologist, rehabilitation physician or GP about this?

We recommend getting your GP to refer you for an auditory processing assessment with an audiologist. Neuropsychologists and speech therapists can also be helpful in getting a clear picture of the difficulties you’re experiencing and offer advice on how to best manage them.

Are you also having difficulties with light and busy, crowded environments? Sensory overload is also common after stroke. We can provide more information on this if it is also an issue for you.

Loss of taste and/or smell can occur after stroke and have a big impact on your quality of life. Unfortunately, there are no specific treatment to correct loss of taste or smell. The good news is many people find that their taste and smell does improve over time. It is a bit of a waiting game though. It may also be worth chatting with your GP about other causes/contributors to taste changes such as oral hygiene or medications side effects just to rule these out.

This fact sheet from the UK Stroke Association outlines some helpful tips that may be worth trying in the meantime to help you gain as much satisfaction from your food as possible.

You might like to check out these conversations started by Jenny and Ambrosia, sharing experiences of loss of taste and smell after stroke.

If you would like to speak further about what you’re experience since your stroke, please call us on StrokeLine on 1800 787 653.

Simone, StrokeLine