Today, I lost my sense of taste !!!!
I woke up, had breakfast as normal, but when I had lunch, thought I had forgotten to salt my cheese/tomato crackers… I hadn’t….. I had lost almost all my sense of taste !!!
I can taste a hint of sweetness in some things, but have almost no salty taste at all…. I can put salt on my tongue without any taste of saltiness.
I sometimes crave savoury things, but if (for example) i try some hot chips, or babrbecue shapes… they are just a massive flavourless disappointment.
My “favourite” foods at the moment tend to be things whithout a lot of flavour (e.g. ham/cheese sandwich) because theye are not such a let downwhen they dont taste of much…. My favouritte food is probably carrots becasue they have a subtle flavour and LOTS of texture…
Apparent;y loss of taste is not that unusual, but it is usually associated with a cold and returns once the cold recovers… as far as i can recall I didnlt have a cold at the time, and I also hadnlt started on any new medications (latest new med I started 3 weeks prior… and have subsequently stopped it with no effect).
My smell doesn’t seem to be affected (in fact if anything it seems to be enhanced, (but this could be compensation for the loss of taste) and I don’t seem to have any other “nerve” related issues (no tingling, no sagging facial muscles, no vision issues, no headaches). Sometimes my taste seems to be improving, but that may just be that I am getting used to it.
My GP and Endocrinologust found this quite “interesteing” – it was something a bit out of the ordinary to them…they did some research and ordered up a series of blood tests – which didn’t show up anything unusual. Nex step is an Eear Nose & Throat specialist…. and then possibly a Neourologist.
I no longer find it “interesting” – it is really not very much fun at all when you can’t tell the difference (apart from textrure) between a slice of cheese, a slice of bacon, or a slice of apple pie !!! and the prospect of maybe not being able to taste anything ever again is not very pleasent – although I am hopefull that at some stage it may reappear as mysterouiusly as it disappeared.
I have not been that intetested in eating and have started many meals, only to get half way through and deciding there was no point in finishing. They say every cloud has a silver lining… and my reduction in food intake has certainly had a positive effect on my weight (lost 8kg in 8 weeks) and blood sugar levels (regularly under 5 – which had never happend before – so I have had to monitor closely and drop my med dosages accoridngly.
Now (8 weeks or so later) it is no better – in fact in just thel ast few days I have developed a cold, and it has actually got worse 🙁
In terms of my Bypass operation, I donlt know yet if loss of tastes is going to help or hinder the dietary constraints in the leadup to (2 weeks OptiFast meal replacement) and followup (2m eeks liquids, 2 weeks mush)… but assume that after a month or so of liquids/mush I will be craving “texture” so much that the couch will start to look appetising.