Sandra Lee just added a tablespoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon of cinnamon extract to just one container of store-bought frosting. That would taste so horrible and over-done. Or maybe it wouldn't. I don't know.
For the last nine days I haven't been able to taste right. I don't mean that I have the stuffed-nose can't-taste cold/flu problem, I mean--nothing tastes right. When the phenomenon begins to descend, you want to send back your food and ask other people to try it, because you're so sure something's wrong outside yourself. But gradually you realize...it's you. You're off.
It's the most amazingly disorienting and frankly, depressing, phenomenon. Sweet tastes sour, salty tastes bland, nothing tastes like "itself." Not only that, nothing tastes good, either. And since it's not accompanied by a distorted sense of smell, it's even more disorienting. Things taste bad only as they hit your tongue.
It feels like a curse. You start to wonder if you could survive without this sense in life and think longingly of parsing the delicate flavors in mundane, processed food, much less the most delicious things you know. It's awful! Not to mention I'm not even sure if I'd taste if something had gone bad now. I'd probably smell it, I don't know if I'd taste it.
I don't have anything subtle and conclusive to say about this curse. Not until it's gone, at least. No delicate little essay about the meaning of Smell, about living in one's head and memory. I can't even enjoy living in the land of magazine/TV/cookbook food right now...it just sucks.
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4 comments:
Elizabeth, I am now in my 6th month of dysgeusia. In WEEK TWO my doctor laughed and said "No, you won't have it the rest of your life." Right now it seems that I might. I've had no encouragement from either my doctors or from scouring the Internet, other than it might go away of its own accord.
Can I live the rest of my life having everything, including water, taste awful? I'm tired of explaining the unexplainable. I give myself lectures every day that there are far worse things I could be experiencing. But I am sure being worn down. And perhaps the worst of all is that even my saliva tastes salty. I drink Seltzer water because the effervescence seems to give my mouth a break from "taste." I wouldn't wish dysgeusia on anyone, and I hope that yours is long-gone before you reach six months post diagnosis.
HEllo Long -
Thanks for commenting and OH do you have my sympathies. In my case it is gradually going away, although even that is kind of weird--still hard to know what's what. I found myself calling a restaurant to (this is nuts) find out if there was hot pepper in a chocolate dessert (as there sometimes can be these days), because I was tasting it! (Needless to say, there was none).
I think that dysgeusia is a MISERABLY misunderstood and hugely impactful thing to deal with. I read while it was at its very strongest (and I was desperate for answers) about cancer patients who said it was the worst thing they were dealing with in their illness. I can completely understand that.
I hope so much for your sake that it eases up somehow. I wish I knew anything that would help when you don't know the cause of it. I so wish I did!
All my best, and hope somethin breaks
p.s. I wonder if ayurvedic medicine/naturopathic medicine or Chinese/herbal medicine might have some help? Or acupuncture?
I have an elderly friend who is experiencing this "bad taste" and to complicate matters, he's a diabetic. I'm convinced it's the Metformin, but the doctor can't find a good alternate drug right now. I have to beg him to eat and he's lost 20 lbs. He can tolerate eating sour foods such as sauerkraut, pickled beets and pickles, malt vinegar on food, etc. He insisted a dinner roll was too sweet! This is helping his diabetic diet, but it's the only thing good I can about it, because it is very depressing to him. On top of this, he was hospitalized twice with killer headaches and can't help wondering if the two are related. He had the dysgeusia about the same time he went on the Metformin, but as the headaches, has grown worse over the past 6 months. We are looking for a cure, and the doctor doesn't seem to have any ideas. I read in a report that zinc may help, but may also cause a bad taste, also. Any suggestions out there?
I have suffered with dysguesia for about 3 years now and I really think that I can't cope with it anymore. I'm not interested in food as it just leaves a worse taste in my mouth, even water makes things worse. Ice cream is about the only thing that gives me any relief, oh and chewing gum which does help a little but even that can start to make me feel sick. I suffered from depression before the onset of dysguesia but things are so much worse now, I try to sleep as much as possible, it is preferable to the horrible taste and occasional burning lips and mouth. I really don't think I can live with this much longer.
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