Will my tastebuds come back?

[trolley]

about a week and a half ago i got a nasty sinus cold. the kind where you can't breathe through your nose and the world feels like it's going to collapse on you. during this time i couldn't taste anything. i'll might as well have eaten cardboard and saved money. it's now been over a week and i'm still sniffly but the sinus cold is gone and i can breathe. yahoo! well, not so fast. i still can't taste anything. i'll get a whiff of high notes here and there but nothing big overall. i realize smell is related to taste and it's probably a matter of time but i'm starting to get scared. has anyone ever lost their tastebuds for an extended period of time? cooking is impossible and it's getting me very sad.

[goodhealthgourmet]

Any chance you were (or are) using a spray or lozenge like Zicam or Cold-eeze that contains zinc gluconate?

[trolley]

i was not on anything like zicam. i took advil and sudafed (the over the counter on the shelf kind).

[goodhealthgourmet]

That's good - zinc gluconate can cause long-term and even permanent anosmia in some people. Sounds like the infection is the culprit, so hopefully you'll regain your full sense of smell - and as a result, taste - soon. Feel better!

[Will Owen]

You won't lose your taste buds - those are on your tongue, and just react to bitter, sour, sweet etcetera - but you can lose much of your sense of smell, which is the important part. I have chronic vasomotor rhinitis, a frequent irritation of the nose lining that gives me the drips for days at a time. This means I have to blow my nose a lot, and that (which I read about AFTER it had begun to happen) will eventually wear off the top layer of aroma sensor cells. And they don't grow back. Now, this takes a while; I'm in my 70s, and have been "drippy" most of my life, so if you're appreciably younger and/or don't do this very often you will probably recover. My symptoms are not so much a loss of smell as a coarsening, a distortion of familiar odors, caused by losing a lot of the more subtle notes, so it's likely your sense of smell (or most of it) will return after the sniffles leave.

[trolley]

oh Will that stinks! i'm sorry you have to deal with being drippy. i feel your pain. and you're right, it's not my taste buds but it's my sense of smell that i want back. so i'm on day 15 or even 16 and only a slight improvement. i still can't taste 100%. ironically, i found out that without my sense of smell, drinking folgers and 2 buck chuck is even a worse experience than when i have my senses at 100%. i had a cheap bottle of chianti and all i could taste was bad. bad what? i don't know! it's the only way i can describe it. i guess it's equivalent to listening to music with one side of the headphone.

[JoanN]

If you're beginning to smell something, anything, you're well on your way to full recovery.

A few years ago I had anosmia (loss of smell and, therefore, taste) for nearly a year. I saw my physician, an allergist, an ENT specialist, and a neurologist, none of whom found anything wrong with me. Eventually I went to the Monell Jefferson Taste & Smell Center in Philadelphia. They were able to test exactly what I was and was not able to taste and smell and to what extent those senses were impaired. They assumed, but could not be sure, that the anosmia was the result of a sinus infection I'd contracted a few months earlier while scuba diving in Asia. They also told me that I might or might not regain those senses and that there was no proven method of treating the condition.

Luckily, my sense of smell did return, but not until nearly a year after I'd suffered the infection. Consider yourself lucky. It may seem as though it's taking a frustratingly long time, but at least you're on your way.

[trolley]

wow, JoanN! that sounds terrible. yeah 2 weeks seems like a lifetime to me but a year, oh a year! did you continue eating the same way? or did you develop any texture aversions? i'm starting to get really sensitive to texture of foods which i never have been. i also can't drink cheap wine. i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing tho ;) i had some cava to ring in the new year last night and i all tasted was the carbonation and the alcohol.

[JoanN]

Texture became all important to me since it was all I could discern. The crunchier the better. Eating anything soft was akin to eating baby mush. Since I was aware of some bitterness in food (as Will Owen notes above, your tastebuds alone, even without your sense of smell, can often detect sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami), I poured hot sauce on everything. My real problem, exactly the opposite of many who suffer from anosmia, was that the only way I felt sated was to stuff myself. That sense of fullness became pleasure to me, something I'm still having difficulty overcoming. I no longer recall my reaction to alcohol. And how pleased I am to be able to write that. There was a time I thought I'd forget none of it.

[sunshine842]

the tissues in your sinus cavities take a ridiculously long time to return to their normal size. When I developed a severe dustmite allergy, it took 6 months of medications (starting with a couple of weeks of prednisone) to get the inflammation down to a "normal" level.

It's frustrating, but completely normal.

[KaimukiMan]

Just leave them alone and they'll come home wagging their tails behind them.

not meant to be flippant, but you've been to the Dr., (s)he doesn't seem particularly worried, and if there was something you could do he would have told you about it.

[trolley]

good news is that today i caught a whiff of my coffee. i had to breathe in and out in this exaggerated manner like one does when doing yoga. it's an improvement albeit a slow one.

[asf78]

Many years ago, someone I know had a medical treatment and a side effect was loss of taste for months. What got it back was sucking on lemon drops and other sour hard candies regularly for nearly a month.

A cold/sinus infection is obviously not the same, but it may be one approach. And if you have a sore throat, those hard candies may help keep your throat coated to prevent irritation.

[josephnl]

Are you still taking any medication...if so, yet may well be related. If not, I'd wait at least 2-3 weeks before going to see you doc.

[Harters]

Broadly speaking, I find that if you treat a cold, it will last about seven days. On the other hand, if you do nothing, it will last about a week.

[foodieX2]

Haha. Funny.

Trolley- Don't look for an answers here. A random foodie website is not a place to look for medical advice. Just because some stranger on the internet web site say you will be fine (or not) doesn't mean it will be. Call your Doc or go to a walk in clinic.

[latindancer]

I'm pretty sure, if I'm reading the thread correctly, 2 out of 3 posters eluded to a mention of a doctor's opinion?

[trolley]

i already beat you guys to the punch and saw a doctor. he said it's a virus and checked my sinuses for an infection and he said they looked swollen but no infection. i'm also paranoid about the sinus infection bc had one last year and let it go for too long (never again!). so nothing but time will heal it. i called the MD today and said i could come in but the smell/taste thing should return eventually.

so my question wasn't "how do i get better?". i know i'll get better one day. it was more about has anyone ever lost their sense of smell/taste which clearly is inextricably linked? did you adjust your eating habits? did you end up eating cheap food? or did texture become important bc i don't have a texture aversion but i can see how people can now.

i've been sicker than this and never lost my smell for this long.

[sunshine842]

as a lifelong allergy/sinus patient -- yes, I've lost my sense of smell for weeks at a time.

I just took all the prescriptions as instructed and dealt with it until it went away, eating whatever sounded good at the time -- perhaps food with a stronger flavor profile to compensate, but nothing special or different.

It will come back.

[rockycat]

I have no advice to offer you, just sympathy. A few years back I was on a short course of prednisone and developed just about every side effect possible, including loss of taste. As fearsome as some of the other side effects were (including, but not limited to, manic-depression, 'roid rage, incipient cataracts, etc.) that was the one that scared me the most. I knew most/all the others would disappear or were treatable but I was terrified I would never get my sense of taste back. Coupled with that, I developed an insatiable appetite so that I was eating 'round the clock (because I stopped sleeping, too) and couldn't taste any of it.
Within a few week of stopping the medication all the side effects disappeared and I did re-acquire my sense of taste. Now I worry about the dulling of my taste buds due to age. I guess I've got to have something to worry about.
Hang in there. It gets better.

[latindancer]

it's really true :).
A virus is a virus is a virus.

[sunshine842]

If it was that bad, your sinuses are likely still inflamed and swollen -- it takes a crazy amount of time for the swelling in your sinuses to go away.

If you're concerned, see a doctor -- you don't want to end up with a long-lasting sinus infection. They're really hard to kick once they get a good hold on you.

[latindancer]

Not more than a few days. During this time I usually go to the ENT to make sure I don't have a sinus infection and I find out I don't, just an inflammation of the tubes/canals in that area that affects the senses. 'Tis the season, as they say.
I just think, sometimes, a visit to the doctor, cures lots :).