"Idiopathic Dysgeusia" and other indignities of age
Let's talk about my mouth.
For the past couple of weeks, everything has been tasting... off. Funny. Sometimes it's a semi-metallic taste, like there was a penny in there. Most of the time it's a dry, caustic sensation, as if I had accidentally breathed in a bit of alum.
So I went to the doctor. She looked. She poked. She prodded. She swabbed and tested. And we can't find anything wrong. There's no infection, no pathogens found, no swelling, no other signs of dysfunction. Nothing else is wrong with me. There hadn't been any significant changes in medication or diet up until the first symptoms. The diagnosis is idiopathic dysgeusia, which is as sad as it sounds: "We don't know what it is, it happens to some people as they get older, it usually goes away after a few months."
Months‽‽‽
Usually‽‽‽
I've lived with it for five weeks now. As "crippling syndromes associated with getting older," this is one of those nobody ever told me about. Bad knees, bad eyesight, poor weight management sure. "Everything will taste funny and probably bad" was not on the list. And I can think of two things that may have gotten me here. The first is possibly my own damn fault. The other was that I was exposed to a slow, long-burning electrical fire that may have put tons of volatile metallics and burned insulation into the air. Both of those happened shortly before the symptoms manifested so... who knows?
It's distressing. It makes kissing less fun, much less other activities one does with his mouth. I'm eating less, so that's a win, I guess. I've lost three pounds. I don't recommend it as a weight loss program.
For the past couple of weeks, everything has been tasting... off. Funny. Sometimes it's a semi-metallic taste, like there was a penny in there. Most of the time it's a dry, caustic sensation, as if I had accidentally breathed in a bit of alum.
So I went to the doctor. She looked. She poked. She prodded. She swabbed and tested. And we can't find anything wrong. There's no infection, no pathogens found, no swelling, no other signs of dysfunction. Nothing else is wrong with me. There hadn't been any significant changes in medication or diet up until the first symptoms. The diagnosis is idiopathic dysgeusia, which is as sad as it sounds: "We don't know what it is, it happens to some people as they get older, it usually goes away after a few months."
Months‽‽‽
Usually‽‽‽
I've lived with it for five weeks now. As "crippling syndromes associated with getting older," this is one of those nobody ever told me about. Bad knees, bad eyesight, poor weight management sure. "Everything will taste funny and probably bad" was not on the list. And I can think of two things that may have gotten me here. The first is possibly my own damn fault. The other was that I was exposed to a slow, long-burning electrical fire that may have put tons of volatile metallics and burned insulation into the air. Both of those happened shortly before the symptoms manifested so... who knows?
It's distressing. It makes kissing less fun, much less other activities one does with his mouth. I'm eating less, so that's a win, I guess. I've lost three pounds. I don't recommend it as a weight loss program.