Growing New Tastebuds, What an Experience.

Have you ever had the experience to lose your taste buds? Like your mouth just started over?

I don’t know how common it is or even really what caused it for me. It seems to be the side effect of some rash illness that struck. It also seems to be temporary.  It is an interesting experience, not all of it pleasant but somewhat amusing to witness as I have been told.

My taste buds just are not functioning. Food has lost flavor and texture. Occasionally I get a real surprise treat but mostly, like a toddler, I have a tender palate and experience great taste bud frustration.

For at least a week while ill my mouth was filmy and very very tender. Yogurt, honey and peppermint tea were about all I could handle. No soup even!

After some good old steroids and The Icky got the 1-2 punch, things started to become palatable.

Sweet was the first taste followed by rich textures.  Pudding was my new best friend! Creamy, soft, bland, exciting and comforting. No wonder it is classic recovery food, served in hospitals everywhere.

Crunchy, Spicy, Sour, Bubbly, were definitely No’s and Salty was nowhere on the radar. Sometimes accidentally tasting something wrong led to brutal bud whiplash. I was also constantly thirsty or dry mouth feeling so sucking candy seemed to help and still does.

After a week

Crunchy is a-ok as the tenderness has all faded but the others are parts of the puzzle are still a work in progress.

Some things are unexpectedly spicy while others are still very devoid of flavor. I find that cheese is sour tasting and mustard is has a crazy tang! Umami seems to be there as mushrooms taste good.

Come to think of it is Umami in a corndog? Because, a corndog was my tastiest meal to date. Somehow that extruded fried link goodness tasted every bit and more like I thought it should. Yum. I tasted sweet doughy gritty corn bread coating wrapped around a tender juicy meaty hot dog bite. All flavors and textures distinctive and wonderfully correct.  The snozeberries taste like snooze berries, if you will.

I very much want to like coffee, alcohol, bitter and other adult flavors but we are still not cooperating.

Still some things make my tongue tingle a tiny bubble feeling, or maybe zing me from the back. Sometimes the crazy flavor or feeling balloons and threatens to explode.

My favorite is the delayed reaction when a flavor or feeling suddenly changes in my mouth. It can be very surprising. Whamo tingles across the top or the sudden and not so subtle burn of spice, heat, intensity… something.

Well I guess that is about what I taste, something.