Tasteless

I know, I know, I finally get the blog moved, and then I fall off the face of the earth. Lots going on, but I have this new thing happening as of today, and I wanted to get it documented before I forget. I’m sure you are all *anxiously* awaiting an update on my progress and my journey with Zepbound, and I promise that I’ll get you all caught up when I can.

BUT.

Today, I have a new thing going on. It may or may not be related to the Zebound, I’m not sure. But as of about midday today, I realized that I have lost my sense of taste. Not 100 percent, but most of it. I can’t taste much sweet. I can taste a little bit of salt but not as much as I should. Chocolate comes through, but cheese does not. I can’t taste mint at all; I can feel the sensation of “coolness” that it causes, but I absolutely cannot taste it. I’ll let you imagine how nasty toothpaste tastes when you can taste some of the other components but NOT the mint or the sweetener. BLECK!! (And it’s salty! So weird.)

Like I said, I have absolutely NO idea if this is related to the Zepbound. My Google skills tell me that changes in taste can occur when taking Zepbound. Things that used to taste good to people start to taste bad. Some things just taste weird when they used to be fine. People don’t like flavors they used to adore. Many die hard coffee drinkers say they suddenly find that coffee now tastes awful. But I can’t find any mention of not being able to taste some or all flavors at all. I do have a lingering sweet taste in my mouth, even when I haven’t had anything to eat or drink in quite some time. Some people do complain about a metallic taste in their mouths while taking Zepbound. It’s not what I typically think of as metallic; it’s not like a penny or a paper clip. But I guess you could describe it as somewhat metallic, if metal was sweet-ish. It’s super hard to explain.

I am not sick, so it’s not COVID, unless it is a VERY delayed side effect from having COVID over a year ago. Nothing has “happened” to me; no head injury or anything similar that could explain it. I haven’t burned my tongue. The only thing I have done differently recently is take a couple of new supplements (starting 3-4 weeks ago) and up my dosage of Zepbound from 2.5 mg to 5 mg. That was 2+ weeks ago; I took my 3rd injection of 5 mg this past Monday, so 2 days ago. Things were fine, as far as I remember, up until that point. Some things tasted a little “off” on Monday, but it was easy to chalk up to other reasons, and various things were definitely tasting odd or bad yesterday, particularly my toothpaste. As in, I thought maybe it was defective and they had run out of flavoring half way through filling the tube. But it still wasn’t consistent enough for me to think that *I* was the problem.

But this morning (Wednesday), I noticed that I absolutely could not taste my berry flavored sublingual B12 tablet. I couldn’t tell if it had dissolved or not, because I couldn’t taste it at all; not the sweet, not the tart, not the berry flavor, nothing. Only the texture of the partially dissolved tablet under my tongue told me that I had actually placed it in my mouth. Otherwise, I would have had no idea. THAT is when I became slightly alarmed.

I messaged my doctor. Like me, she said she was not aware of a complete loss of taste with Zepbound, only changes in taste, but she would do some research and get back to me. We also agreed that I would stop taking ANY over the counter supplements but continue all of my prescriptions – including Zepbound at the 5 mg dosage – for at least 2 weeks to try and “reset to baseline.” I also decided on my own to cut out any of the new things that I have added to my diet since starting Zepbound, even though this problem just came up in the last couple of weeks (I’ve been on Zepbound for 12 weeks now). We’re trying to rule out everything else before deciding if I need to adjust my Zepbound dosage back down to 2.5 mg. That includes the protein shakes that have become my breakfast every single morning. Let’s just say that it’s going to be a VERY long 2 weeks!

In the meantime, I have started sampling various things around the house as an experiment. Chocolate? Yes, but only on the sides of my tongue (like the vertical sides, not the “top but not in the very center” part, that still tastes nothing). Salt? Some but not as much as I should taste for the amount I sampled. Cheese? Nope, nothing. Beef? Zippo. Pepperoni? A little “spark” of taste here or there, but not the way it should taste, and no real “flavor” per se. I asked Steve to get Del Taco for dinner, since I knew it was usually pretty spicy for me. (Yes, I know you’re all laughing at me right now. For normal humans, I’m sure it’s not spicy at all, but it is at about my max tolerance.) Again, much like the mint, I could feel the heat/burn of the spices, but I couldn’t actually taste it. Not the meat, not the cheese, not the flour tortilla. I tried one of Steve’s corn tortilla chips. I could definitely identify the corn flavor, but it tasted more like a corn flake than a tortilla chip, with that slightly sweet taste, even though I could feel the salt on the chip with my tongue. I took a sip of his grape Crystal Light. I could taste the sweet and it had a vaguely fruity flavor, but whether that was grape or berry or something else, I couldn’t say, though I was reasonably certain it wasn’t sour like lemonade.

My sense of smell is still somewhat intact, though it seems dampened. I could certainly smell the tortilla chip more than I could taste it. I could identify the grape Crystal Light by scent, but not by taste. It is a truly bizarre experience. I also wonder if it partially contributed to our “incident” on Sunday (long story, I’ll tell tell you later!) with the burning scent that I could barely smell but Steve thought was pretty easy to smell. Normally, I’m the one asking him, “can you smell that?”, but this time, it was him asking me and looking at me oddly that he could smell it easily and I could barely detect it. That was a clue, and we both missed it. We also spent the day with a friend and her dog, and I didn’t notice any dog or dog pee smells at the dog sport event we were attending with MANY dogs in a relatively small space. Normally, I’m hyper sensitive to the smell of dog pee; it prevents me from being able to walk in the neighborhood because it bothers me so much. But I could smell nothing of the sort on a pretty hot Sunday afternoon in a grassy field at the fair grounds. Again, I should have realized, but it’s a lot harder to notice the absence of something than its presence.

So that’s the current status. I’ll keep you updated as I know more. Everything I’m reading says that partial loss of taste – called “hypogeusia” – is usually not permanent unless there is nerve or brain damage, but it can take 4-6 weeks or longer to resolve itself. Cross your paws for me, please! I’ll keep you posted.

And your reward for reading all of that: I’ve lost 25 pounds since May 27. Go me!!! So you can see why the thought of maybe having to stop taking Zepbound has me incredibly worried.