Well Ppbbbtttt (A Tongue Update)

(The title, BTW, is supposed to be the sound of someone “blowing a raspberry.”)

Thought I would give an update on my tongue’s lack of ability to taste. (You had ONE job!!) When last we left our taste-free heroine, she really couldn’t taste much of anything. Things have thankfully improved since then. I did develop a “tingling tongue” late last week, but it is mostly gone now (just a little left on the tip of my tongue). Some flavors like onion, garlic, and sometimes sour things like pickles (which taste more like vinegar than anything right now) have returned, but I’m still missing the flavors of most meats, cheeses, tomatoes, and vanilla. I can now taste a little bit of sweet, but it is very muted. I’ve tried one of the Cheryl’s buttercream cookies they give you at Chicken Salad Chick. I’ve tried them twice, actually. On Thursday, Aug 22, I could literally only taste the flour, nothing else. Today (Aug 29), I still tasted mostly flour, but also a bit of the sugar, though I still couldn’t taste the butter or vanilla at all (I can smell the vanilla just fine, but I can’t taste it). I can also taste mint a bit now, though again it is muted, so toothpaste still tastes off but not horrid like it was. I can taste lemonade, and it tastes about normal. I don’t know if that’s because it just tastes normal or because I can taste the sugar just a little and the sour taste is muted, so they “strengths” of those two flavors are normal relative to each other? Who knows!

I chose NOT take my scheduled dose of Zepbound 5 mg on Monday, Aug 26, so it is now 10 days since my last injection. (You’re supposed to take it every 7 days.) I’m doing okay so far. I can tell you that the hunger suppression isn’t as strong as it was, so I definitely feel hungrier. But the slower digestion must still be working, because I still feel full quite quickly, which is good. Food noise is still well controlled, so no worries there (yet). There are a few other consequences due to not taking any of my other supplements. Stopping the glucosamine and chondroitin has had the most obvious effects. It was greatly helping my injured knee, but I’m actually back to it aching almost constantly. It’s not super intense pain, but it is just enough to be bothersome for nearly anything I do. Consequently, my slight limp is back and I am again “swaying” when I walk, like an old person (with apologies to any old people who do that; believe me, I get why!). My skin picking has stayed controlled so far, even without the NAC, so that’s good, but I know from experience that it *will* come back if I stay off of it long enough. I’m also not sleeping very well, even worse than what has become the norm for me while on Zepbound. (More on that when I have time.) Nothing I was taking regularly was actually *for* sleep, so I didn’t expect sleep to become an issue, but here we are. I don’t know if that’s possibly related to the lack of Vitamin D or not.

I sent my doctor this update to see what she wanted me to do. Should I go ahead and take the dose I should have taken on Monday? Should I just skip it this week completely but take my scheduled dose on Monday, September 2? (That’s Labor Day here in the United States, so the office will be closed, which is why I went ahead and sent an update and requested instructions today.) Does she want to drop me back down to 2.5 mg instead, since I wasn’t having this problem on that dosage? Oh no. Lucky me, she wants me to stay off of the Zepbound for ANOTHER WEEK! I am trying hard not to be anxious about it. I’m still sticking to the plan and not (yet) struggling, which is the entire point of the medication. I’m also still losing weight (finally, after a stall that started on Aug 12). But I also know that based on the half life of Zepbound, I’m just now at the point where I would be if I was a week out from taking a 2.5 mg dose in terms of how much of it is left in my system, thus it makes sense that things are still under control. But a week from now, I won’t be anywhere near this level of medication left in my system. What happens then?!

I understand her reasons, I really do. She wants to see if we can get more of my sense of taste back before fiddling with anything, particularly before starting back with the medication that may be causing the issue in the first place. And logically, I know that even if I do start having zero suppression of appetite or food noise and go back to eating just as much as I was before, I can’t eat enough to re-gain over 25 lbs in just a week. To gain a pound, It takes 3500 extra calories *above* what your body burns in a day just keeping you alive. That means it would take 87,500 *extra* calories in the next 7 days to re-gain 25 lbs. I *might* manage 10,000+ calories in one day if I really tried, but averaging over 12,000 calories per day every day for the next week? I’m pretty sure even I can’t do that. Then why am I writing all of this down, if I don’t think it will be a huge problem? Because I’ll need it to remind myself of these facts come the middle of next week when I’m having a meltdown. Wish me luck!