For almost a year I (female, 60 years old) have had a bad taste in my mouth. At first it was like I couldn’t taste well and there was a haze over my tongue. After a few months it turned into a salty taste. What could this be?
Joris Bartstra, journalist with medical diploma
Essentially, the composition of your taste buds has changed. The taste buds in the mouth are like nests with specialized cells that send an electrical signal to the nervous system in response to the tastes sweet, salty, sour, bitter or umami. The structure and functioning of a cell that ‘transmits’ acid is very different from that of a cell that registers salt.
Our ‘taste cells’ are a bit like skin cells: they are constantly renewed (they last ten days on average) and they keep each other in balance. There are many causes that can cause them to become massively damaged, including radiation and chemotherapy for cancer and some viral infections. If the taste cells all die at the same time, one can come back faster and more massively. As a result, you experience that one taste much stronger than another taste. It is difficult to say whether and how quickly the equilibrium will recover, but the recovery will continue for a long time.
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