Post Covid issues--advise, help.

[PA_jen]

As some of you know. I have had Covid twice. And considering I have been Very lucky with mild symptoms that being the Metallic and sometimes weird taste and sometimes no taste.
These issues have persisted for the pass 6 month- ish. I have not had Chocolate in 6 months because it is so bitter tasting. I'm not eating Dark bitter Chocolate either I was trying a milk chocolate bar then a Frozen Hot chocolate. It is so bitter I couldn't taste anything else. Milk cottage cheese taste sour all I taste is sour. fruits taste rotten some veggies I can eat some I cannot. Water when I first got covid tasted so foul I couldn't sip on it without wanting to spit it out of my mouth. Right now, I can take a couple sips of water, but I cringe from the foul taste. I have attempted a few times to sip on water thru out a 15-minute period and after about 6 sips in the 15 min period I got so nauseous I thought I was going to throw up. Not that ate a lot of meat before but I would eat some and I am finding if I have any type of meat after 3pm I feel so sick and have thrown up. I can't eat seafood anymore.

I have found some things I can eat that have no taste or the weird taste is tolerable enough I can eat/drink but I have tried getting help I am told it is all in my mind or that I am making up.

Yes, I am fat and I have been on diets all my life. I tried to explain to my mother how frustrating the whole situation has been. I told her I haven't had Chocolate is 6 months and how things are tasting or how easily I am getting sick with food and her response was you aren't losing weight.

My husband has been great. He has seen me go thru things and when I try to eat and can't eat the item, he's like. Okay we won't try that. We used to order food and If I took some bites (sometimes just one) and got sick or couldn't take the taste he'd just say okay we know this won't work. I felt bad wasting money but he's just says It's not your fault. Or don't worry we now know it doesn't agree with you.

It is just hard. I am basically just eating. Carbs (Breads, Pasta) Cheese(like chedder and pepperjack mozzarella) I can eat safely any time of day with no issues.

The Doctor, I did have doesn't believe covid is real. drop them next doctor I try doesn't believe covid taste is a real thing. I just don't know what to do or if anyone is having this issue. I unfortunately didn't lose my sense of smell with my taste like my supervisor. So I smell food and know what it supposed to taste like and I am so disappointed when it doesn't taste at all or is either bitter/ sour/ weird tasting.

any suggestions?

[Karadeniz]

1. I can't imagine what you're going through !!! Your doctors are idiots. I have no suggestions... real

tapioca pudding always sits well with me. What about salad? Jello?

[PA_jen]

2. salad has been hit or miss. depending on the greens. I can't do olives anymore

which to someone who grew up eating olives of all sorts is a bummer. Jello...Not good. Citrus flavors are not sitting well with me and my go to in jello Cherry tastes so weird I can't describe it. Salad dressings are hit and miss as well. some brands of ranch are so sour I can't eat yet other brands I taste nothing. I am using dressing a lot to dip foods in to help eat them. I bake French fries in the oven and I have to dip them in some sort of dressing. Ketchup has been out since the beginning the Vinger is all I taste.

[Karadeniz]

8. Have you noticed ANY improvement since this began? I thought I read that the taste problem was

temporary. Unfortunately, any person's remedies are probably unique to each individual.

[PA_jen]

10. The only real improvement if you can call it that is water.

Before I couldn't have it in my mouth without spitting it out now, I can take a sip or two but that is no issue.

[Karadeniz]

39. This is truly a health issue and I can't think of a single type of doctor who would know how to

handle this. I'm not a big fan of steroids, but they can be helpful in reducing aftereffects, like inflammation and swelling. You might get your doctor to try steroids... not the step down pack that only works on the first day. Keep us posted as to your ongoing status!!!!

[irisblue]

3. The long covid websites you can find them on Google. Your Drs are assholes

[irisblue]

4. You take to your dentist about this yet?

[PA_jen]

5. I should have thought about it. need to look into those.

[irisblue]

9. I wish you all the best.

[PA_jen]

11. Thank you

[irisblue]

14. Taste changes after head&neck cancers have decades of research

I did radiation therapy treatments for several years, the taste changes that *some* patients experience were awful.
Technical source-https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/JCO.2017.35.15_suppl.e18199#:~:text=Patients%20with%20maintained%20taste%20did,bitter%20and%20metallic%20phantom%20taste.

Would your(asshole) Dr talk to an Radiation Oncologist, at a University hospital about hooking you up with the head & neck clinic dieticians?

[dweller]

6. This may sound dumb

but have you tried holding your nose and swallowing something?
I know you said your smell wasn’t affected, but it does play a part in taste.
Try something simple, like a clear juice (apple, grape etc) and hold your nose first then swallow it ..


It’s important you are getting nutrients, interesting you can handle cheese, carbs
How about saltines ?


✌🏻

[PA_jen]

13. I tried holding my nose and sipping on water.. didn't work.. but that wasn't out of left

field. I did hear that before. I can drink apple juice but I don't want to drink too much as the side effect isn't good. Believe it or not post covid Saltines are TOO salty for me. feels like I am eating a spoon full of salt.

[Tetrachloride]

7. My personal speculation of exploring diet

1. keep intake of items to a small amount. quite small, in rotation.
1a. example: plain water, water with a few drops of lemonade, mint tea
1b. this may result in a crowded refrigerator and washing scheme.
2. i call it a taste massage . training the brain to not hate something. Zero of course is too little and normal serving is 3x or whatever multiplier too much.


A version of this is used to reduce peanut allergy. A small amount (milligrams?) of peanuts per day or week.

An elderly friend had to have IV because of water distaste. About a week. i can ask her if you need.

[PA_jen]

15. I am willing to give anything a try. Thank you for the suggestions.

Yes, if you don't mind asking your friend about that water IV. Root Beer isn't the best thing to be drinking a lot of.

[Bluethroughu]

26. Have you tried sparkling flavored water?

[Tetrachloride]

29. I got the message that the grandmother didn't do

anything except wait and take the IV solution. She was severely dehydrated

[at140]

12. When I feel nauseous

I chew on fennel seeds mixed with small size crystal sugar.

[PA_jen]

17. I'll give it a try.

[Tetrachloride]

30. cumin has a related effect on reducing stomach cramps

and mint tea.

[at140]

40. may be true, but I can't chew cumin for an hour

Fennel seeds are good to chew and keep in mouth a long time.

[boston bean]

16. I had some of these issues. But never threw up.

I don’t know if it was time or what I did actually helped.

I just made myself continue to eat what I knew I liked before and told my brain what it was. As I got to the end of eating something that was distasteful at first by the end I was tasting a little bit how it use to taste. I would say it was over a year before I was mostly back to normal. Although sometimes I still get that “taste”.

But I never got sick from eating like you are.

[leighbythesea2]

18. This sounds terrible!

& your doctors are jerks.

had covid 2x as well. I had to do smell training. With essential oils like a citrus, clove, rose, etc.
I was so depressed the 2nd time bc my taste was so slow to come back, so i cannot even imagine how aggravating this must be for you.
Also i did not have things tasting "bad", or wrong, just non-existent. Some things still are.
Truly hope it improves for you, even if maddeningly slow.

I read somewhere they're using stem cells & injecting them as an attempted treatment. No idea if thats working or, lord--how expensive it is.

[4dog]

19. Total long shot but cheap, legal and safe

That would be vitamin D, 5000 IU = 125 micrograms per day. This gets my measured vitamin D level up above what is considered 'replete', and I got through two covid infections without any taste symptoms, except when taking Paxlovid. Now it is more than likely that vitamin D can not reverse your symptoms, and you would be foolish to take anonymous medical advice without looking into this yourself. Not to mention consulting with your care provider, though many perfectly good doctors are not well informed about efficacious and toxic levels of vitamin D. I do not have time to find a good 'mainstream' online source for you, but there is tons of information on vitamindwiki.com. The author is an 'enthusiast', self-educated in vitamin D lore, somewhat unconventional, but generally cites original literature, and does not appear to make money selling supplements. Some of his advice is different from mainstream sources, but I have not encountered any advice there that I consider hazardous. Add to that whatever online medical source you trust. I myself am an vitamin D enthusiast with a background in chemistry. Direct message me if you like and you think I can add more information.

[Tetrachloride]

31. and 5-20 minutes of sunshine on face for Vitamin D-3

[Baitball Blogger]

20. I had that strange metallic taste, but also intense mouth pain

about 6 weeks after a Covid vaccination. If you look for mouth pain as a side effect of the Covid vaccinations it listed a number of symptoms. I had all of them.

One of the things that really was getting worse was no tolerance to peppery or hot foods. None. I went to the dentist and he said he believed I had red thrush. He prescribed Clotrimazole lozenges. After two or three weeks, everything is almost back to normal.

Not sure if the lozenges will work for you, but ask your doctor.

[DET]

21. No solutions here, but...

You need to find a doctor who will take your problem seriously. Keep looking until you do. I don’t know why, but doctors seem to feel compelled to say ‘It’s all in your head’ rather than ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you but I’ll try to help’. Im sure that a lot of people with long Covid are going through the same experience with doctors that you are. From the little I’ve read, Covid can at least temporarily impair the part of the brain that processes smell and taste. Many people seem to recover with time, but you need expert advice on how to deal with this until you do. I wish you the best.

[Sky Jewels]

22. You might want to look into I.F.

Aka intermittent fasting. Try eating your daily calories within an 8-hour window. There’s been some research that points to it being helpful in reducing inflammation and therefore Covid symptoms.

[Brainfodder]

23. Toking cannabis by chance? Humulene is the terpeme I figured out was giving me stomach issues.

Got really painful gas that I had to walk off usually, and it was accompanied by horrible back cramps.

Abdomen gas pain so bad I'd at least go through dry heaves motions some of the time, and it did help.

At least 2 dozen episodes in the last few years.

I've lost majority of my taste, too.



Never have had covid to my knowledge, and have had all 4 shots, we got ill on at least 2.

[Bluethroughu]

24. My sister had same exact problems...

So she made a pitcher of unsweetened ice tea to drink. I recommend lemon lift.

Keep trying the fruits and veggies. Chocolate, and other foods or drinks you enjoyed.

Try to imagine them tasting like you remember, but small tastes at a time.

Since it is a neurological disease, and pathways and connections were blocked or disrupted, you need to make those connections from the nerves to the brain.

I'm not a doctor, but find one that believes in science. Keep working at it.

My sister would taste meat or coca cola and they both tasted like sewer to her. She can now, drink one on occasion, and now she cooks with less meat, but as her pathways have recovered so has her old eating favorites.

[Hekate]

25. Your husband is a gem -- that much comes thru.

Other people have good ideas — all I’ve got is this

[electric_blue68]

27. I think a University Hospital might be helpful...They at least seem to me...

might be more open to things.

What the heck with your Drs!? I mean there are enough reports of ofactory, and taste issues!

So sorry what a mess! Esp getting sick. : (

Maybe you could take a multi vit/min supplement bc you're missing stuff.
I like the suggestion of tiny bits of now problem foods, and retraining, telling your brain 'you know what this really tastes like! REMEMBER!!!'.

All the best luck in getting a serious clear up of this condition/after effect sooner than later!

[Safety Dawg]

28. My heart goes out to you

I had Covid in November of 2020. At the time I briefly lost my sense of smell, but then for the next month I felt like my head had been shoved into an invisible bag with 20 dirty ashtrays.

It was miserable, and when it finally went away, my sense of taste and smell were just wrong. Things I used to like tasted terrible. Some things I couldn't smell at all, and others didn't smell the way I knew they were supposed to. I tried smell training, but nothing worked.

Truth be told, my sense of taste and smell are still a bit off, but they do seem to be improving (or maybe I'm just used to it now).

Anyway, all that aside, here's what I did...I got adventurous with my choices in food. Since I only got frustrated and sad when things I was familiar with didn't taste right, I decided to seek out ingredients/dishes/cuisine types I had never tried and had no preconceived notions about. I even found out that things I previously didn't like suddenly tasted okay (like cilantro). I can't promise that it will work, but it has helped me.

[Tetrachloride]

32. My sense of cilantro has also improved quite a bit

I have a fair amount of Arabic / South Asian food: lentils, saffron chicken . i take a pinch of saffron mix salt a few times a day. actually i don’t know all what is in the mix — i just like it. the mix was a gift from Alexandria.

[Safety Dawg]

33. I know right?!

I could never figure out why people liked something that tasted like soap...but post-covid...What a difference!

[Tetrachloride]

34. great to know i am not the only one

i thought it might be a different variety of cilantro OR an age factor.

Late Oct and Nov 2020 is when my friends got sick.

[ARPad95]

35. Do you know about the Long COVID Support website?

https://www.longcovid.org/

From the Resources > Patients > Symptom Management page, click on the "Loss of Smell/Taste" link. The drop down box has a "Taste & Flavour" link which takes you to this website:

https://lifekitchen.co.uk/product/taste-flavour-digital-book/

Free Life Kitchen Taste & Flavour book
OUT NOW

Simply add the FREE Taste and Flavor digital download to your basket, once checked out you will receive an email with the download link! This download is available worldwide.

When it first came to light that many people with Covid-19 were experiencing loss of taste and smell, our first thought was – what can we do to help?

At Life Kitchen, we want to help as many people as possible to enjoy food again, and in doing so take further steps, however small, towards recovering their overall well-being. So welcome to our Taste & Flavour book. In it, you’ll find a range of recipes that use ingredient combinations, along with textures and other sensory factors, that we hope will help you derive pleasure from food – and we’ve excluded the ingredients we now know most people with Covid don’t fancy.

We undertook research and discovered that Covid-related taste and smell loss has some distinctive features. Sufferers found they didn’t want to eat certain, quite common ingredients, including onions, garlic, meat and eggs. In addition, certain foodstuffs seemed to trigger parosmia (changes to or distortion of the sense of smell), anosmia (loss of smell) and phantosmia (smelling something that isn’t there). Any of these olfactory conditions can have a profound knock-on effect for physical and mental health.

Using our five principles of taste and flavour – umami, smell, stimulating the trigeminal nerve (responsible for sensation in the face), texture, and layering flavour – we’ve taught over 1,000 people with cancer to enjoy food again. We wanted to apply these principles to create recipes for those people who have lost their senses of taste and smell as a result of Covid. Learn more about the science behind Life Kitchen.

Hope this will be helpful to you and you're able to enjoy food again.

[womanofthehills]

36. When I became ill in the late 90's with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity after Malathion poisoning,

I was unable to eat most foods and had that metallic taste in my mouth. I literally could not swallow most foods. I would cough for an hour or get bronchospasm after eating the few foods that I could swallow. MCS has similarities and differences to long covid. With MCS, you have a very enhanced sense of smell vs Covid where you lose your smell. You might search for an environmental allergy dr in your area. I was lucky as NM has a great environmental/allergy dr in Los Alamos, Dr Jacqueline Krohn, MD, PHD. (She has books). In the past ,the whole MCS community was going to her. However, a few yrs ago she became strictly a children's allergy specialist.

I would not panic, you will probably get through this. Just find a few healthy foods you can tolerate and stick with only them for a few months. Try all fruits and see if you can find one or two you tolerate - I would make sure to buy organic fruit. I tolerated oranges and bananas and those were the only two foods I lived on for two months after which I was able to add yogurt. Those were my 3 foods for six months, then I could tolerate chicken and as the time went by I could tolerate more and more foods. Today, I can eat most anything except the cruciferous vegetables and processed foods. However, I now eat totally organic fruits & vegetables and clean meat - local grass fed, grass finished beef and organic chicken.

You might also try fermented food like kefir or yogurt for protein. You might buy one of every fruit at the grocery store and see if there are any you do well with. Making your own kefir only takes minutes a day. i would only try high quality organic plain yogurts.

One day, I could not swallow any water and was sure I was going to die. My friend went out and got all different bottled waters and water from his well. I tolerated his well water and Mountain Valley Spring Water plain (not carbinated or flavored) in the green glass bottles. I was unable to tolerate any water in a plastic bottle. Have your husband buy you many different waters - preferably in glass containers, not plastic. Do you know anyone with a good well? Just because you cannot drink the water you are drinking doesn't mean you will not tolerate other waters.

[orleans]

37. i'm really sorry you're going thru this

i don't really have any food advice for you. i'm wondering if pot would help.
please find a new doctor who knows that covid taste is REAL.
and they can advise you or recommend someone (a specialist) who can actually help you.

[longislandAnnie]

38. Try Turmeric Boswellia

My son had Covid in November 2020, totally lost his taste and smell. He did a lot of research and heard about Turmeric Boswellia. He has been taking it with success, and when he skipped for a few days, felt like his symptoms were returning. Try it, it was a game changer for him.