Post tonsillectomy - taste disorder SOLVED possibly

I have been complaining for 6 weeks now post tonsilectomy that I can not tast sweets and difficulty swallowing. I can taste satly food only. I am very discourage I keep trying to eat chocolate. i am going today and buy some Zinc I hope it works. I love to eat and now I am just getting depressed. I can not afford to lose any more weight either. thanks for the advise. Sherry

I have been reading on line, and as a nurse this is frustrating, I had the same T&A back in July 2013. It is now Oct 2013,  I have the worst taste/tast distorstion as well as feeling choked at times. To compound everything I am pregnant with moderate to severe all day "pregnancy sickness".  I went to my ENT -  I really like him, but he said that it would return to normal, give it time, also that because of the hormones - it will be worse. I am feeling like I want to literally cut out my tongue.

I have read several articles, talked to medical friends and they all have been surprised of everything. I almost wonder if I have thrush at times. I have a white, thick tongue and this sweet metalic taste. I am over it, I have tried zinc, no real relief. Will attempt it again, but I guess we all are a medical mistery.  They need to do more studies on this I believe. At first I liked the weight loss associated with it. But now, I am done, everything I eat or drink makes me sick .  I would take strep all over as many times as possible instead of having this issue. Hope this changes quickly.

 

Good luck and prayers for those like me!

I am a former pharmaceutical rep and had the tonsillectomy & adenoidectolmy(T&A) procedure the middle of June 2013, approximatley 5 months ago.  I too, have experienced a taste disturbance since the procedure.  Some food tastes metallic, particularly salty food or meat.  Other food seems bland or essentially tasteless.  I am particularly interested in the issue because I used to promote a drug called Lunesta, indicated for insomnia, that caused taste disturbance in a moderate number of patients, especially women.  Another point of interest is the fact that my father who had multiple surgical procedures also had a remarkable taste disturbance, though he did not have the T&A procedure, nor did he take Lunesta.  Now the good, the bad, and the unknown.  In my case, the taste disturbance, 5 months post surgery, is significanlty improved but not completely resolved.  I, at 53 years of age, had a tough case with two instances of breakthrough bleeding that required recauterization.  My tongue was incredibly sore after the secondary procedures.  I understand that my tongue was tightly clamped with forceps and pulled well out of my mouth to facilitate the cauterizing of the bleeding vessels.  The point here is that I believe there is significant trauma to the vast amount of nerve endings in the tongue, which certainly lends credibility to the procedure's collateral damage to nerves in the region that involve taste.  Referring to my dad's situation, I recently reviewed an article in Anesthesiology, a peer reviewed medical journal. A recent study suggested approximately 2% of patients that undergo general anesthesia, experience taste disturbance to one degree or another.  As previously mentioned, my dad had multiple procedures, some of which lasted hours. Unfortunately for him, his taste distrubance was exceptional and never completely abated.  After much experimentation, he found a few food items he could tolerate and focused on eating them.  With regard to Lunesta, research has yet to disclose the related causation of taste disturbance in some patients, other than the fact that it is systemic in nature.  In summation, it would appear that there may be at least two distinct issues related to taste disturbance experienced by T&A procedure patients, including nerve trauma and the effects of anesthesia.  I have yet to discuss this issue with the ENT specialist who performed my procedure, nor have I tried any supplements or zinc therapy to date.  Fortunately, in my case, the taste disturbance is improving and my hope is that it improves for others over the course of time.

I'm researching this subject and have some possibly useful suggestions:

Have you tried?:

Lysine supplements?

Getting out into nature, far away from technology, such as camping in a national park for a week or 2 while taking the Zinc supplements regularly?  Try upping the dose.

Do the following taste good or bad to you?

Fresh squeezed lemonaide, lemon juice, orange juice, pineaple juice

McDonald's Iced tea (try this!), chocolate, raw carrots

Try these foods while out in nature for a while, and store the tea in a pot and keep the lid on.

If any of this makes a difference, let me know, please.

My wife is similarly affected six months post op. The surgeon denies the effect could be caused by the tonsillectomy and instead suggests a coincidental loss of smell. This despite the fact that she can smell as well as ever.

Evidence on the web supports the view that taste loss is rare but real.

What is needed is research into the possibility of a common factor, such as post op infection, use of tongue depressor or over wide jaw opening. Sadly this would need a register of sufferers and none of the professionals seem to be motivated by anything but responsibility evasion.

Anybody know of a post-grad looking for a worthy study topic ?

Thank you so much for sharing! I haven't been taking my regular vitamins and noticed the problem getting worse. I'm off to buy some zinc! Thank you again.

i had my surgery Tonsillectomy and Uvula Removed- Oct 3, 2014 and my taste still isnt back. It has left me frustrated and totally disgusted with food. On the up side it has helped me loose 51lbs but Sweets are the worst. I can taste salty food so I am going to try the ZINC my Quack ENT says its all in my head... he makes me so mad tried to send me to a gastroenterologist.... A*hole.

i hope we alll get rid of the horrid taste...and after that...we eat waffles!!!!!   ...i taste vomit and rotten eggs and burned toast...

I'm having the same repulsive tastes you are with the bread, rolls, lemons, tomato anything it tastes like rotten molded tomatoes(!), mayonnaise, yogurt etc., this is horrible!! I asked my ENT and he knew about it and told me the nerve was damaged but to take the zinc. I did for a while with little change. But I'm gonna try it again.

You have just described all of my symptoms. Wondering if and when your taste came back?? I had my T&A 3 weeks ago

It's been two weeks since my tonsillectomy and during the first week all the popsicles and ice tea I was having tasted normal but when decided I was ready to actually eat solids i realized I couldn't taste sweetness anymore. Other foods taste a little dull but they still taste good I can still enjoy chicken soup for example. But when I eat or drink something sweet( except for what I'll mention later) I can sense a little bit of flavor during the first second but then it disappears completely not even leaving an after taste. Something really weird is that I can't even taste the sweetness in Coca-Cola but for some reason I can still taste sweetness in my home made fruit drinks, ice tea and popsicles I ate during my first week of recovery.

I wanted to share my experience to give folks out there some hope! I had a tonsillectomy on July 10, 2017. Like most on here, I was not warned of the possible side effect of taste disturbance.

Right after the surgery, I wasn't able to eat anything worth tasting - mostly baby food and popsicles. At about day 10 I began eating regular foods, and noticed that something was definitely wrong. Nothing tasted the way it used to! Meats had a bland, dulled taste, and I could not taste milk at all. Chocolate was extremely bitter, even if it had a high sugar content. I panicked and began to experiment with pure sugar and salt. Luckily, those two pure tastes were still there, but everything else was very off and not appetizing. I called my ENT's office twice. The same nurse told me it would take two weeks to return to normal. And then later she told me it could take up to six months to return to normal. Her best explanation was that people can experience temporary nerve damage as a result of the clamps they use to keep the tongue out of the way. I lost a good 8 lbs as a result of having no appetite.

That was just over two months ago, and thankfully, I've noticed that my taste sensations have begun to return, but very incrementally. Most foods, with the strange exception of dairy products, have begun to return to normal. Today I had a peach, and could tell it was a peach, not just orange mush.

My advice is to be patient and try to add really strong condiments to your food, like salt, horseradish, hot sauce, garlic, so you can at least get some sense of what you're eating.

Just over a year ago, I had to have facial reconstructive surgery to repair a shattered cheekbone. My body is still adjusting to the changes, including the nerves that were bruised as a result of the injury and surgery. Some spots on my face are still slightly numb, and others are hypersensitive. But as time goes on, I can feel things adjusting back to normal. The ENT who performed my cheekbone surgery was much more helpful. He told me that after trauma (surgical or otherwise) our bodies begin a long process of adjusting to their new structures and trying their hardest to return to normal.

I compare the two experiences because they both involve nerve damage, surgery, and a fairly long recovery period. It's definitely a terrible side effect, but one that, for most of us, begins to alleviate over time. Everyone is different, so our recovery times are going to vary widely.

Mark, did your taste sensation return fully? My experience was very similar to yours.

I feel everyone's pain. I had a tonsillectomy four weeks ago and my taste has been completely off ever since. While bland foods are palatable, they basically taste of nothing, and anything with a strong flavour tastes like the worst kind of chemical concoction imaginable. Citrus fruits, juices and fizzy soft drinks are the worst. I can taste some sugars but there is always a lingering bitter after taste. The only things that taste almost normal are Cheerios and bananas, and you sure as hell can't live healthily off them alone!

I found some advice elsewhere about how taking large doses of zinc and alpha lipoic acid, and chewing non-mint flavoured gum regularly can help with taste recovery. I have been taking 50mg of zinc and 400mg of alpha lipoic acid daily, but to no avail. Sometimes I imagine things are slightly improving and other times I just feel that I am getting more used to it. The pain post-surgery was brutal, but somehow this is worse. I take no pleasure in food and am feeling really down and depressed. I also have a really irritating foreign body sensation on one side of my throat.

My ENT says that I have most likely suffered damage to the glosso-pharyngeal nerve, and that he is confident that my taste will return within a few months, but he adds that if it does not, it could be permanent. The thought of spending the rest of my life like this is too awful to contemplate.

My question is this: while I have read many tales similar to mine on this and other forums, there seem to be far fewer posts describing taste recovery. Is this because it doesn't happen, or simply because when people recover their taste they are too happy about it to bother posting? If anyone out there has suffered a similar fate to mine and recovered their taste, I would love to hear about it. How long did it take? How did it happen? Was it a gradual recovery or a spontaneous one? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

That’s exactly how I’ve been describing my taste change to people!! I’m 7 days post op and the taste change has been around since day 2. It’s driving me nuts, and the taste is so strong that it’s causing a loss in appetite. I’m trying high amounts of zinc today!!