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Down in the mouth.

April 23rd, 2008 46 comments

I mentioned a medical mystery involving my mouth last week, and then I never followed up. Bad me. So here it is:

I have a weird taste in my mouth. It gets stronger and fades with the days, but it’s there. It’s kind of metallic, but not rusty like blood. It’s a little bitter and astringent as well. I have no clue what it is.

Last week when it was so strong that I kept thinking, “what is that taste and why won’t it go away?” every ten seconds, I made an appointment with the dentist. My teeth and gums look fine. He found nothing.

ETA: My husband says he hasn’t noticed any change in the quality of my breath, so whatever’s going on, it’s not manifesting itself that way.

I haven’t made any dietary changes. I’m not on any medications. I even discontinued my vitamins for a week to see if that did anything. I do have some dry mouth, but I don’t know if that’s a cause, or if it’s an effect – you know, like I keep swallowing to try to get this taste out so I have a dry mouth.

I decided to start keeping a diary of what I ingested (a depressing exercise) but nothing really turned up so I stopped. The taste seemed to diminish some, but today it’s back just as strong as ever. Last night we had takeout ribs and chocolate cake, because a) we had our IEP meeting yesterday and that always means headaches and stress all day so we decided to indulge, and b) we got our state tax refund and wanted to live the high life. So I guess I’ll start a food diary again, and this time I get to put down all the junk I ate yesterday. Swell.

My husband goes to the same dentist’s office I do. Different dentist, though. They usually don’t make the connection between us since we have different last names. I guess word got around of the medical mystery, because his dentist kept asking him all kinds of questions about whether I was still having the taste. Glad to know my mouth is water cooler material.

I guess the next step is to make a doctor’s appointment. I can’t think of any cause for this, and weird sensory changes should probably be checked out. Until then, if you see me making weird faces like a dog eating peanut butter, just ignore me.

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