Drop foot was awkward. Optic neuritis was interesting. My bladder’s got a mind of its own. Intestines are shot. Neuropathic pain is dealt with by drugs. Spasms ditto. Trouble focusing? I can’t see the point of that either. Fingers are simultaneously numb and “stinging nettle” tingly. All dealt with.
But during this month I’ve lost my sense of smell and taste.
I’m not a fussy man but I do like a bit of butter on my bread. My pasta sauce recipe is the talk of Europe. A nice piece of mature cheddar was always welcome. 18 Year Old malt whisky, is that a hamburger you’ve got there? 70% Cocoa chocolate, Chicken Kiev - tasty, strong coffee, new mown grass, fuchsias. Freshly laundered shirts, my wife’s perfume and a good English pint of ale.
All gone.
The only up-side of the thief that is slowly nicking bits of my body is that giving up cigars was no loss whatsoever. And I’ll have saved a lot of money by the end of the year. But really! What’s the harm in the smell of cedar from a newly sharpened pencil? It’s outrageous!
Sounds like a horrid symptom, I can only hope it is a temporary issue, I was trying to find some kind of positive, the closest I got was , if this happened to me I could eat sprouts and liver which I loathe but would probably be good for me.
Sorry all I can offer is my sincerest hope that this crappy symptom goes away again.
Oh how terrible. I can’t imagine how life would be without taste and it’s friend, smell.
Dreadful. Like you, I live to eat, I do not eat to live. As I became too disabled to cook, I have very gradually taught my lovely OH to cook. His gravy is now the stuff of legends, his risotto perfection, the tartes tatin that have been produced have been photographed and emailed around the country.
We eat like princes, he shops in a fine butchers and a fine wine shop. So we drink like queens. Without our tastebuds all would be wasted. Dinner might as well be fish fingers and chips accompanied by a glass of water. Yes, we’d lose weight but at what cost?
So you have my sincere sympathy. I hope your senses of taste and smell return.
It’s happend to me during a previous relapse and lasted a couple of months. I noticed it when I couldn’t taste my toothpaste one night. It was a bit miserable as there was no enjoyment of food/drink. Hopefully it’ll pass!! X
yep, this is horrible and partly why i lost 5 stone, loss of smell and unable to swallow. i can chew and swallow now being careful to keep head straight until ready to swallow then open oesophagus (?sp?) on my strong side before attempting to swallow. when all is working with nose/mouth u take it all for granted! my speech therapist was fab educating me how to swallow (without feeling!)
maybe a talk with speech therapist for a full explaination for u?
it should return to some extent-if not there is help available to help you to cope.
That is truly horrible for you Ellie, obviously the weight loss is (hopefully) a good thing, but not to be able to eat properly is a misery. At least you’ve learnt how to at least swallow a bit, but for me, eating is my main pleasure in life!!
That you have managed to retain your sense of humour (appropriate or otherwise) is a miracle, throughout all that MS has thrown at you.
Oh no - how horrid for you! You haven’t by any chance been taking a prescription tablet called terbinafine for nail infections, have you? A friend of mine (not with MS) took this and lost her sense of taste and smell for months and months and I know from talking to her how horrible it is to have all the pleasure of eating and drinking vanish - she found the texture of food in her mouth was actively unpleasant and struggled to eat enough to stay healthy while it lasted. A miserable state of affairs. It is a known side-effect of the drug and the GP told her to stop taking it straight away. The GP also said that her sense of taste and smell would probably come back in time (although she was warned that it might not). She was lucky and back to normal after some months.
It would be great if something as simple as that was contributing to your situation, so I hope you won’t mind my daft shot in the dark.
Thank you for asking but I’ve never had Terbinafine. It’s not a daft question at all and I’m grateful that you pointed out something that might have been a very simple point. I take Dantrium, Amitriptyline, Cilatopram & Amantadine. I had a really awful reaction to Baclofen in December but apart from that, no problems with medication.
I always read the list of side effects of new meds because like to know which I can distinguish from symptoms of MS. The most noticeable is a dry mouth which could be two of the above, at least.
Why can’t the pharmaceutical companies come up with a nice side effect like making me look like George Clooney? The Magimix Nespresso Inissia Coffee Machine just doesn’t work as an aphrodisiac on its own!
For nearly two years my taste and sense of smell were reduced. Last year I phoned my daughter crying with joy to say I could smell cigarette smoke from up the road! Hurray, smell hurray. I could smell food after about two weeks and it hasn’t returned fully but I can also feel my face again too. Oh the joys! When I could smell things again, I hunted out my most preferred perfume and bought six small bottles of variations of that variety and enjoy it every day. Sometimes I just put it on to float round the house in whilst still in pyjamas. It might disappear again quickly so making the best of it.
Thank you for being so entertaining in our odd little world.
The thing that made me smile most because I could smell it completely - that blue putty stuff that the nurse gave me to do hand exercises with!
I would like to submit the motion that we adopt it as the motto for this forum. (Then there’s the merchandising; tee shirt, mugs, calendars, themed bouncy castle etc. This could be huge!
Oh yes, the doll would have to be the opposite of ‘Stretch Armstrong’ and would not stretch ha ha. Also, would have to have some sort of random timer so that each day a bit didn’t work. But to make sure it was lifelike, be very random so that you didn’t have the same bit not working for two days at a time, but would maybe just one day or an hour where the arm didn’t work, or a foot dropped or it couldn’t bend!! Also, a doll that could hold stuff but then would drop it 12 times a day but then hold it the next day. Oh I could go on.
Two types, one active for the good days and one that comes in pyjamas, bandages, splints etc. for the crappy sort of days. It could have a whole pretend cupboard full of pretend pills and a doll size wardrobe to put all the assisted extras that it might need. It could have a voice box, very lifelike that says things like ‘You’re havin’ a laugh’ or ‘M.S. can bog off today’ or words of that nature. Perhaps an X rated button for the phrases for not-good days.
Oh and you could pop it on the loo and then it could pee 14 times a bit later when it’s nowhere near the loo!
Wow I didn’t realise this was even a potential symptom. I love a wheat beer now and again, don’t know how I would cope with out being able to smell it taste. Sounds horrible but I hope you get better soon.
Hi there, did you get your taste back? I ask as this weekend I lost my sense of taste along with my lips, mouth and cheek being completely numb. It feels like I have been to the dentist and had my mouth numbed, among the loss of taste constant drooling is a bit of a pain as I have no feeling there in the mouth right now.