Hypogeusia is a medical condition that affects your sense of taste. It results in a dulling, or partial loss of taste, making it difficult for you to distinguish different flavors. The condition is caused by a wide range of factors, including poor oral hygiene, certain medications, vitamin or zinc deficiencies, medical conditions like diabetes, and infections like COVID-19.
Fortunately, treatment is available, and you can regain your sense of taste once you begin treatment. A skilled dentist can diagnose hypogeusia, determine its cause or causes, and recommend the proper treatment. They will also recommend after-treatment care to prevent the condition from recurring.
An Overview of Hypogeusia
Hypogeusia occurs when your sense of smell is diminished, making it difficult for you to distinguish flavors. It is a different condition from ageusia, which is the total loss of the sense of taste, or dysgeusia, which is a distorted sense of taste. Hypogeusia means you have partially lost your sense of taste. Although part of your taste remains, your ability to enjoy certain foods is affected. Having hypogeusia can also mean that you have an underlying medical condition that requires treatment.
Treatment includes addressing its underlying cause. Thus, treatment varies from one patient to another. A medical expert will not only diagnose but also determine the cause of your condition for proper treatment recommendations. Thus, if you experience a weakened sense of taste, whereby bitter, salty, sour, or sweet foods do not taste with the same intensity as before, you should visit your dentist immediately. You may have mild or severe hypogeusia, which could appear suddenly or gradually, depending on the cause.
Common Causes of Hypogeusia
Understanding the cause of your hypogeusia is essential for effective treatment. Here are common causes of this condition:
Certain Infections
Some people’s sense of taste changes due to infections like the flu, cold, and sinus. A typical example of an infection that affected people’s ability to taste was COVID-19. Even today, COVID-19 is categorized as a leading cause of hypogeusia. Such infections damage or disrupt your taste buds or papillae and block the smell pathway, since your ability to taste largely depends on your ability to smell.
Some infections cause inflammations, which directly affect your taste receptors and nerve signals. This can result in an altered, metallic, or diminished taste, which typically clears as the infection resolves.
Certain Medications
Some medications, including antibiotics, affect your sense of taste. Some drugs alter or block the signalling process of taste buds or the nerve pathway that sends taste information into the brain. Others change the production of saliva, resulting in a dry mouth, also known as xerostomia. Saliva is critical for dissolving taste compounds so that they can reach receptors.
Some medications, specifically ACE inhibitors, can interfere with or deplete essential minerals, such as zinc, which are crucial for the proper functioning of the taste buds. Other drugs interfere with your neurotransmitters or ion channels, which are involved in transmitting taste signals to the brain. Also, some drugs have a strong metallic taste, which interferes with other flavors.
Examples of drugs that affect your sense of taste include chemotherapy drugs, antibiotics, and ACE inhibitors.
Nutrition Deficiencies
Some nutrients help improve or maintain a sound sense of taste. A deficiency in these nutrients can result in a diminishing taste or cause a total loss of taste. Examples of these nutrients include zinc and B vitamins.
Zinc is critical for the turnover of your taste bud cells. It also modulates neurotransmitters in the taste center of your brain. A lack of zinc can affect the function of, or hinder the repair of, your taste buds. This directly reduces your taste sensitivity.
Vitamins B12, B6, and B9(folate) are also critical for cell function and nerve health. A deficiency in any of these can affect your taste nerves.
Poor oral Health
Poor oral hygiene habits can significantly alter the way you perceive the taste of foods and beverages. Dentists recommend brushing your teeth twice a day and flossing daily to remove dirt, food, and other debris from your mouth. This discourages the growth of harmful oral bacteria, which affects the health of your teeth, gums, and other structures within your mouth.
Poor oral hygiene encourages the growth of harmful bacteria. The bacteria interfere with the production of saliva and the functioning of your taste buds. The heavy coating of bacteria, plaque, and food debris on your tongue and teeth forms a physical barrier that prevents taste stimuli from reaching your taste receptors that are on the tongue’s surface.
Additionally, harmful bacteria can inhibit saliva production, leading to a dry mouth. A dry mouth impairs your taste receptors, especially for salty or sweet foods.
Neurological Issues
Neurological issues, such as nerve damage from surgery or injury, may affect your sense of taste. They affect the taste pathway from your tongue to your brain.
For example, cranial nerve damage may affect the nerve that carries taste from the front of your tongue, which results in diminished taste for salty or sweet things. If it affects the nerve that carries taste for the back of your tongue, you may experience reduced taste for sour or bitter things.
If you have issues in the Central Nervous System, like a tumor, stroke, or brain injury, these issues can affect or interrupt your taste signals. Inflammatory diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, also interfere with the transmission of taste signals.
Underlying Medical Conditions
You may experience hypogeusia because of an underlying medical condition like diabetes and cancer.
If you have diabetes, your taste buds are affected by the systemic effects of the disease. For example, the disease causes metabolic disturbances, such as uncontrolled blood sugar levels, which can affect your sense of taste. In some patients, diabetes can cause nerve damage, which may affect the nerves that transmit taste signals from the taste buds to the brain. Diabetes also affects zinc levels in your body, which in turn affects your taste perception.
Cancer treatments, such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy, can interfere with taste perception. They may also damage your salivary glands, resulting in reduced saliva production in the mouth.
The presence of a tumor, especially near a neural pathway, can alter or physically damage your taste sensation.
Environmental Factors
Exposure to harmful substances, toxins, and chemicals can damage delicate structures within the body, including the sense of taste. For example, exposure to heavy metals like lead and industrial chemicals such as insecticides and pesticides may interfere with the functioning of your taste receptor nerves and cells. This may cause a distorted or diminishing sense of taste. Excessive use of disinfectants may also cause taste disturbances.
Additionally, certain environmental factors can lead to viral infections, such as influenza and the common cold, which cause nasal congestion and inflammation that affect your sense of smell and taste.
Some everyday habits like cigarette smoking and smoke inhalation may alter your taste buds by reducing the flow of blood to your tongue.
Common Symptoms of Hypogeusia
Hypogeusia is a condition that starts mildly and worsens over time. Therefore, you require immediate treatment to prevent further deterioration and improve your chances of a complete recovery. Additionally, most cases of this condition are caused by underlying medical conditions that require immediate treatment to prevent them from worsening. It is essential to know some of the common indicating factors, which should prompt you to seek treatment once you experience one or a few of them. Here are some of the common symptoms of hypogeusia. Note that these symptoms vary from one patient to another:
Weak Sense of Overall Taste
Some people’s sense of taste weakens gradually or suddenly, immediately they acquire hypogeusia. This means that you no longer taste the same way you did before the disease. Anything you taste does not feel the same, including food and beverages that have a strong taste of bitterness, saltiness, sweetness, or sourness. Basically, if you notice a change in how things around you taste, it could be time to talk to a medical expert.
Inability to Detect Some Tastes
Your ability to experience some tastes may be affected gradually or suddenly. This means that some of the things you could taste before have lost their taste. If the people around you can detect the taste of some foods or beverages, except you, it could be time to talk to a medical expert.
Difficult Distinguishing Tastes
Some people with hypogeusia are unable to distinguish some tastes. If you are affected this way, you may not be able to tell the exact taste of a particular food or beverage. For example, you may not be able to distinguish between salty and sweet foods. It helps to determine the cause of your condition. And seek treatment immediately before it worsens.
Diagnosis and Treatment for Hypogeusia
When you visit a dentist after experiencing one or more of the symptoms mentioned above, they will conduct an examination to determine a diagnosis and recommend treatment. A dentist will perform a physical exam to assess the health condition of your teeth, gums, tongue, and other structures within your mouth. They will also ask questions about your symptoms, your medical history, other symptoms you experience, and your recent or current treatments. If further examination is needed, the dentist will recommend additional tests to determine the following:
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The quality and level of the taste you can recognize or detect
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If you can tell the difference between familiar tastes like sour, bitter, salty, or sweet
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If you can distinguish between two tastes, like salty and sweet, or sour and bitter
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If your ability to taste improves with increased flavor concentration
The examination helps the dentist determine the underlying cause of your condition and its severity. Thai informs the treatment approach they will use in developing a personalized treatment plan for you. Generally, treatment for hypogeusia may include the following:
A Change in Your Lifestyle
Remember that some habits in your lifestyle can cause or contribute to hypogeusia. In this case, your dentist will recommend practical lifestyle changes to help stop the condition and improve your sense of taste. Again, the changes your dentist will recommend depend on the underlying cause of the condition. Some of the changes that may enhance your sense of taste include the following:
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Quitting cigarette smoking, or any other use of tobacco products, could be affecting your taste buds.
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Improving oral hygiene by ensuring you brush your teeth twice daily, floss every day, and visit your dentist regularly for routine dental checkups
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Protecting yourself when handling harmful chemicals like pesticides and insecticides
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Asking your doctor to change medications that may be affecting your taste, to safer ones that have fewer side effects
Medical Treatment
If an underlying medical condition causes your condition, your dentist will recommend treatment of the underlying condition to improve your sense of taste. Examples of illnesses that cause or contribute to hypogeusia include the common cold, sinus infections, allergies, nasal congestion, and COVID-19. In this case, your dentist may refer you to a medical professional for further diagnosis and treatment. They may recommend decongestants, antibiotics, antihistamines, and corticosteroids to improve well-being and enhance your sense of taste.
Surgery
Severe medical conditions that affect your sense of taste can be treated through surgery. Your dentist or doctor will recommend surgery if there is an underlying condition that, if corrected, can improve your taste buds. The idea, in this case, is to treat an underlying condition. The condition could be a structural abnormality or growth that blocks your nasal passage or inhibits the functioning of nerves that transmit taste chemicals to the brain. Examples of surgeries that can improve your sense of taste include the following:
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Surgeries to remove nasal polyps
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Septoplasty is performed to correct a deviated septum
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Sinus surgeries for chronic sinus infections
Find an Experienced Dentist Near Me
If you experience hypogeusia in Encino, you can significantly benefit from the diagnosis, treatment, and care of an experienced dentist. Hypogeusia starts mildly and worsens over time. If left untreated, it can affect your ability to enjoy your favorite foods and your appetite. Fortunately, treatments are available, depending on the underlying cause of your condition.
At Lasting Impressions Dental Spa, we take the time to diagnose and understand the cause and severity of your condition. This helps us recommend proper treatment and develop a customized treatment plan for you. Please call us at 818-751-5100 to discuss your treatment needs and our services in more detail.
