Medical Questions » Smell and Taste Questions » Question No. 933
| Question: | Everything I eat and drink tastes of salt. Chocolate is the worst. The only thing that is not bad is milk. Have you ever heard of a case like this? |
| Answer: | I must admit that I haven' t heard of a case like this, so I have been scouring my medical texts and cross examining my colleagues to find some answers for you. A wide range of conditions have come to my attention, some very rare, some probably too simple to account for your symptoms, but I will list them all for you.
The most likely cause is the side effects from a medication, and this includes many herbal and ' natural' preparations. These medications, or theit breakdown products, can be secreted as a salt in your saliva, and the more you salivate (eg. with something tasty like chocolate) the saltier the taste.
Tongue infections such as thrush can alter your taste sensations.
A chronic postnasal drip can affect taste as the phlegm slides down the throat past the back of the tongue.
Poisoning from heavy metals such as lead and metcury can cause abnormal tastes. If you have ever worked with these metals (eg. in a battery factory) you should have the levels of these metals in your blood checked.
There are a number of rare diseases that can affect taste including liver failure and the syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (SIADH), which causes a build up of the salt levels in your body.
You will need ro discuss these options with your own general practitioner to have them investigated, excluded or treated.
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