Longggg Term Taste Bud Malfunction...bummed out

[CloudCuckooMan]

So I'm almost at the 6 month mark since I started vaping. After 1 month in I had a taste bud problem that lasted for a month, then I started being able to taste everything again, except Gorilla juice and Boba's Bounty, which were my favorite before, they just didn't taste the same anymore. So I carried on, along the way I tried some BWB RY4 which was the most amazing juice I've ever tasted. It ran out quick and I wasn't able to get more so the search continued. I found Vermillion River which was a lifesaver. I vaped a heck of alot of Maplewood and Kentucky Premium, then they started not tasting very good anymore. I finally got a 30ml of BWB RY4 that I'd been waiting for forever, I vaped it for a couple days and then, same result...doesn't taste good anymore.

For the last month the only juice that my taste buds get along with is Vermillion River Applewood. I revisit my old favorites once every couple weeks, praying that BWB RY4 or Boba's will start tasting the way it used to...but to no avail. What is going on here? It's very depressing. I know that the dead buds phase is supposed to happen near the beginning, and I went through it. But now it's been almost half a year and every time I find something I like it just starts crapping out on me.

 

[pnguin]

I have kind of the same problem. I make DIY juice to popular recipes and it does not taste very good to me but I give it to my coworkers who rave about the great flavor, and I am constantly searching for something that really tastes good. I only have 3 juices that I really like and they are off and on. Maybe too many years of spicy food and smokes ruined my taste buds.

 

[Gimpy8877]

I get numb to flavors very quickly, If I vape boba's for a whole day by the end of the day I can't taste it. I have to switch up between 3-4 flavors throughout the day to keep this from happening.

 

[aziffel]

I have the same problem and I've been vaping a little over a year.After an hour or so,boba's just don't have any flavor or kick(and many other nicquids that used to be favorites).Try some DIY unflavored,not much flavor to get sick of,no letdown when ya can't taste it and
a little better kick to boot(might be because it's 80/20 pg/vg,I gotta increase the vg some,it don't make clouds the way I like)And I keep some menthol just for when I do want some taste

 

[sandybeach]

Wow, I thought there was something wrong with me. I can't taste anything except menthol. I bought 30 flavors, hoping to taste something.

 

[Vapenstein]

This is why I vape a very small handful of juices that I have been vaping for over a year. You need to stick with the stuff you find that you don't get tired of. I hit a wall so fast with 90% of the juice out there. Perfect example, Nite Lite Bounty Hunter. Gave it an award, loved it, then had no interest at all in it after about 2 weeks. That is the norm not the exception, so when you do find juices you don't burn out on you need to always keep those around.

 

[minigoat]

I had this yesterday, thought it would help if I held a 9 volt battery to my tongue, kind of frankenstein jump start my taste buds.

It didn't work… It didn't feel as intense as it used to either which really makes me wonder what is going on with this lack of taste?

 

[sandybeach]

When I smoked Newports, I only bought that brand, and it tasted fine. Not sure why I can't find my all day juice. I kinda like RY4, Pchela's Famous Five Layer Cake, Tobacco Haze. But not that much. I keep switching, and trying to find something I like.

 

[scinsc]

Probably not related but you never know. Several years ago after a heart attack my taste buds went haywire and everything tasted terrible. I consulted my Cardiologist and went through a battery of test. Nothing was found to explain this. Had I gone to an Ear, Nose and Throat Doc first I would have saved a lot of pain and expense because he found the problem right away.. low Zinc levels in my system! He told me to take Centrum Silver w/Zinc and after a few weeks my taste came back. I know it’s a long shot but a blood test is pretty cheap and it’s always nice to know what’s going on in your system.

 

[markfm]

I hit dead spots for probably 8 months, more often earlier than later. For me they tended to last only a day.

Separately, a given eliquid may indeed taste good for a while, then get not so much. That's why I DIY. I vaped one mix for several months, then another for several. During those times I also came up with a couple "specialy" mixes that I might chain vape for periods during a day, but overall not my all-day vapes.

I've been vaping the same eliquid pretty much continuously since late Feb, only rare use of other things (primarily to test DIY that I give to others). I use a variable voltage mod and a carto tank, will tweak the voltage up or down to adjust the flavor and hit throughout the day.

I haven't hit a dead day since I finally settled in, the mix still works for me, tastes good.

 

[swedishfish]

This is why I vape a very small handful of juices that I have been vaping for over a year. You need to stick with the stuff you find that you don't get tired of. I hit a wall so fast with 90% of the juice out there. Perfect example, Nite Lite Bounty Hunter. Gave it an award, loved it, then had no interest at all in it after about 2 weeks. That is the norm not the exception, so when you do find juices you don't burn out on you need to always keep those around.

Sometimes I feel like I'm doing PR for this juice and I don't mean to make it sound like it's the best juice in the world or anything- it's really not exciting juice. For some odd reason I never get tired of nhalers nuport. If I get another juice I really like, I'll vape that for a couple weeks and always go back to the nuport juice. When I just need some TH and to feel like I'm vaping something, that juice always does it for me.

I definitely never want to not have some on hand. The downside is, he only makes the nhale/xhale in 24. His high voltage is 12 but that's sort of on the thick side. Probably better for a mod or higher voltage vaping.

 

[swedishfish]

Probably not related but you never know. Several years ago after a heart attack my taste buds went haywire and everything tasted terrible. I consulted my Cardiologist and went through a battery of test. Nothing was found to explain this. Had I gone to an Ear, Nose and Throat Doc first I would have saved a lot of pain and expense because he found the problem right away.. low Zinc levels in my system! He told me to take Centrum Silver w/Zinc and after a few weeks my taste came back. I know it’s a long shot but a blood test is pretty cheap and it’s always nice to know what’s going on in your system.

That is extremely interesting!! Thanks for posting that!

 

[Sa Da Tay]

I'm curious if anyone here reporting these issues can comment on any global effects of vaping on your sense of taste? That is, do you also notice that food and drinks taste blander? Obviously it's annoying to lose the taste of juices, but if it's confined to vaping then it seems we're talking about a simple "flavor tolerance" issue. I imagine if I constantly munched on butterscotch candies for instance, the flavor sense would eventually subside for me. However, if this reaches into your general sense of taste, e.g. not only is Boba's bland but so is the steak you just ate, then that may indicate a more serious side effect of vaping, i.e. it somehow physically affects taste buds/sense of taste. Just another issue that needs clinical study perhaps.

 

[BiffRocko]

When I first started, I probably tried between 50-100 flavors. I couldn't vape the vast majority of them for more than a few hours before I had to switch. It took several months to find a flavor I could vape all day, every day.

One thing that may be happening that no one has mentioned yet is that your taste buds have probably come back after years of analog abuse. You probably couldn't fully taste those flavors you liked early on. Now that your taste buds have had some time to restore themselves, it's possible you're tasting subtleties in the flavors you didn't before. (ie. subtleties that ruin the flavor for you)

My best advice is to keep searching for your flavor. Get involved in PIF trades. You can try a lot of flavors that way. That's how I found my daily vape.

 

[swedishfish]

I'm curious if anyone here reporting these issues can comment on any global effects of vaping on your sense of taste? That is, do you also notice that food and drinks taste blander? Obviously it's annoying to lose the taste of juices, but if it's confined to vaping then it seems we're talking about a simple "flavor tolerance" issue. I imagine if I constantly munched on butterscotch candies for instance, the flavor sense would eventually subside for me. However, if this reaches into your general sense of taste, e.g. not only is Boba's bland but so is the steak you just ate, then that may indicate a more serious side effect of vaping, i.e. it somehow physically affects taste buds/sense of taste. Just another issue that needs clinical study perhaps.

I'd say it's more likely the long term effects of smoking and all the wonderful things it's done for us.

 

[markfm]

Net, my sense of taste (and smell) has definitely improved since I switched to vaping. Overall I pick up nuances better. Down side is that our female lab has occasional really obnoxious gas, which I now appreciate in all its horror

 

[Sa Da Tay]

I'd say it's more likely the long term effects of smoking and all the wonderful things it's done for us.

For sure, but according to research (and from anecdotes on here), your sense of taste resolves/improves after quitting smoking. And as people seem to be reporting on here, they initially are satisfied with the taste of juices but it then subsides into blandness. This would suggest another mechanism at work, either a tolerance buildup or a separate but similar affect on taste as cigarettes have. I suspect it is a combination of the remaining damage to taste from cigs as you noted and a taste tolerance as I suggested, but there's still always the possibility of vaping actually degrading the sense of taste like cigarettes do.

 

[markfm]

I've vaped the same mix for months, without discernable decrease in taste or smell.

 

[BiffRocko]

I've vaped the same mix for months, without discernable decrease in taste or smell.

Same here and I vaped the same flavor for almost a year straight.

 

[swedishfish]

For sure, but according to research (and from anecdotes on here), your sense of taste resolves/improves after quitting smoking. And as people seem to be reporting on here, they initially are satisfied with the taste of juices but it then subsides into blandness. This would suggest another mechanism at work, either a tolerance buildup or a separate but similar affect on taste as cigarettes have. I suspect it is a combination of the remaining damage to taste from cigs as you noted and a taste tolerance as I suggested, but there's still always the possibility of vaping actually degrading the sense of taste like cigarettes do.

I think it's more a case of if you eat a peanut butter sandwich every day it starts to not taste like anything kinda thing rather than the loss of taste due to smoking.

The only time I had an actual loss of taste was when I first started vaping. That lasted about a day or two where I didn't taste anything.