Tastebuds changing with blood sugar levels.

[Lanny]

This has happened to me 3 times, over my 17 years of diabetes, & I’m wondering is it just me or has this happened to anyone else?

My tastes buds seem to slowly stop working when I’ve gone through periods of sustained high blood sugars, for whatever reason; prolonged illness. It happens slowly, so slowly that I’ve never noticed it.

I only notice it when I have started to address the issue of high blood sugars & it starts coming down significantly. Then, everything starts tasting better & better.

It’s happened again! I was eating my lunch yesterday, simple steamed salmon fillet, 3 tiny steamed new baby potatoes & a bag of steamed, in the microwave, veg. Everything tasted absolutely AMAZING!!! No seasoning at all either! It’s made me realise just how bland tasting food was before. I suppose my body was trying to tell me something but, it was too slow & subtle for me to notice?

I remember mentioning it to, my then, hospital team doctor at my first appointment 6 months after diagnosis, when my sugars had dropped from 14% to 7%. He put it down to, as he put it, another strange symptom that people have pre diagnosis.

I have also mentioned it to my dietian & nurse team before, in 2015 & will also do so again. My HbA1c on 22/02/18 was 82. Using an app called mySugr, posted by Flower, it is now 59.5. It was at 59.8 yesterday after my AMAZING lunch!

Has anything like this happened to anyone else?

 

[Vince_UK]

I have noticed Lanny that since I started low carbing and my BG under control, I have lost my taste for anything sweet.
Not the same as your know but I have definitely had a change in taste preferences.
Prior to Dx I just couldn't satisfy my sweet tooth and it was becoming a never ending cycle.

 

[Lanny]

Vince, now you’ve mentioned it, I realise that I’m starting to cut back on the honey I use in tea. I had my usual breakfast tea of 2 cups yesterday & the 1st. cup with my usual 1tsp was sickeningly sweet. So, I had my 2nd. cup with 0.5tsp. & enjoyed that much more. I had 0.5tsp of honey in both cups just now for breakfast!

 

[Davein]

This has happened to me 3 times, over my 17 years of diabetes, & I’m wondering is it just me or has this happened to anyone else?

My tastes buds seem to slowly stop working when I’ve gone through periods of sustained high blood sugars, for whatever reason; prolonged illness. It happens slowly, so slowly that I’ve never noticed it.

I only notice it when I have started to address the issue of high blood sugars & it starts coming down significantly. Then, everything starts tasting better & better.

It’s happened again! I was eating my lunch yesterday, simple steamed salmon fillet, 3 tiny steamed new baby potatoes & a bag of steamed, in the microwave, veg. Everything tasted absolutely AMAZING!!! No seasoning at all either! It’s made me realise just how bland tasting food was before. I suppose my body was trying to tell me something but, it was too slow & subtle for me to notice?

I remember mentioning it to, my then, hospital team doctor at my first appointment 6 months after diagnosis, when my sugars had dropped from 14% to 7%. He put it down to, as he put it, another strange symptom that people have pre diagnosis.

I have also mentioned it to my dietian & nurse team before, in 2015 & will also do so again. My HbA1c on 22/02/18 was 82. Using an app called mySugr, posted by Flower, it is now 59.5. It was at 59.8 yesterday after my AMAZING lunch!

Has anything like this happened to anyone else?

]
Lanny it is probably because you are a good cook, one who doesn't boil or bake all the taste and goodness out of a meal.🙂 On the other hand as Vince says sugar masks the true taste of food, similar to when people give up smoking and start to gradually regain the taste and smell of what they eat.

 

[pav]

Same here my taste has changed, what I liked to eat before some foods don't taste the same and not keen on them or lost interest in them, while it's the opposite for some things. Trouble is it's only after I have cooked it that I realise I am no longer keen on certain foods. Auto pilot for shopping till buys the same food and forgets which ones I have gone off.

 

[Maz2]

I was pre-diabetic, got out of it and now back in it again. I found I had lost my craving for carbs when \I cut them down. I also felt I had lost my sweet tooth. I have the occasional treat but don't miss it that much.

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

When I had DKA, I was starving but everything tasted horrible - nothing I ate or drank tasted right, even water tasted weird. It was a huge relief after I was put on an insulin pump in the hospital that things started to taste normal again!

 

[Northerner]

When I had DKA, I was starving but everything tasted horrible - nothing I ate or drank tasted right, even water tasted weird. It was a huge relief after I was put on an insulin pump in the hospital that things started to taste normal again!

I had a massive hunger when I was diagnosed, also with DKA. I hadn't eaten properly for about 5 days and when I tried I was sick - I lost 17 pounds in 3 days😱 As soon as they gave me insulin I was ravenous! 😱 The insatiable hunger lasted for about 3 weeks then started to tail off. My tastes have definitely changed over the course of the past 10 years. I used to be a crisp-a-holic but haven't eaten any for about 2 years now, and not much at all in the past 8 years. Also no longer snack on biscuits etc. like I used to, because it's not worth injecting for.