I have good taste!

Some of my readers know that i've had a terrible, embarrassing and confusing problem for a few weeks now.  Just wanted to let ya'll know it has been diagnosed and it's a legitimate thing, with a name! Yayyy, it has a name! That part made me happy because i was feeling quite stupid about it and the fact that many searches to google didn't turn up a thing. I thought i was the only one!

Well, that was because i didn't know exactly what to search for. So my Dr. finally came back from holiday and she knew and understood! She explained some, which i promptly forgot, but the name she gave me to google did give me answers.

The Olfactory Nerve.  No not the old factory lol!.........although thats where i do come from. 
This from medical-look.com:

There are in fact, numerous neural segments which in turn create the sensory pathway of olfaction. It begins with the unmyelinated axons of the olfactory cells, which conjoin to create the olfactory nerves. The olfactory nerves travel along, through the foramina of the cribriform plate where they finally come to and end in the olfactory bulbs, which are created by grey and white matter.

OK there it is - created by my grey and white matter. Yes, i do have lots of that. And pink and blue stars and purple stuff too.

Well, i dunno what that all means but in english it's the sense of smell. Smell is connected to the taste buds and it looks like mine have been over-reacting, actually causing "supertaste" It seems that most people who get this cannot tolerate green tea, spinach, and coffee which however, i can. 

So, maybe thats why i gagged when i removed the lid from the bucket of KFC a few weeks ago. It was horrid until the hubster, daughter and grandson proceeded to gobble that chicken up like there was no tomorrow. Later, all my adventures with chicken went the same way and then it happened again one day when dh cut an onion in half - the smell was sooo bad and the hamburger he was going to put it on smelled worse than gross. At the movies the smell of popcorn seemed unusual but i bought some anyway and then couldn't eat it.

Eggs - omg! i threw them out and bought a new doz. which smelled as bad. So we ordered pizza which turned out to be a bad idea for me but our resident crow family feasted.  Then they got my ham sandwich. I quickly learned that on my weekly visit to the casino i have to stay away from the area where the food court is located as the smell there that i used to love is now overwhelming.

Meanwhile i'm sure everyone thought i was nuts; hell, i thought i was nuts.

Speaking of nuts that was another thing i tried but couldn't eat. And it went on and on and on.....and i was getting really hungry and the only thing that was more or less agreeable were vegetables. So i announced i was going to become a vegan. And then everyone laughed.  It was awful.

Eventually i realized i could still eat cookies and cake, thank you God!  Everyone thought i was back to normal. By this time my mal-functioning also included dairy yet i was craving for creamed soups. For some strange reason thats what i missed the most.  But now, just typing ice cream and yogurt almost made me sick.

So what is the cause of all this? 

Something in my sensory system has gone awry and one reason could be pain from the arthritis in my back.  Also could be an auto-immune disease which apparently if you get one, you're more open to getting others and theres tons of them.  Arthritis is one and i also have primary biliary cirrhosis, an auto-immune liver disease so i believe thats possibly what's responsible.

The main receptors of taste are sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Then theres a whole raft of others inc. a receptor that detects amino acids which are commonly found in meats and artificial flavourings. That partially explains it but the auto-immune thing speaks to it better in my case.

In my reading i saw another thing, something called "phantom odour" and that could explain why i sometimes smell a skunk in the middle of the night while nobody else does. Thats been going on for a couple years now.

And finally - the good news. This disturbing and noxious affliction is known to just arrive and then disappear after a while.....could be up to a year. Apparently these olfactory nerve receptors die and regenerate regularily, so i'm hoping they will die soon and simply not come back. My "old factory" can't take much more of this! On the bright side maybe if i leave the cookies and cake out of it i'll lose some tonnage before it leaves.