Loss of smell and impairment taste qualities- the problem is quite common. This disorder may be temporary or chronic, complete or partial. What to do if a person has stopped hearing smells and tasting food, and what are the reasons for this phenomenon?

Loss of the sense of taste and smell has a specific classification. Depending on the degree of manifestation of the disorder, the following varieties are distinguished:

1. Hyposmia, a partial loss of the ability to sense and distinguish smells, is the most widespread.
2. Anosmia is a complete loss of olfactory function. With anosmia, behavioral disorders develop and the patient's quality of life decreases, depriving him of the opportunity to enjoy food. Sometimes this violation becomes the reason for the development depressive states, anorexia, exhaustion of the body.

This problem can be extremely dangerous. When a person ceases to distinguish between the aromas of taste and smell, he becomes uninterested in the process of eating food, which often leads to refusal to eat. Against this background, numerous complications, diseases of a nervous and gastroenterological nature develop.

In addition, if a person does not smell smoke, gas, toxic substances, this can pose a serious threat not only to his health, but even to his life.

Why does it happen?

Ability to sense and distinguish aromas - complex physiological process. The mucous membranes of the human nasal membranes are equipped with special olfactory receptors that perceive odors. With the help olfactory nerve the corresponding information enters certain areas of the brain responsible for recognizing aromas.

Therefore, loss of smell may be due to various factors otolaryngological, nervous nature. The following reasons cause loss of taste of food and smell:

• diseases of the nose - sinusitis, polyps, rhinitis;
• consequences of a cold;
• curvature of the nasal septum (congenital or acquired);
• tumor neoplasms localized in the brain;
• Parkinson's disease;
• allergic reactions;
• previous surgical interventions in the nasal cavity;
• multiple sclerosis;
• echinococcosis;
• long-term, uncontrolled use vasoconstrictor drops and sprays;
• traumatic injuries to the nose;
• inflammatory lesions of the olfactory nerve;
• diabetes mellitus;
• traumatic brain injuries;
• age-related changes (in people over 65 years of age).

Most often, the sense of smell is impaired after a cold, which is due to the presence of nasal discharge, the use of vasoconstrictor drugs, irritation of mucous membranes and receptors.

Anosmia can act as a symptom of serious pathologies affecting internal organs, such as oncological processes, renal failure, liver cirrhosis, disorders hormonal levels, endocrine diseases.

Therefore, if a person has no sense of taste and aromas for a long time, it is necessary to consult a doctor as soon as possible.

Diagnostic measures

When you lose your sense of smell, the causes and treatments are largely interrelated. To achieve stable positive results it is necessary to identify the provoking factor, the underlying disease and concentrate on its treatment. For example, a person who has lost the ability to distinguish smells due to a cold and a patient with a traumatic brain injury will have completely different treatment methods.

In this regard, diagnostics must be carried out comprehensively. First, the otolaryngologist examines the patient, studies the clinical picture, concomitant diseases and the results of the collected anamnesis. To determine the causes of anosmia, the following instrumental techniques are prescribed:

• rhinoscopy;
• X-ray examination;
• ultrasound diagnostics.

To test olfactory function, specialists use aromatic oils, cloves, coffee beans, fragrant soap. Sweet, bitter, and sour substances help determine the ability to sense and identify taste.

In some especially difficult cases V diagnostic purposes A computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging scan of the brain may be recommended.

Based on the results obtained, the doctor gives the patient accurate diagnosis indicating the causes of anosmia and determines how to treat the disease.

Principles of treatment

When anosmia is diagnosed, a treatment program is developed depending on the reasons that provoked it. this problem, the underlying disease.

In some difficult cases, for example, with congenital anosmia, treatment is complicated by the inability of neurons to regenerate processes. IN similar situation will only be effective surgery, and then provided that it is carried out before the child reaches 4-5 years of age.

Loss of taste and smell due to a runny nose, polyposis, and sinusitis requires elimination pathological processes affecting the olfactory organs. Therapeutic methods For these purposes, both conservative and surgical treatments are used, depending on the characteristics of a particular clinical case.

If the loss of the taste of food and the ability to distinguish odors is due to traumatic injuries nose, head, face, then special treatment the patient does not need it. Elimination of the consequences of injury, proper rehabilitation will lead to natural recovery olfactory functions, provided there is no intersection of the so-called pathways.

During radiation therapy, loss of smell is caused by damage to the mucous membranes and nerve fibers. Unfortunately, of this kind the changes are irreversible and practically not amenable to therapeutic correction.

Conservative therapy

Conservative methods of treating anosmia are selected by the doctor individually, based on the characteristics of the underlying disease. If the patient has been diagnosed with sinusitis, viral or bacterial rhinitis, he is prescribed a course of antibiotic or antiviral therapy.

To clear nasal cavity from snot, reduce swelling of the nasal mucous membranes, anti-inflammatory drugs intended for external use may be recommended.

If the ability to recognize odors is a manifestation of allergic reactions, then treatment is carried out using antihistamines, corticosteroid hormones with pronounced anti-inflammatory properties.

Often, patients suffering from anosmia are prescribed drugs with increased content zinc, since the lack of this substance in the body negatively affects the olfactory function. It is also recommended to take vitamins A, which prevent degenerative processes in the epithelial layer of the nasal mucosa.

All medications must be prescribed individually by a doctor, and they are allowed to be taken only if strict adherence dosage and duration of treatment course.

Good therapeutic effect give rinsing of the nasal cavity, helping to eliminate mucous secretions, cleanse the mucous membranes of pus, allergens, toxic substances, and restore drainage properties. This kind of physiotherapeutic procedures is recommended to be carried out daily, 2-3 times throughout the day.

Surgical treatment

Surgical intervention to restore olfactory function is necessary if the following clinical indications exist:

• the presence of polyps in the nasal cavity;
• deviated nasal septum;
• tumor neoplasms (benign or malignant) localized in the nose and paranasal sinuses.

Chemotherapy radiation therapy the sense of smell is treated as it develops oncological processes, malignant tumors brain, ENT organs after a preliminary operation to remove tumors.

Folk recipes

Means traditional medicine can be very effective for disorders of the olfactory function caused by a runny nose and swelling of the mucous membranes. To achieve maximum effect, it is recommended to combine home remedies with medications and procedures prescribed by your doctor.

The most effective and effective recipes to restore the ability to sense smells and tastes, borrowed from the treasury of traditional medicine, are the following:

Even though folk remedies differ natural composition, before using them, it is strongly recommended to consult with your doctor.

Loss of smell - serious problem, which not only reduces a person’s quality of life, but may also indicate the presence serious illnesses and malfunctions of the body that require immediate medical intervention. Therefore, if a person ceases to distinguish the smell and taste of food, it is necessary to contact an otolaryngologist, undergo diagnostics to determine the provoking factors of anosmia and appropriate treatment.

Depending on the causes of the problem, restoration of olfactory function can be carried out using methods conservative therapy or through surgery.

At least once, everyone has lost the ability to taste something they eat or drink in their mouth. Most often this happens during colds when the viruses that cause them infect and taste buds oral cavity. After a course of treatment of diseases, taste sensations return again. But there are other reasons for loss of taste.

Taste buds

The taste buds located in the human mouth are responsible for the sensation of taste. Sensations arise when they come into contact with objects falling into the cavity. Typically this is food. In addition, they allow you to distinguish it:

• Temperature
• Consistency
• Compound
• Sharpness

A person can distinguish 4 tastes: bitter, sour, sweet and salty. For the receptor to work, the product must be moistened. If it is dry, then moisture gets into it from saliva. After this, its interaction with receptors occurs.

They are sensory cells collected in papillae. They are located on the tongue, cheeks, pharynx and larynx. Almost every 2 weeks, receptors are renewed: new ones quickly appear in place of dead old ones.

Signals from taste receptors enter the brain through complex system nerve fibers. After this, a person is already able to identify the taste and all its shades. At the same time, the organs of smell and touch operate.

All information is collected and analyzed in the head. This is exactly how you get the feeling about the taste and the product as a whole.

Popular video on the topic of taste buds:

Types of violations

If the mechanism for capturing taste is disrupted, a person stops feeling it. It can be expressed in to varying degrees. Taste disturbance called dysgeusia, which is divided into:

1. Ageusia – loss of basic sensation
2. Hypogeusia – weakening of basic sensation
3. Parageusia - incorrect feeling
4. Fantageusia - a feeling of taste for no reason

A person may not feel the taste at all, or it will be weakened, or instead of sour, he will feel bitter. All these symptoms indicate problems with the functioning of the receptors.

Taste buds on the tongue

Causes of receptor disorder

Impaired taste or complete absence may be caused by damage to the connecting elements - the glossopharyngeal and facial nerves. There may be several reasons why the sense of taste deteriorates:

• Poor oral hygiene
• Difficulty in delivering the product to the taste buds
• Loss of contact between product and receptor
• Inflammatory processes in the oral cavity (colds, runny nose, flu)
• Taking medications that reduce natural production saliva
• Smoking
• (most often cause temporary loss - delirium)

Distortion of taste can be caused by a disruption in the functioning of the brain itself, where the signal from the receptors is received. This may be caused by the presence of evil or benign tumors. The sense of taste may be impaired when infectious diseases ear canals or during their operation. This is where the nerve passes that sends a signal to the brain.

Each part of the tongue is responsible for its own sensation: the tip is sweet, the middle is salty, the back is bitter, the side edge is sour.

The sweet taste may disappear if the tongue is burned or its tip is inflamed. Salt ceases to be felt when there is a bacterial or fungal infection oral cavity.

Another cause of the disorder may be. Partial loss of these taste buds can be caused by damage to the brain stem, neuritis of some cranial nerves or mental disorders(schizophrenia).

When the sense of taste is lost, a dullness of smell often occurs. A special test will help you check its sharpness. You should take substances that have a strong smell, such as coffee. Depending on the patient’s sensations, one can judge the loss of smell.

Diagnosis of loss of taste

First of all, the taste sensitivity of the receptors is assessed to determine the threshold for its manifestation. The patient must take turns determining the taste of the substances offered to him: citric acid- sour, table salt– salty, sugar – sweet, quinine hydrochloride – bitter.

The components are applied to certain areas of the tongue. Based on the test results obtained, one can judge the extent of the lesion and clinical picture disorders.

In addition, a blood test is performed to determine infection, inflammation, allergen, anemia and blood sugar levels. Tests are also prescribed to detect renal or liver failure. The patient should consult with:

• Otolaryngologist
• Dentist
• Endocrinologist
• Neurologist
• Gastroenterologist
• cardiologist

To date, there are no exact diagnostic measures, the results of which are guaranteed precise definition true reasons violations. As for neurology, the doctor has to look for the location of the local lesion.

Causes and diagnosis of taste disorders:

Treatment

The basis of treatment is eliminating the cause of the disorder. Therefore, treatment is most often carried out comprehensively. The course depends on the factor that provoked the violation:

1. In case of insufficient saliva production, “artificial” saliva is prescribed - Hyposalix, Salivart.
2. To moisturize the mucous membranes, mouth rinses that have antibacterial properties are used.
3. When medications are prescribed for: , .
4. If you have problems with the oral cavity, you should consult a dentist and treat caries and tidy up your gums.
5. When accepted.

Sufficient levels of zinc should be maintained in the body, folic acid, iron and vitamins A and B12. If there is a shortage of them, then you can take Zincteral, Berocca or take injections of Cyanocobalamin. Elimination main reason will restore loss of taste normal work receptors.

May be carried out homeopathic treatment disorders of the taste buds. The homeopath prescribes medications depending on the degree of loss of taste:

1. For absence of taste caused by paralysis - Hyoscyamus
2. With the simultaneous absence of taste and smell - Sepia, Silicea
3. To restore taste perception - Gepar Sulfur

It's a little unconventional technique, which is characterized high efficiency and minimal risks to the patient's health. The dosage and drug are selected by the doctor for each patient individually.

Methods for increasing taste sensitivity

They will help you quickly restore your ability to sense taste diversity. Motherwort and lemon balm, which have a sedative effect, will help eliminate neurosis as the cause of taste disturbance. If you have candidiasis, you should rinse your mouth with oak or.

Spices help add a sharp taste sensation. Dishes should be seasoned:

• Carnation
• Cinnamon
• Mustard

A great workout for your taste buds will be the variety of spices you consume. Eating lemon also has a positive effect on enhancing the taste. If the patient is a smoker, then you should give up the bad habit.

Prevention

To avoid problems with the functioning of taste buds, you should healthy image life and take care of your health.

You need to brush your teeth daily, at least 2 times a day. The brush and paste must be correctly selected.

You should use mouth rinses after every meal.

Do not neglect the treatment of colds and infections. The course must be complete and guarantee absolute recovery. With nutrition, the body should receive more minerals and vitamins as mono. You should train your taste receptor apparatus by adding seasonings to your dishes. The more varied they are, the better.

The influence of taste on life according to Ayurveda:

Forecast

The prognosis for restoring the sensitivity of taste buds directly depends on the prognosis made for the treatment of the disease that provoked this disorder. Taste disturbance can be temporary or long-lasting. In any case, the situation should not be left to chance. The prediction of reversible taste bud dysfunction is made through a test that is used to diagnose the disorder.

The tongue is an extremely sensitive organ. A person can distinguish hundreds of tastes. Loss of sensitivity is extremely painful. The loss of taste sensations is even more difficult for patients than the loss of tactile sensations. There are many reasons for this problem. From the most minor to the most serious, requiring immediate medical attention.

Reasons

Loss of taste - causes

Taste buds are located on the taste buds of the tongue. For them to work at full strength, it is necessary that the oral cavity is moist and the tongue is clean. In addition, taste is closely related to the sense of smell. So, with hyposmia (decreased sensitivity to smells), a person cannot distinguish the taste of tea from coffee, strawberries from strawberries, and so on. Accordingly, the problem can arise at different levels.

Rhinitis. Spicy or chronic types runny nose significantly complicate taste perception. Fortunately, since a runny nose most often goes away on its own, loss of taste is a temporary problem, and not the biggest one.

Taking medications. Medicines, causing dryness mucous membranes (atropine-like effect), have among the side effects hypogeusia (decreased taste). Often this side effect turns out to be so unpleasant for patients, especially if therapy with these medicines long-term that they ask doctors to cancel the prescription and replace the medications with others.

Defeat salivary glands . Tumor, infectious and inflammatory processes can lead to decreased saliva production or blockage of the excretory ducts. Which leads to dry mouth.

Infectious processes of the oral cavity

Candidiasis. Fungal infection, arising as independent disease, and as a result of taking glucocorticosteroids or antibiotics. One of the manifestations of the disease is a thick coating on the tongue that blocks taste buds, and, consequently, the perception of taste.

Bacterial infections. Specific and nonspecific - pathogenic and conditionally pathogenic microflora are able to multiply in the mouth, feeding on the smallest pieces of food stuck between the taste buds of the tongue. At the same time, a film is also formed - a coating on the tongue.

Diseases internal organs And bad habits . Pathologies gastrointestinal tract, smoking - cause the formation of a coating on the tongue that is thick enough to block the sense of taste.

Genetically determined pathologies. With these diseases, there is no loss of taste sensations - they are initially reduced. However, the symptom of hypogeusia is fully present.

Damage to pathways. Signals received by the brain from the tongue travel along the fibers of two nerves - the intermediate and glossopharyngeal. Both nerves pierce before entering the skull bone structures. Accordingly, with fractures of the skull bones, either complete loss of sensitivity of the tongue or its decrease is possible. In addition, once in the brain stem, in the first neuron that perceives information, the signal goes to the thalamus, which collects information from all senses. And only after this does the “taste” enter the big brain. Consequently, at any of these levels, a vascular catastrophe may occur - a stroke may develop tumor process. In both cases, there will be a loss of taste.

Cortical disorders. The taste recognition area is located in the temporal lobes of the brain hemispheres. When they are damaged (due to injury, infection, stroke), both a complete loss of taste sensations and a violation of their recognition can develop - that is, a person will feel the taste, but will not understand what he felt.

As you can see, there are many reasons for hypogeusia. Fortunately, serious pathologies in this problem occur much less frequently.

Treatment

Loss of taste - Treatment

From the above reasons, it becomes clear that the patient can fight hypogeusia on his own only if it is caused by rhinitis or poor oral hygiene (the appearance of plaque on the tongue). In all other cases, consultation with a specialist is required, who will not only correctly diagnose the disease, but also prescribe appropriate treatment.

• So, in case of pathology located in the brain, a consultation with a neurologist is required.
• For skull injuries, a neurosurgeon and traumatologist will help.
• At infectious processes– either a general practitioner or an infectious disease specialist (in cases of specific diseases or when severe course nonspecific).

Unfortunately, there is no one cure - a panacea - for this problem. It's worse if long time do not consult a doctor, hoping that the taste will return on its own; the taste buds may atrophy, therefore, the taste buds will be destroyed. It is almost impossible to restore them due to the complexity of restoration nerve tissue. Therefore, if the loss of taste does not go away within a week, maximum a month, it is still worth seeing a doctor.

Our 5 senses for a healthy and long life. Practical guide Gennady Mikhailovich Kibardin

What causes taste sensations to change?

Having learned to train your taste, let's consider how taste sensations are related to olfactory, tactile and thermal states.

Many people know how the sense of taste is weakened when the sense of smell is excluded, for example, with a runny nose or when smoking.

The tactile reaction determines those aspects of taste sensations that are defined in people by such words as “astringent”, “mealy”, “sharp”, “burning”, “tart”, “sticky”.

The taste of freshness, such as mint or menthol, is due to an admixture of thermal sensations (local cooling due to rapid evaporation). Sometimes our taste sensations can be caused by a mechanical effect, simply put, the touch or pressure of a stream of air, as well as changes in external temperature. But in the first case, everything is complicated by chemical interaction, in the second - by heat transfer itself, cooling due to evaporation and changes in surface humidity.

Many older people remember how, in their distant childhood, they tested the functionality of a small flashlight battery using their tongue. Emergence unpleasant sensation When you touch the tongue of the battery contacts, the voltage of 4.5 volts is due to electrolysis and the formation of ions.

Researchers from Yale University (USA) showed that the sensation of sour or salty occurs when the edges of the tongue are cooled to +20 °C; When the edges or tip of the tongue are warmed to +35 °C, a sweet taste is felt.

Bitter substances directly introduced into the blood also stimulate the taste nerves. For example, after an injection of a bitter substance in a dog, the same jaw movements and grimace of disgust appear as when the substance is applied to the tongue. It happens that people complain of bitterness in the mouth some time after taking quinine, when it has already entered the bloodstream.

Cooling and heating reduce sensitivity to taste: a tongue cooled with ice for a minute ceases to taste sugar; when the surface of the tongue is heated to +50 °C, sensitivity also decreases. The area of ​​greatest sensitivity of the human tongue is between +20 °C and +38 °C.

The taste for a known substance may be enhanced by contrast with the taste of another, pre-active substance. Thus, the taste of wine is enhanced by the preliminary consumption of cheese and, on the contrary, is dulled and spoiled after all the sweets. If you first chew the root of the iris pseudacorus, the coffee and milk will taste sour.

Such an influence of some tastes on others may depend both on the purely chemical processes on the tongue, and from mixing in our consciousness the trace left by the previous taste sensation with a new taste stimulation. Tastes are easy to compensate for one another and make them pleasant, for example, too much sour taste- sweet, but at the same time there is no direct mixing of sensations, giving something in between, since the tastes of sweet and sour remain the same when mixed, and only our attitude towards them changes from the point of view of pleasantness.

Compensation of tastes not accompanied by compensation chemical properties taste substances, takes place in the central organs of our senses. The struggle of taste sensations is most easily observed if you put a sour substance on one half of the tongue and a bitter substance on the other. At the same time, a feeling of either sour or bitter arises in the consciousness, and a person can arbitrarily dwell on one or the other, but mixing of both tastes into something in between does not occur.

The entire structure of advertising gastronomy products is based on the phenomena of contrast of tastes, their compensation and traces, which has the physiological value that good, good taste food promotes its digestion, increasing the secretion of digestive juices and causing a mood so favorable for the normal course of all bodily processes in the body.

The connection between taste and olfactory sensations is obvious. You can reduce the influence of olfactory sensations on taste by pinching your nose tightly and refraining from breathing movements. At the same time, the real taste of many substances changes completely: for example, onions become sweet and difficult to distinguish in taste from a sweet apple.

Fruits, wines, jams - they all have a sweet, sour or sweet-sour taste. Meanwhile, the variety of sensations caused by them is enormous. This is determined not by their taste, but by their olfactory properties.

Finally, great value has a chemical effect of saliva on substances in the mouth. You can easily verify this if you take a piece of unleavened food into your mouth. white bread. Starch, which is insoluble in water and is the main carbohydrate contained in such bread, has no taste. As soon as you chew the bread, that is, bring it into contact with saliva, it acquires a distinct sweetish taste - a sign that part of the starch has been broken down by salivary enzymes into glucose.

This complex mechanism sometimes it breaks. Total loss of all taste sensations is called ageusia, weakening of sensations is called hypogeusia, other changes in the perception of taste sensations are called parageusia. A change in taste sensations can occur as a result of damage to the mucous membrane of the tongue due to inflammation and burns - thermal and chemical. Loss taste sensitivity It is also observed when the conduction pathways of the taste analyzer are damaged. Loss of taste on the anterior two-thirds of one half of the tongue is associated with damage to the lingual or facial nerve, in the area of ​​the posterior third of the tongue - with damage to the glossopharyngeal nerve. If certain brain structures are damaged, loss of taste sensitivity may occur in the entire half of the tongue. In some cases, changes in taste are caused by diseases of internal organs or metabolic disorders: a feeling of bitterness is noted in diseases of the gallbladder, a feeling of acidity is noted in diseases of the stomach, a feeling of sweetness in the mouth is noted in severe forms. diabetes mellitus. In some diseases, the perception of some tastes remains normal, while others are lost or distorted. Most often this is observed in mentally ill patients, and doctors associate the origin of these disorders with pathology of the deep parts of the temporal lobe of the brain. Such patients often enjoy eating unpleasant or unhealthy substances. Healthy man It doesn't usually do that. And thanks for this we must say to our natural taste analyzer.