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Comment by pjot | Hacker News Reader

Around 15 years ago I broke my nose which eventually led to a loss of taste and smell. Around 8 months ago I had surgery on the internal structures of my nose which in addition to allowing me to breath again, I can also taste and smell. The experience has been completely mind blowing.

On the flip side I can no longer order the spiciest of spicy Thai and Indian food from my usual restaurants. The owners poke fun at me now.

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fascinating. the receptors for hot / chili are in your tongue and not in your nose.

mind to elaborate how you can't eat chilly any longer?

In the name of science, go ahead and stuff some diced chilis in your nose and report back.

You can probably already find that on TikTok.

why on earth do you eat with your nose? don't do that! even for science, really just don't.

I don't either. in the name of science.

He probably doesn’t know how. But it’s an interesting point. I never thought about it before, but the event I went through had a similar link between taste and smell, and in hindsight I now don’t get why.

In college I made a bet with a friend that I could hold dominos wings hot sauce in my mouth for 10 minutes. At the time, the wings from dominos were actually very spicy. It was painfu, I spent about 30 minutes washing my mouth out after that. I lost my sense of taste AND smell for an entire year.

Why did I lose my sense of smell and not just my taste? Any docs here to explain?

It feels like damage like that is (speculation from reading about covid effects and causes) often neurological.

Maybe the intense overload of the pain receptors triggered some immune reaction that damaged nerves as collateral damage?

Interesting… I now (nearly 30 years later) have a condition that is considered a vestibular/neurological condition called mal de Debarquement. I also believe I suffer from vestibular migraines, but that is not diagnosed yet (seeing a specialist next week). I doubt that dominos hot sauce was the cause, but maybe I am susceptible to such things? I never thought to link these two things before.

I had a similar injury with on-and-off sense of smell since.

What type of surgery did you have done? I'd like to bring it up with my ENT doctor (who treats my nose as his personal polyp farm), and has prescribed only steroids (which DO work but have bad side-effects).

I had a septoplasty and turbinate reduction. The recovery was pretty brutal - there’s many nerves and pain receptors in the middle of your skull apparently. In all it’s amazing to not have a “stuffed” nose all the time.

I noticed this too, after losing my sense of smell/taste in june 2022 I've been able to easily tolerate spice that I wasn't able to tolerate prior.

That's fascinating because it implies that our ability to feel/respond to spicy food is all psychological. I would have figured that you would have felt at least some pain build while eating really spicy food but I guess not.

The response to spicy food is not all psychological. It's due to activation of heat receptors by capsaicin. Note: many factors affect the subjective experience of taste sensation.

I have been put into atrial fibrillation by the aggravation caused by spicy food from a popular indian restaurant in north Seattle. I had to get cardioverted. Was it due to stress? Was it due to the sustained rise in blood pressure? Was it caused by GI? It doesn't matter. I have to avoid it now, for safety.

I, too, have dined at Taste Of India, and paid the price. I'll do it again too!

My mouth can handle the spiciest food one can order. Unfortunately, my GI system isn't quite so tough.

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