So, for three days now my husband has been complaining about a bitter taste in his mouth after eating. Nothing tastes good. His mouth tastes like metal. He didn't enjoy his favorite lunch at work.
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The first day, I wrote is off as a weird passing thing- maybe some kind of dental issue. The second day, I started to become a bit concerned. And finally, last night, after dinner was mechanically choked down with a few grimaces, I did what any caring wife would do. I turned to google.
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After typing in "bitter metallic taste after eating", I was able to diagnose my hubs right away. But, it is the STRANGEST thing... he apparently has a case of "pine mouth" brought on by ingesting pine nuts! We got most of our info from this blog post made by a fellow sufferer. We were blown away by the fact that this one blog post got 1,500 comments- so many that the blogger had to finally shut down the comment functionality on that post.
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It remains somewhat of a medical mystery, and there are different theories about whether it is an allergic reaction to a particular nut, or a reaction to an oxidized nut. He has eaten many pine nuts in his life and NEVER experienced this phenomenon. I even ate some of the nuts from this same bag and did not experience any symptoms, though I definitely didn't eat as many as he did.
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In any case, it's a relatively harmless condition that goes away in time- it's just really bothersome in the meantime. At least it isn't frightening now that we know what it is. He reports that it's a bit better today, and he thinks that having a spicy dinner tonight will be the best course of action. A reminder for all of us~ don't take those tastebuds for granted!