Goodbye to Bubbles

I've written before that I'm thankful for Imitrex, a prescription drug used to treat migraines. Recently I decided to ask my doctor about taking something to prevent migraines so I don't have to take Imitrex as often, because taking it too often can lessen its effectiveness.

So last Saturday I started taking a very low dose of a generic, prescription, anti-seizure medication that also has the known benefit of preventing migraines. (The dose for preventing seizures is 10 to 20 times higher than for preventing migraines and I will never come close to that.)

On Sunday, I took another pill first thing in the morning and not long after, I drank a can of Diet Coke. It seemed kind of flat, and I thought it had to be past its expiration date or something like that, but forgot to check it.

On Monday morning, I took another pill and not long after had a can of Diet Coke from a different source than the day before. It also tasted flat. That evening I had a caffeine-free Diet Coke from a soda fountain at dinner time; also flat.

At this point I started to wonder if the medication could possibly be causing this phenomenon instead of all the Diet Coke in the world suddenly going bad, and so I looked it up on Dr. Google, and darned if that there weren't multiple spots on the interweb where people were discussing how that specific medication made them unable to taste carbonation. (Note that the drug had this effect on me after I had taken just two pills, one of which I ingested only a half hour or so before I noticed the lack of bubbliness.)

From there I learned that in 2009 scientists figured out why we even taste carbonation: it's through the sour receptors in our tastebuds. I don't understand how it works, so I have no chance of understanding why this medication interferes with it. But it clearly does, at least in me.

So this may be my chance to kick the Diet Coke habit since it tastes not so great without the happy bubbles.