What are the symptoms of irritated taste buds?

Answer 1

For me, the symptom is an isolated taste bud that's tender and irritated. I usually "worry" it with my teeth. If I look at it closely in the mirror, it's whitish and somewhat enlarged when compared to the neighboring taste buds. I don't know what causes it, but I suspect it's a kind of herpes infection which is, as I understand it, a neurological malady of nerves and nerve endings. What are taste buds, but clusters of specialized nerve endings? I've had this condition all my life and it recurs maybe a couple of times a year, lasting for two, three or four days. I can't remember a time when I didn't have it and then I did. I'd say I remember noticing it at least since I was 9 or 10 years old -- maybe younger, maybe later, but thereabouts. It's always been irritating but never outright painful. I don't know that I remember ever having more than one irritated taste bud at a time, but I think there have been times when two were bothersome at once. It's usually near the very tip of the tongue or the sides of the tongue on the anterior portion near the tip. The eye teeth are the usual weapons to nibble at it and irritate the irritant, a kind of apicodental revenge.