There you are, enjoying your favorite e-juice, chucking thick, happy clouds, when BAM!⁠—all the flavor is gone from your life.

You have Vaper’s Tongue, a little-understood malady that causes a loss of taste sensation. While it’s not life-threatening, it can certainly be life-altering if food and drink with friends is important to you.

Understanding what causes it is the first step to preventing or getting rid of it.

Causes of Vaper’s Tongue

First, it’s important to understand that Vaper’s Tongue isn’t a single condition, but rather a generalized name for a grouping of issues sharing a common symptom.

These can be related to vaping itself or entirely unrelated but noticeable because vaping gives you a standardized flavor experience that makes it easier to spot the degradation of taste.

– Taste Fatigue – The taste buds on your tongue, like other receptors in your body, can get worn out from too much of the same stimulus constantly. If you are heavily using the same flavors day- in and day-out, this can easily lead to a deadening of taste.

– Sinus/Nasal Issues – Smell is a big part of the tastes we perceive. If you are one of the millions of Americans who suffer from allergies and sinus issues regularly, they can affect your ability to taste if they get bad enough.

– Damaged Taste Buds – There are a lot of things that can damage the taste sensors on your tongue. And once they’re injured, it can take weeks for them to regenerate. From trying to eat food that’s way too hot to smoking, if it hurts your tongue, it can affect your taste buds.

– Smoking – Yeah, we just covered smoking, but even without damaging taste buds, smoking can do a number on them. From affecting your sense of smell to coating your mouth in a tarry film, cigarettes can leave you with a diminished vaping experience.

– Dehydration – Water is good for you, but most of us don’t get enough of it daily. Whether you just don’t drink much or you drink too much coffee, soda, tea, and alcohol, if you aren’t staying hydrated it can leave you tasteless. From stunting your tastebuds to leaving you with a mouth too arid to properly process flavor, drying out can be a big problem. (An individual often ask how much water should I drink a day, you can unfold this question with the ease of simple water calculator that considers a gender, weight, and exercise routine of a person.)

– Medications – Some medicines alter your sense of taste. Thyroid medications can be a major culprit, but there are too many others that have deadening of taste as a potential side effect to name. If you have a culprit in mind, google the drug name and “loss of taste”. And speak with your doctor before making any changes.

– Stress – Too many people think stress is just something that affects your state of mind, but it can manifest in a variety of ways physically too. Your brain is a powerful organ, and when it becomes overwhelmed, it can ask for help in a variety of ways.

Preventing and Treating Vaper’s Tongue

Luckily, Vaper’s tongue is often temporary. With a little trial and error, you can not only determine why you’re losing flavor, but also correct the action causing it and reverse its course.

Drink Some Water

Not liquid, but specifically water. Water hydrates your body, helps keep you healthy, and has a taste profile that is usually considered flavorless.

This can be a great place to start your search for a cure since most people don’t get enough anyway.

Switch Up Flavors

When you find “your” juice flavor, it can make vaping an act of expression. You aren’t one dimensional, however, so your vaping shouldn’t be either.

If the problem is simple taste fatigue, choosing a different flavor to vape on the market could be the answer⁠.

If your usual juice is fruity, such as the ever-popular Pineapple Express, choose a refreshing mint that offers a nose-tingling bite instead.

Refresh Your Nose

Scent fatigue is real too, and professional tasters have a simple trick to clear the palate.

Place some freshly roasted coffee beans in a baggie and sniff in their caramel-toned goodness.

This popular technique is also a favorite among candle and scent oil aficionados who need something to clear out their nose while choosing between scents.

Talk to Your Doctor

While a loss of taste isn’t necessarily a major medical condition, speaking with your medical provider about chronic allergies or sinusitis can enhance your quality of life greatly.

This would also be the route to take if you want to adjust your medicines, as you never want to do so without speaking with a medical professional.

Quit Smoking

Leaving cigarettes behind can help your taste buds get back on track and improve your health.

Many ex-smokers find that a few weeks after quitting they experience a richer sense of taste and smell as they go through their day-to-day lives.

Calm Down

Take time to relax and unwind. Consider yoga or adopting an exercise routine to give your mind and body an outlet to relieve stress.

Even if it’s just a few minutes a day to meditate and focus your energy. The benefits of finding more inner peace can be dramatic and wide-ranging.

Vaper’s Tongue can be bothersome, but it doesn’t have to be your life.

Vaping is about living life on your terms, and with a little self-evaluation and mindfulness, those terms can have plenty of flavor.