Hi Amy - Don't know if this will help, but one thing my son discovered when he couldn't taste anything is that he could get a familiar "feeling" about food by smelling it, inhaling deeply thru his nose and drawing the smell as close as possible to the back of his throat. He would say that it was "almost" like tasting it. The loss and then regaining of tastes seem to have wide variations among different people. For a time, he said everything tasted too salty and I couldn't use salt in anything I cooked. I never knew from one day to the next which taste he would like or not like. When his taste for sweets came back, I got him some gourmet jellybeans in all the flavors so he could test his taste buds, and he and his 6 yr old daughter and I had a jellybean celebration. When the taste for chocolate came back, I got him some of those gold wrapped chocolate coins. Now, at 7 months from the end of treatment, he says he can taste most everything but not to the same intensity as before. Recently there were some interesting articles on "super tasters" and the differences in ability to taste certain foods. One research suggests that 35% of women are super tasters compared to only 15% of men. If you "google" <super tasters>, you'll see several links for it. The tastes do come back and each time a new one appears, it's a "woo-hoo" moment! :p