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I totally feel ya mate as I am in the same boat. I usually vape custard, biscuit, or strawberry creams and it's normally just a convoluted mush of flavour. I often read posts here by all the cool kids who vape like 4% total and marvel at there super senses picking individual aspects of a juice.
The odd occasion I would get a flavour blast was when I would take a puff immediately after a swig of drink. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I currently have lowered my wattage in half (22w) and have mixed strawberry milkshake super concentrate from jungle flavour at 3.5% . tbh I can actually taste this mix much more than I could previously so I presume (or should that be assume?) my senses are not getting overloaded. I am gonna stick with this for a week and hope my taste buds somehow reset to factory settings.
Good luck in your quest to quell your taste blindness mate
Vaping unflavored for a week helps out a lot. Water intake is also important.
I'm in the same boat. I can't taste a recipe for more than an hour or so then I have to put something else in my tank. I usually vape a tank of unflavored a couple times a day. I have found nothing else that helps at all.
The only thing I haven't tried is quitting for a week. That will help the most. How much? I don't know. I wish someone would find something that really did curb the issue because I can't find it.
You tried flossing or a tongue scraper?
I've remarked on tongue scrapers multiple times, but the comments always get passed over. I've used a copper tongue scraper for about 15 years as part of my brushing routine - not only does it cut down on bad breath, but I've never had vaper's tongue. Went on a trip and didn't pack my tongue scraper - a few days in, couldn't taste my juice anymore. Got home and used it - BAM, full flavor. This is a buy-it-for-life product, and copper is naturally antimicrobial. Just wipe it down after using it, and put it away. You won't regret it!
Yeah regardless of vapors tongue, it's a good idea. It's surprising the amount of crap that comes off your tongue. A scraper is good for bad breath, as you mentioned, and general oral hygiene. This is turning into /r/DIY_dentists... but yeah they're cheap on Amazon too.
Don't get this much anymore, but when I did, unflavored for a couple days was the key.
Also try something different from time to time. For me, Grack Juice is a great "palate re-setter." I don't know how to describe other than it confuses my sense of taste, so when I go back to my ADV's they taste fresh and new.
Try eating spicy food, like really spicy, always works for me... also after a surf I can taste my liquid like it's the first time again
I know its strange, but try drinking alot alot more water. And on top that, try a water that has higher alkaline, such as Essentia. They say it hydrates you faster.
Not sure how long you've been into DIY but switching from the simpler in your face commercial juice recipes to subtler DIY ones is a transmission. Someone commented on all the cool kids who vape like 4% total and marvel at there super senses picking individual aspects of a juice.
I think a lot of that is learning to pay attention to what you're tasting. We didn't have to do that with commercial juice.
Anyway, what helped me with vapers tongue was adding some unflavored to my rotation and, this was big, lowering flavour % significantly (like diluting stuff I had mixed by more than half) and starting to use 1-2% sweetner to help flavours pop and sit on the tongue more.
Good luck!
I can no longer taste one specific flavor: Jackfruit. I stopped using it completely almost two months ago, I've gone a week vaping unflavored juice (90% VG/7% PG/3%Nic in PG), and I tried it again yesterday and I still can't taste Jackfruit at all. Just that one specific flavor. Other people I mix for aren't having the same problem, so it's definitely just me. I've given up and moved on to other things.
I feel for you man, this is bad enough. If I couldn't taste anything I don't know what I would do.
Have you tried using different materials for wicking? You can wick with organic cotton, cotton bacon, cellucotton, rayon, sterilized cotton balls and even gauze.
As for the juice, try making single flavor juices, so you can definitely know what you have to taste just from the smell of the flavor. Can you smell the flavor when you open the bottle to pour it into the mix? That is what you have to taste. Also, I try to keep the sum of the flavors at a maximum of 10%, and I never, ever, vape more than 3 tanks (that's 10-15 ml depending on the tank) of the same juice in a row.
Something else that works is to vape pure menthol juices. If you can get some menthol crystals, dilute them in PG (I make them at 20% crystals, 80% PG by weight, shake and let it sit for a few hours) and make a mix with only that solution at a high percentage. With a 20% solution, at 7% it will be a super strong menthol juice that'll clear your nostrils in just a few puffs exhaling with your nose. Make this one without nicotine if possible. I use it from time to time just to be safe.
I've been vaping for about 5 years or so and have tried just about everything to curb vapors tongue... Things that help me is drink excessive amount of water, mouth wash few times a day, change flavors daily, and the big one for me is, I keep a bottle of a random menthol or heavy koolada mix and keep a dedicated tank for to hit when vapors tongue gets really bad, few drags and I can taste my other mixes better.
Vapers tongue is actually olfactory fatigue. It's not always from total overflavoring, sometimes just a single compound is there in too great a concentration. So you might my have total flavor of 4%, but if that flavor is best used around 0.2%, that's still going to give most people vapers tongue eventually. If everything you mix has strawberry in it, eventually your brain will interpret strawberry as background noise and block it out. Changing flavors can help, vaping unflavored for a while can help, staying hydrated helps, and good oral hygiene (including the occasional tongue scraping) can help.
This is exactly right, any stimulus that you are exposed to constantly will eventually be "muted" by your brain. Removing the stimulus for long enough will often reverse the effect but not always which is why it usually works to quit vaping or vape flavorless for a while.
I just got over vapors tongue after having it for nearly 10 days. Idk if it worked but i read chewing mint gum helps. I went out and bought a pack of spearmint and chewed it for pretty much two days straight. After that my taste came back, dont know if it just ran its cycle of the gum did something, but its worth a shot.
Great post mate, I too am in the same boat. I made quite a lengthy thread about this a few months back I think it was, and I'm in a situation where it honestly feels like I've developed a case of permanent vapers tongue, and over time it was as if my senses just 'attuned' to vaping in general. It reached a point that I couldn't taste anything out of any subohm tank at all, and none of the 'tricks' to help olfactory fatigue worked. The strangest thing is my sense of smell in general remains on point, in terms of everything except vaping.
Making the jump to RDA's a couple months ago helped some, but I still barely taste most juices, if at all. I'm about to commit to 2 weeks of vaping purely unflavoured VG with PG nic added to see what effect it has. It's a frustrating experience.
I did a week straight of unflavored a few months ago. Worked for an hour and it was back to the same old shit. I know other have had success with it but I didn't. I encourage you to give it a shot though. The subtle sweetness from unflavored is a nice change of pace.
It is my opinion that you will inevitably get "burned" out on every flavor. There is a finite amount of times you can experience any flavor. For this reason I try to avoid vaping my favorite juices "all day". ADV's for me will always be temporary. Similar to how you say a word over and over and over again, it begins to sound foreign and strange. I am starting to think I will never taste the fresh banana in my nana cream, or the realistic taste of milk in a bowl of cereal off my Cereal Milk ever again.
And like an addiction, you may stop for a couple of months with a certain juice. When you come back it will be almost like trying it for the first time again. However the demons will be even quicker to rear their ugly heads this time. The flavor fatigue comes back even quicker than the first time.
Tldr: if you love a flavor save it for special occasions.