AKICOLJ

If one's mouth tingles and starts to feel faintly numb on first tasting something, is that a sign of mild allergic reaction? Some other kind of toxicity or sensitivity? Or is it likely to just be a weird sensory effect, not indicating anything wrong at all? I know there are things like mint, pepper, and alcohol, that many people enjoy even though (because?) a bit of local irritation is part of the sensory experience. I recently started reacting that way to certain kinds of tea, to water from certain taps, to soy milk and a few other things. I don't know if I should be concerned, or if I'm just being oversensitive and hypochondriac. Some of you have a lot of experience with food allergies, and I thought you might have useful advice.

don't worry, it's under warranty

I saw the oral surgeon again today. He did not tell me tooth 13 is cracked, which was my biggest plausible fear. (My biggest implausible fear is that it's haunted. If that's the case, the oral surgeon probably would not tell me, nor would he be the ideal person to fix the problem.) He told me there appears to be a trace of residual infection, for which I should take antibiotics and see if it gets better. Of course, for infection inside a tooth, antibiotics are only a temporary fix. If that's what's wrong, he will need to repeat last month's oral surgery, going deeper to cut away the rest of the infection. He patted me cheerfully on the shoulder, saying, "Don't worry! There's no charge for repeating the procedure if it doesn't work." Of course I'd rather have the pain of the surgery and the side effects of the antibiotics than have to pay $800 in addition to pain and nausea, but I'd hardly call it nothing to worry about.