Periodically, all food becomes repulsive. Also, shaking occurs.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a friend who just revealed that every now and then, for about a week at a time, all food becomes disgusting. She described it as turning into ash in her mouth. Moreover, she begins shaking. I don’t know if the shaking is constant throughout the episode, but while I was talking to her it seemed to be constantly there, varying in severity. Nothing debilitating, just like, shivering.

Of course I’ve encouraged her to see a doctor about this or mention it to her therapist.

But meanwhile, here I’m asking, have you ever heard of something like this? What could it be? The shaking component makes it sound almost like a straight up neurological disorder rather than any kind of eating disorder. Makes the “turns to ash in my mouth” sound possibly not purely like a psychological impression but an actual change in the way her tasting neurons are interpreting the stimulus or something.

2

I’m not familiar with these specific symptoms, but the common causes of impaired taste include vitamin deficiencies and side effects of medication. I’m wondering if she could correlate these incidents of bad taste to changes in her diet or her medication.

3

Sounds kind of like a panic attack to me, though I am far from an expert.

4

See dysgeusia, the name for the altered sense of taste.

One thought I had was multiple sclerosis, some forms of which involve transient alterations of sensation and/or motor control, but MS is not listed on the dysgeugia page.

Most of the posts in this thread (mine included) are likely to be from non-physicians, and of course none of us can treat her from here anyway. Her symptoms are worrisome enough that she ought to be consulting a doctor ASAP.