Tongue is suddenly super sensitive to spicy food. What gives?

[Anonymous]

This happened to me also and I could not eat spicy food for about 6 months even though I loved spicy food. I heard that nicotine gave people with long Covid their sense of taste and smell back, so I thought maybe my intolerance to spice could have been caused by a virus because it came on so suddenly. I chewed 2mg of nicotine gum (Rugby) three times a day for about 1-2 weeks. I didn’t really think anything of it. A couple weeks later I went to a Mexican restaurant and I was able to eat the spicy salsa with chips with no problem, I was no longer sensitive to spice. I could not believe it! 😅