Halitosis: Bad mouth and breath odour

Bad mouth odour and bad breathe can be repulsive to both the sufferer and the person perceiving the odour. Most often, the sufferer of bad mouth odour may not even realise that he or she has bad mouth odour. The people around the sufferer may tolerate his or her presence to some extent or in alternative avoid his/her presence. Some bold persons who could not confront the person suffering from halitosis may decide to cover their mouth while the bad breathe individual speaks.

Thus, bad breathe has both medical and social implications.

What causes bad mouth odour? Among the common causes are bad personal hygiene. Our dental colleagues advise us that a typical person should brush or wash his/her mouth up to three times in a day—after each meal. We all know that this is impracticable considering our daily runs in each day. The most practicable instructions is that we should brush or wash in the morning and before we retire to bed at night. We are also told by the dentists of the particular way to clean our mouth to remove food debris and meat that had lodged in some spaces in our mouth. Should these food and meat items be left in place to decay, our mouth may smell badly.

A cigarette smoker could belch out bad mouth odour, especially, if associated with poor personal oral hygiene. The same observation goes for alcohol consumer.  In the immediate and short term, alcohol consumption may produce bad mouth odour in the consumer. Combined with poor oral health, ethanol causes bad breath.

Diseases originating from the nose, such as sinusitis, may cause a lot of discomfort to the sufferer even though no one else perceives the bad odour that he or she produces. Diseases coming from the throat and stomach may also result in bad breath. Deeper into the digestive system, long standing constipation could cause uncomfortable smell.

Diseases in the oral cavity, including for example, decay of the tooth occurs in  dental caries, and especially inflammation of the gingiva, are known to cause bad breath.

The food that we consume could also result in what, to others, may be an unpleasant mouth or breath odour. Examples of such food may be ginger, garlic and onion.

Solutions and what to do:  In the first instance, sufferers of bad mouth or breath odour should maintain a good personal oral health, washing or brushing the oral cavity, the tongue and the teeth at least twice in a day. Each brushing occasion should last at least two minutes. In the traditional way, use of shewing sticks is of equal value to the use of conventional brush provided the shewing stick is used morning and night. The tongue should be included in the cleaning. Occasionally, only—may be once or twice in a week and certainly not everyday— oral disinfectant solutions can be used to clean the oral cavity.Tooth decay requires dentist’s attention. Smoking and alcohol consumption should be avoided as none of these provides any beneficial medical value.

Diseases of the oral cavity need attention of the dentist. Growth and problems associated with throat, nose, stomach and gut will need immediate attention of the physician. In some occasions, pneumonia may cause bad breath and this should be dealt with promptly.

In terms of nutrition, and to avoid social embarrassment, consider washing your mouth after consumption of a food item that may cause offence to others. In some instances, mouthwash solution may remove the bad odour.

In summary, while bad mouth and breath odour are socially repugnant, the same could be of considerable suffering to the person producing the odour. However, in some ways, the sufferer can take steps to deal with the odour. Failing this, the intervention of the dentist and or a physician may be called for to deal with the embarrassing and medically expedient situation.