Do You Know What’s Causing Your Chronic Halitosis?

It’s relatively simple to mask bad breath with quick acting mouth fresheners, sprays or mints. Unfortunately, the remedy is short lived and before you know it you’re reaching for another mint or bad breath spray.

A longer term solution with better bad breath results is follow a regular halitosis regime to manage your smelly bad breath and halitosis. This may not get rid of your bad breath or halitosis but it will keep it at bay while you investigate the root problem for a permanent solution. 

Neglecting to Brush and Floss Can Cause Halitosis

Halitosis is often caused by nothing more than neglecting to brush or floss on a regular basis, particularly after a spicy or garlic heavy meal followed by dessert and a few glasses of red wine.

It’s not always possible or practical to brush your teeth and floss after a meal but it’s certainly a good start to managing your halitosis condition. 

And even though brushing and flossing won’t cure bad breath or the causes of halitosis this simple routine will slow down the condition and limit your personal embarrassment when in public or even at home. 

Lack of Water Can Cause Hallitosis

Increasing your water intake can help dramatically flush and reduce toxins, oral bacteria and small food particles from your mouth and out of your body and water is the best way to do this.

Try and have at least eight glasses of water a day and increase your fruit and vegetable intake as well; particularly in juice form since this is made mostly of water.

Your Dentist May be Causing Your Halitosis

Okay, your dentist may not be the main cause of your halitosis but not going for an annual visit to your dentist could certainly prevent your dentist from helping you get rid of your halitosis and not even get it at all.

You dentist can stop your bad breath from morphing into full scale bacterial colonies which can be more difficult to remove and may require medication if not oral surgery if its spread.

Think preventative.  

You need good bacteria to live in your mouth. The trick is to stop the harmful bacteria from taking over.

With adequate personal hygiene and regular dental examinations this should keep the causes of halitosis away.

What If Something Else is Causing Your Halitosis?

You’re brushing, flossing, visiting your dentist regularly but your halitosis will not go away.

Metabolic Causes of Halitosis

• High Blood Sugar Levels

• High blood sugar levels leave people susceptible to a number of conditions including immune deficiencies which can cause a variety of health problems including halitosis.

For example, someone can have diabetes for years and not know it because diabetes is often symptom free in its early stages. So it’s not unusual for people to suffer from diabetes and not know they have it.

But slowly over time, sometimes years, ketones build up in the blood. Ketones are highly odorous chemicals formed when the body burns fat instead of carbohydrate for energy. They are normally eliminated from the blood stream through perspiration, urine or through exhaled breath – causing halitosis.

This is why a visit to your dentist may not resolve your halitosis and why a visit to a doctor may be necessary. It may be time to dig deeper. But don’t panic. If your dentist doesn’t relieve you of halitosis you shouldn’t presume suddenly you have diabetes.

It’s possible you have a simple bacterial infection that is showing up through halitosis. The important thing is to investigate all avenues, find the cause of the halitosis and badbreath and fix it.

Food Might Cause Halitosis

Sudden dietary changes can also cause bad breath. Fasting causes ketosis, so does a high protein diet.

People who want lose weight rapidly or increase their muscle size are often on diets that use fat for energy. Ketones build up in blood, finding their way to the lungs in the process and are expelled as bad breath.

You have a few options if you’re on a rapid weight loss diet or a muscle building program which is causing halitosis:

• Have bad breath until your reach your goal

• Change from your restrictive diet to a more balanced diet

• See an expert about a new diet

I hope some of these suggestions have helped you to deal with your halitosis.