The Causes of Bad Breath Halitosis

Americans spend billions of dollars a year on chewing gum, menthol candies or other products just to have a fresh breath. Specialists say that 90% of bad breath is caused by bacteria in the mouth. This bacterium lives without oxygen and by decomposing, its particles liberates a specific smell that is very unpleasant, hence the bad breath.

An easy solution to this problem is regular mouth washing and brushing your teeth twice a day or after main meals, to ensure proper hygiene. Brushing the tongue after meals is also important because the bacteria can find places to settle in the back of the tongue.

Cavities and Bad Breath

Not brushing your teeth and tongue after every meal can cause sensitive points to appear on the teeth surface resulting in cavities.

Superficial cavities will eventually deepen, reaching into the root of the tooth and causing the pulp to become infected. A dental abscess may then appear causing you to suffer great pain and bad breath due to the tooth being surrounded by a smelly pus bag. 

Some of the symptoms to look out for are pulse aches, especially during eating or when striking the affected tooth, red or swollen gums, a bad taste in your mouth, fever, and tooth color change to grey or pink.

Gingivitis and Bad Breath

Bad breath is a symptom for gingivitis. Some recent studies on gingivitis revealed that 47% of males and 37% of females aged between 18 and 64 years old have gingivitis.

What people don’t really know is that an advanced gingivitis can provoke another important illness, periodontal disease with a high risk of losing teeth.

Gingivitis is the first stage of periodontal problems. It is characterized by bleeding gums, softness, red and swelling gums.

The second stage is when the jaw bone and the corresponding ligaments are affected. This happens because the gum retracts away from the teeth.

The more advanced stage is a serious damage of the jaw bones. The retracted gum forms a bad smelling pus bag and the consequences are very serious: massive damage to the jaw bone, or even losing your teeth.

Dehydration and Bad Breath

If you wake up in the morning and you realize that you have bad breath it may be due to dehydration or maybe the result of reduced quantities of saliva – which  is very important, because it “washes” your mouth bacteria.

So what can you do about Bad Breath?

• The most important thing is keeping your mouth clean. Take care of your toothbrush, because it has to be clean; maybe using oxygenated water or extract from grapefruit seeds can help you.
• Hydrating your body? The answer to this is simple: water. But you have to drink quality water, and the amount has to be generous. The impurities in water (as suspended particles, sodium salts, nitrates, micro-organisms, inorganic and organic compounds etc.) can cause very important problems to your health, and your body may respond to this sooner or later.
• A green diet can help you as well as the pure water by ousting the toxins from your body.
• Food enriched with condiments must be eliminated from your diet. The smell of condiments can last for hours. Some annoying oils with a pungent smell are contained in this kind of food and those oils remain in your mouth up to 24 hours.

Note: You may gargle as much as you want but those oils are persistent. They don’t disappear that easy.

I think we will all agree after reading the above that regular dental checkups are necessary to save us from the embarrassment of bad breath and the excruciating pain of an infected tooth.

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