Causes of Bad Breath: Throat Conditions
People who pay meticulous attention to oral hygiene sometimes can come down with horrible bad breath, most commonly after they have a bout with sore throat. The good news about bad breath caused by sore throat is that it eventually goes away, but the fact is you may to help your throat heal before your breath will get better.
Adenovirus Infections and Bad Breath
The most common kind of throat infection is the sore throat many of us get when we catch a cold. Not every kind of colds virus infection results in a sore throat and bad breath. When a cold causes “really bad” breath, it is usually due to an adenovirus.
Adenoviruses are found almost everywhere in our environments. They are in the tiny droplets of mucus floating in the air after someone sneezes. They can survive chlorination and live in swimming pools. The US Army has found them in bedding, in lockers, and on rifles. They are all kinds of body secretion and excretions, and they are active all year round.
If you have never been exposed to a particular strain of adenovirus, it can take just 5 particles of the virus in a single droplet of mucus to cause you to come down with a sore throat. If you have been exposed to the same strain of an adenovirus, it may take a million particles of the virus in a milliliter of body fluid to cause the same infection. Once you catch cold caused by a particular strain of adenovirus, you have immunity to it for life, but you may have to catch colds hundreds of times to develop immunity to all the strains of colds viruses you can encounter.
The way an adenovirus causes bad breath is by causing inflammation throughout the respiratory tract, not just the throat, but also the lungs. Tissue killed by the virus is broken down by bacteria and stinks. Just about the only way to get over the bad breath is by treating the congestion following the viral inflammation, and the safest way to do that—after you have received proper medical treatment for any severe symptoms of the disease—is by using over-the-counter cough medications containing an ingredient called guiafenesin. Your pharmacist can point out which medications contain this ingredient.
Guaifenesin helps loosen phlegm. It makes phlegm and mucus easier to cough up and sneeze out. As you get rid of congestion, you’ll get rid of bad breath, too. In the meantime, this is one of the relatively rare times that covering up bad breath with breath mints and mouthwash probably is a good idea.
Bad Breath and Mononucleosis
Mononucleosis used to be called “kissing disease,” because it most commonly struck teenagers about the same time they started,well, kissing. Caused by the Epstein-Barr virus, mononucleosis causes mild symptoms that last about six weeks. That’s also about how long it causes bad breath. About 12% of teens and college-age young adults come down with mononucleosis every year. The condition is also common in children who have not reached the age of 5.
Halitosis will keep infected individuals from spreading the disease to other people who have a sense of smell. In mononucleosis, the problem is not an infection of the lining of the throat. It’s an accumulation of white blood cells in the lining of the throat, sent there by the immune system to help control the virus.
The way to get rid of this kind of bad breath is to gargle. A teaspoon (5 grams) of table salt dissolve in a cup (240 ml) of warm water is adequate. You really don’t have to buy any expensive mouthwashes, and you don’t need to kill germs. You need to remove “phlegm” that is left after your immune system kills the germs. Inexpensive treatment works just as well as expensive treatment for this condition.
Tonsillitis
Tonsillitis can cause especially bad breath. And because tonsillitis typically develops in children just as they are developing the social skills to deal with embarrassment, the bad breath resulting from tonsillitis can cause an ongoing emotional crisis in a child’s life.
Chronic tonsillitis is caused by a strain of bacteria known as Streptococcus pyogenes. Anywhere from 2 to 10% of American children are carriers of the infection. In certain other countries, strains of the bacterium have developed that infect many more children, especially in Norway and Turkey. Chronic tonsillitis causes symptoms for a few days at a time every month or two over a period of years.
Acute tonsillitis is more often caused by a viral infection. The immune system learns to recognize the virus and stops future infections. Both kinds of tonsillitis cause severe sore throat, difficulty swallowing, difficulty breathing, and foul breath.
In tonsillitis, bad breath is caused more by tissues drying out than by tissues becoming infected. Most children and adults who develop tonsillitis have trouble breathing through their noses, so they breath with their mouths open. The gums and tongue dry out and crack, creating new homes of bad breath bacteria.
The most direct way to deal with bad breath is to get the tonsillitis treated so mouth breathing is not necessary. Until that is accomplished, bad breath isn’t going to go away—although mouthwash and breath mints can cover up bad breath in the meantime.
Strep Throat and Bad Breath
Finally, strep throat is another common cause of bad breath. Strep throat is a bacterial infection. The strain of bacteria that causes strep throat has a sneaky approach to infecting the throat. It is immune to the throat’s usual immune defenses, but its presence activates the throat to fight many of the other strains of bacteria it has to compete against. The soreness you feel in your throat when you have strep throat is to due the activation of the immune system to fight all the other strains of bacteria. Bad breath odor is caused by the decay of tissues destroyed by the immune system as it seeks to contain the infection.
Gargling with warm salt water will remove some of the dead tissue that causes breath odor, although the effect only lasts for 2 or 3 hours. You can also mask bad breath from strep throat with mouthwash and breath mints, but treating the underlying problem is essential for curing bad breath.
