Uncovering The Remedies For Bad Breath That Work
Just in the United States alone, consumers spend nearly $4 billion a year on products designed to prevent, stop, or sweeten bad breath. And is it any mystery that bad breath products are so popular all around the world.
After all, bad breath is hard to ignore. We have all smelled bad breath from other people. We know how it makes us feel. But we usually can’t smell our own bad breath, so we play it safe and use products to knock out bad breath just in case we have it.
Just visit your local supermarket and take a look at the oral care aisle. You will see row after row of mouthwashes, toothpastes, and oral rinses. All of them guarantee fresh breath. Yet, how many deliver? How can you find remedies for bad breath that actually work? This article reveals some ideas about what you should look for and what to watch out for.
Do You Really Have Bad Breath?
Most of the time bad breath is caused by two sulfur-bearing gases, hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan. Hydrogen sulfide is also known as bad breath odor. Methyl mercaptan used to be identified as the “breath of death,” but it’s now more closely associated with sewer gas.
Bacteria on the teeth, gums, and tongue decay dead tissue (and other bacteria) and release these gases as a byproduct of making their own proteins from the amino acids in their food. Their food can be your food, particles of which remain in your mouth after eating, or you yourself!
The more bad breath bacteria you have in your mouth, the more bad breath you have. When brushing is enough to stop bad breath, you didn’t have many bad breath bacteria in your mouth. When brushing isn’t enough to stop bad breath, the problem was bad breath bacteria lurking on your gums or your tongue or your tonsils. But how can you tell whether brushing is enough?
Many of us don’t have a person in our lives we feel comfortable asking whether we have bad breath. It’s possible to buy bad breath meters that work a little like breathalyzers for measuring alcohol—if the bad breath meter registers off the charts, then don’t drive to your date—but the meters that work cost several hundred dollars.
There’s also the old lick-your-arm-and-sniff test, but that won’t pick up bad breath emanating from the back of your throat or your tonsils. Some sites advise you to ask a little kid you don’t know whether you have bad breath, but some of find that suggestion to be just a little creepy. (So will most little kids.) So we use bad breath remedies even when we are not entirely sure we need them. They don’t have to complicated.
Water as a Treatment for Bad Breath
One of the most effective tools for fighting bad breath is water. Sipping water removes food particles as you eat your meal. Rinsing your mouth out with water can make onion or garlic breath a lot more bearable. A gentle jet of water aimed at the sulcus, the gap between your teeth and gums, can remove bad breath bacteria from your gums and plaque off your teeth, leaving your breath feeling as fresh as it is just after you get your teeth cleaned (something that you should do twice a year or more) at the dentist’s office.
And while an oral irrigation device such as Hydrofloss or Oxyfresh might cost your $150 or more, once you have made the initial investment in the tools of oral hygiene, water treatment of bad breath is totally free.
Who is most likely to benefit from water as a treatment for bad breath?
- People who take medications that dry out the mouth.
- People who snore (forcing the mouth open all night and drying out the tongue and tonsils).
- People who have autoimmune diseases that cause dry mouth.
- People receiving radiation or chemotherapy.
- People who live or work in high-heat or low-humidity conditions.
Water is not a miracle cure for bad breath, but it always helps. But it’s not the only nearly-free remedy that works.
Green Tea (The Kind You Drink)
Sipping green tea is an age-old remedy for bad breath. Tests in Japan and Canada have found that green tea reduces concentrations of both of the gases that cause bad breath, both hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan, for up to two hours after drinking the beverage. (Warm green tea is more effective than hot green tea.)
There is a catch. The benefits of green tea on bad breath only last about two hours. If you can’t drink green tea all day long, or even if you can, you still need to pay attention to other aspects of oral hygiene to keep your breath fresh. But green tea is very helpful when you just can’t brush first thing in the morning, especially when you are on a trip.
Oral Hygiene for Bad Breath
It’s conceptually simple to understand what you need to do in your oral health care to keep bad breath at a minimum. Bad breath bacteria can live on the surfaces of your teeth, in the gap between your gums and your teeth, on your tongue, in the back of your throat, and in your sinuses. If you have lots of bad breath bacteria in your mouth, nose, and throat, your breath will smell bad. If you get rid of the bad breath at enough locations in your mouth, then your bad breath may not be noticeable.
Most of us brush our teeth and forget about cleaning other bad breath havens. Oral irrigation of the gums, gentle scraping of the slimy film off the tongue (you don’t want to scrape your tongue raw, ever), removing tonsil stones at the back of your mouth, gargling (warm salt water works), and using a neti pot all may be necessary in the very worst cases of bad breath. But all of these methods are natural and cost-free ways that really work for curing bad breath.
