I have suffered with bad breath for 17 years. buying products is not a cure. a true cure i consider to be when you have good normal breath without buying anything. I stopped having dairy for a month and its cured!!!!!!!!!!!! In south africa you can buy a lactase pill that allows you to eat it and then eat dairy as it gives you a digestive enzyme temporarily so sometimes i can still enjoy a dairy treat if i chew this pill. No dairy is the cure!!!!!!! fresh breath every day!!! I am in heaven!!!!! be aware that there is lactose in lots of products so read labels carefully. thanks to this website for the idea that led to my cure.

I am a new member but have been reading the posts for a long time. I have suffered bb since I was 21 since I had a tooth apesectomy operation in fact! I am now 38. Its been very depressing and I have had many comments that hurt.there is an antibiotic that completelt took bb away but once you stop using it its back. i tried retardex to no avail. Profresh however has been working miracles. Please try it. u must start with the double dose of liquids that you add and it tastes putrid. follow the instructions to the letter. i do it on waking and last thing at nite. I am not a spammer jimi cos I live in africa and believe me there is no profresh here. I ordered it on internet. It works and I feel fantastic.

I am in mid 30’s and bad breath is a constant in my life. It smells like crap 24/7!! I smell it all the time and am aware of how it smells and it controls all aspects of my life and yet it is a secret. I can never talk about it with friends, other family members etc. I have mentioned it to only doctors who did a few tests and I even went to an oral pathologist who have basically told me it is in my head and had a few dentist look at me like I am disgusting!
I remember the exact moment I smelled something weird and tasted something awful in my mouth at 6 years old and it has been downhill since then. Of the cruel things I have endured in grade school are:
Why don’t you flush your throat and this kid made a toilet flushing sound
Kids would come up to me and just tell me you stink
Others would tell me go buy a toothbrush
Other times when kids used to come and talk to me, I would nod my head yes or no or mutter while facing other way or fiddle with things so that I don’t have to make eye contact.
As an adult, I am offered mints or chewing gum everywhere I go and once this happens it shuts me down. This happens at work and I always feel that my co-workers are looking at me funny or that they are all talking about me and my horrid smell…..I just want to leave and get back home.
I hate being at clubs or parties where there is music and I know I have to speak over the music so I cant do that thing I do where I breathe through my nose in short breaths while holding water or something else in my hand and sipping from it or taking bites out of finger foods. I guess I am just hoping the smell that comes out is of the drink or food if anything. If there is no food or drinks there I am in the bathroom brushing my teeth and tongue with Therabreath (which really doesn’t work) and chewing gum and I repeat this a few times a night.
I am married to an attractive man who loves me and I told him my problem and I know it is not in my head because he has verified that there is a smell, but I have pecked him a few time (never open mouth kissed him) and even when we are intimate, I usually face the other way. How sad is that??? Sometimes I wonder why he even stays with me.
I feel cursed and before he came along I wanted to kill myself because I knew that the guys I was meeting were aware of the problem and they would back away from a relationship from me. I never feel like myself because I always have to live my life being aware of the bb and how to avoid someone from smelling it!
The worst part is knowing that I never lived to my full potential because I always think twice before I speak to someone and do tend to walk away when people get too close. I also never wanted to do the things I wanted to do, work in fashion etc because I always felt that if I had to around people I could not hold up the façade too long.
Like someone else mentioned I also saw a therapist and spent all this money telling her everything but the core of my self esteem issues which are all bb related.
I stopped seeing her because I knew like all the other doctors I had seen before she may just tell me its in my head and that would negate all the things I had already disclosed to her about my life…I hate seeing other people speak all close to others and I know that can never be me. I am just bummed out and soooooo happy I found this site because I know its not in my head, its real and maybe one day before I get old I will be able to live my life the way other people do.

I guess I should introduce myself, my name is Jake, I am 24 years old, I live in upstate New York, and I am one of you. I too wander the paths of the exiled. I live in fear. Fear of someone smelling my rotting death breath. Everywhere I go , the first thing I think about is that someone could smell my breath. My mouth actually hurts from the taste in my mouth. It all started about a year and a half ago when I woke up with what I thought was a bad case of morning breath. It lasted a couple of days and I began to become concerned. When it first started I could smell it myself ALL the time. I gradually got used to the smell and it is now a part of my very being. Nothing helps, gum or mints dont even cover it up for a moment. I am not sure what caused it as I went through a few changes in the short period in which it started. within the course of about 2 weeks, I started a diet, developed an inner ear and throught infection, and went through a series of dental procedures. The diet I was on was not much of a diet, I just didnt eat for about 3 weeks. I ate about 400-600 calories a day and I ended up loosing about 40 pounds. I ate 1/4 of a bowl of cerial for breakfast, lettuce for lunch , and half a turkey sandwich for dinner. I wish I knew the cause of my problem, at least then I would know how to begin to combat it. I suffer from severe post nasil drip, and I have Many root canals and fillings and various other landmines cluttering about in my mouth.
It has takin control of my life. I am afraid to go out with friends to bars and clubs and stuff because I know it is loud and I will have to get close to people to talk. I have tried everything to be rid of this curse, I bought a nose irrigator, I tried therabreath, palorin, smartmouth. household remedies,and anythign else I could get my hands on. I dont have health insurance so I cant see a doctor. From what research have gathered there seems to be little a doctor could do for me anyway. I am in desperate need of a cure. I guess we all are. If anyone has any suggestions for me please write or post them. I would do anything, pay any price to relieve myself of this heavy burden.....please help

I am a beautiful black woman in my thirties treated like a monster. I really don't know where to begain so I'm going to just throw my life out there. I have seen many Dentists, a Periodontist, Ent physicians, a few therapists, a nutritionist, and even a Oral surgeon. I have even prayed, pleaded, and even been very specific in asking God to heal me. My breath odor recently went from smelling like a dead dog on the side of the road on a hot sunny day to horse crap even coming through my nose when my mouth is shut. I have been told by my Dentist, the Oral Surgeon, and my Periodontist that I don't have gingervitis. I have in the past had my tonsils removed, gall bladder removed, and I do have two crowns (with root canals). I feel like maybe I have feces backing into my stomach and the odor is exiting orally or the teeth where I have the crowns is causing this smell to seep through my sinus passage. At this time I am only going to try to touch on my condition for some miracle relief or at the most the medical truth. I shall return to share my everyday life experiences and ways I try to co-exist. If anyone knows of a Research Center that would be willing to help please let me know.

Firstly I am a 27 year old male from the UK.

Ever since I was about 14 I noticed a bad taste in my mouth and I accepted I must have had mild bb. When I turned 18 I started buying multipacks of gum and never left house without chewing.

About summer 2004 I noticed the taste was worse and the taste of gum lasted about ten mins opposed to about two hours.

I was devastated as I thought I had severe halitosis.

My symptoms were, bad taste, white tongue at the back, and the occasional tonsil stone and yes if if touch my tonsils they did not smell very nice.

On the other hand, no one ever told me I had BB, no one backed away from me and I have never had a problem with getting girlfriends.

Then in Feb 2006, I got another tonsil stone and decided I wanted my tonsils out and booked an appt. with my GP. I told my mother what I was doing and she said, 'oh your cousin had the same problem as that'.

She then said the words I will always remember 'Well XXX I have to say I have never smelt your breath being bad'.

I thought, yeah cos I never speak to you directly So I was slightly confused and went on a party with work and discussed it with my colleague who said 'XXXX if you had BB I would smell it cos I have sensitive smell, dave has BB but you don't.

I was still not convinced........

I then got a new GF who kept saying to me 'why do you never snog me properly' I could never tell her why until I decided enough was enough and kissed her properly.

The other day she said to me 'why does your breath always smell nice'.

I understand this post will not help people but if it helps one person I have done my job.

Remember, I had all the BB symptoms detailed above but I am satisfied I don't have BB.

BB ruined my life for about 4 years and I even thought about the worst!!!!!

However, I still carry gum and wash out with Baking soda every morning.

ps I still have my tonsils!!!

I am new to this forum, although I am not new to the halitosis problem. I have suffered from this for more than a decade; I was humiliated at school, failed to make new friends/ keep old friends, and lost the love of my life. I am sure you are familiar with how desperate it feels, so I am not going to bore you with a long personal story. I am a physician/scientist-in-training myself (by no means I am implying that I have authority on this problem), but given my background I would like to share some thoughts with you.

These are my thoughts on several issues:

1) About claims that promise cures for halitosis:

I am skeptical about dentists who are in private practice and claim that they have come up with a solution. Most dental schools in the United States offer very few microbiology courses during their 4-year training, and those courses are not specific for halitosis. Few dentists have the knowledge to address halitosis adequately. I am very skeptical about claims that 100% of the patients are cured after using a certain treatment. As far as I know, there is no treatment (be it for halitosis or other ailments) in this world that will help every single patient. Some will respond to the treatment, but some won't. Moreover, most of the "success" stories are anecdotal. To be considered scientifically sound, research has to be done in an unbiased manner (preferably no financial implication, but most of the dentists who claim they can help actually make money off the product) and with a statistically significant sample size. Research needs to be published in a peer-reviewed journal and needs to be reproducible by other researchers who follow the method.

2) About Dr. Mel Rosenberg's product

I have never used that myself, though I would say that theoretically it seems the most promising. I am not sure how the 2-phase mouthwash's hydrophilic/hydrophobic properties work on microorganisms (I am not a microbiologist), but if it can successfully lift the microorganisms from the mucosal surface then it should reduce but not eliminate the odor. According to some researchers at the Forsyth Institute of Harvard University, we have more than 700 species of bacteria in our mouths, and the bacterial species in the mouths of people with halitosis are different from those in the mouths of people with fresh breath. There are several issues that should be addressed to understand the problem: 1) Why do the "bad" bacteria manage to colonize and wipe out (or decrease the level of) "good" bacteria? 2) How can we SELECTIVELY remove the "bad" bacteria but keep the "good" ones? At this point, we don't have a clue for these questions. Most of the mouthrinses available today, including Dr. Rosenberg's product, target towards the general bacterial population. Therefore, they may reduce the overall load of bacteria (decreasing BOTH good and bad bacteria) in our mouths but do not solve the fundamental problem (eliminating the bad ones only).

3) What can we do now?

I don't think the scientific community has given much attention to this problem at all. For those who are scientifically inclined and are at college age (or younger), I encourage you to try your hands in science. It's hard, I know, but it's also interesting. Plus, you have a problem that you care about passionately, so do something about it if nobody does it well enough. I am not a microbiologist (yet), but I will pursue that field once opportunities arise. For those who find it difficult to change career, try to organize yourselves (I suppose jimi comes up with this site for this specific purpose) and let the academic scientific community know it's a serious problem that affects a lot of people. In general, people in academia are more interested in solving challenging problems than making money (I say in general, not always). I live in the United States, so I can only talk about what I know here. Try to look up the research being done at dental schools/ microbiology departments of universities and contact those people who work on biofilms/ halitosis (don't send individual e-mails; that's annoying. Let's organize everything here and send ONE letter). Honestly, there are not that many people who work on this problem. Be courteous, no emotional ranting. People really don't listen to us when we are emotional.

4) Kudos to this site!

Thanks to jimi for coming up with this site. I have read through his/her post and I am sure he/she means well. I just want to ask everyone on this forum to stay cool and think scientifically. We have such a humiliating problem and we are emotional, I know, but do try to stay cool. Scientific research is the (only) way to go. Good luck everyone!

I have a link that may be of interest:

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/02.27/01-breath.html