finally went to the doctors today , blood tests ?

[misshadenough]

after years of suffering with this problem and 5 year of having bb so strong i can smell it myself constantly i went to the doctor today ! this weekend it all just got to much for me , i havent been able to face going to work for the past few days , ive tried everything i can over these past few yr i have draws full of pills , vitamins, probiotics , etc toothpastes , mouthwashes , and not one thing has even helped for a second ! so i went and told her about it , and how depressed i was because of it ! im sure she thinks im crazy , she arranged for me to have some blood tests and gave me some antibiotics incase it was sinus probs ! (even though ive been on 4 diff types of antibiotics over the years and none of them have made a slight bit of difference ) but ill take em anyway ! no matter how many time i brush , floss , scrape , waterpik my mouth the smell never goes , when i scrape my tounge till there is no coating whatsoever the smell is still there ! so im kinda hopeing that the bloos tests might show up something (nothing serious i hope ) but then i would no whether it is oral related ! anyone else had blood tests ? what can they find out from them ? do they show up h pylori or anything ? thanks

[halitosisux]

Miss, I think blood tests are used sometimes as a means of detecting whether there is any kind of inflammation taking place within the body. I wonder whether your doctor is considering blood tests for this as a simple means of ruling out any sinus inflammation/infection? Maybe its for certain antibody tests or testing for the effect of infectious processes finding their way into the bloodstream.
Also, I noticed you mentioned about having 3 impacted wisdom teeth. If you run your tongue around the areas of these teeth, do you get any hint of any sour/rotten tastes. If anything is coming out from the gums you should be able to taste a subtle difference compared to the rest of your gums.

Also, since this is the first time you've ever mentioned BB to your doctor, I am wondering whether you've ever mentioned BB to your dentist? If not then you should mention it because they may then point at these wisdom teeth as a possible cause - and of course rule them out if they dont believe them to be so.

[misshadenough]

hi , yeh she kinda said they would check for gastric probs etc , im on antibiotics though so i hope this doesnt effect the result ! but yeh i suppose its good im getting it done even just to rule out certain things , i cant really remember everything she was saying i was kinda embaressed about the whole thing , i feel better now ive been though , yeh i do have 3 impacted wisdom teeth mostly the bottom ones are compleatly impacted with gum flaps and my top right one is slighlty impacted ! sometimes i feel like i do have bad tastes from them but its so hard to pin point when the whole mouth tastes bad ! but i have noticed when i try to floss the bottom ones ( which is kinda impossible , because there so impacted i cant get the floss down the side of it and when i try its hurts in that area for a few days after ) but the floss always smells really bad compared to the rest of my teeth the wisdoms smell bad , but this could be just because i cant floss them ! sounds confusing i know ! ive never mentioned bb to the dentist , im thinking the next time i go im gonna ask about getting them removed , but i think i will just say they are sore and i cant clean them rather than bb , sometimes i feel they dont take ppl seriously when they say bb they think its more psycological ! the only thing is on NHS the waiting lists are so long it would be months till i got them out , so frustrating

[RED1214]

Well done I know how hard it is to actually make a doctors appointment and talk to somebody about it as it's such an embarassing subject. A cause that doctors rarely, if ever, mention, is food intolerances, particularly dairy. If you haven't already then I would suggest you trying to go completely dairy free for a while to see if this improves your bad breath at all as I've read about so many cases where people avoid dairy for a few weeks and their bad breath disappears completely. It's definitely worth a try if you haven't already. Good luck with trying to find your cause.

[misshadenough]

hi red , thank you :-) yeh its taken me years to finally go to the doctors about this , ive never told anyone about it untill lately ! it is embarassing because ppl that dont have this problem just think that its dirty , or we must not brush our teeth ! but as we all no thats wrong ! yeh i thought about cutting out dairy , i actually did for a week once , even though i know this isnt long enough ! but from reading on here it seems ppl that have had success from cutting it out didnt have the type of bb that i have ! i have a bad taste constantly , even right after brushing etc , and i smell my own bb too , i ate dairy as a child and through my teens , it was only when i turned 22 my bb got so bad i began to smell it too rather than just having a bad taste ! although when i was a baby i couldnt tolerate cows milk and had to go to hospital because of it , they said i would grow out of it , which i did ! so maybe i might try cutting it out again soon ! i was ill a lot as a child up until i was about 8 i was always at the doctors and got my tonsils out when i was 4 from have tonsillitis all the time ! so i was on antibiotics a lot ! and i always just thought my bb was due to that , but i know pps that take antibiotics everyday and have done for years , they dont have this prob !
are you cured ?

[halitosisux]

Miss its important that you tell your dentist. Maybe if you ask if you can speak in private, or even to speak about it on the phone, it will be easier. I struggled to talk about it because of the female assistants, but a one-to-one with a dentist will make it a lot easier.
H pylori is an example of what your doctor would be able to find out with a blood test. Antibiotics you've taken in the past will not have been effective enough against HP because treatment requires other medications to work alongside the antibiotics.
There are heaps of things your doctor can test you for in order to rule out some possibilites at least. So you've taken a very important step. Try to remain confident and assertive, this is most important.

Almost every known cause of BB will have other clear symptoms, and your doctor should be able to identify these. Lactose intolerance being an example. Not sure how cutting out dairy per se helps, except for the fact they are what your oral bacteria love to break down and thrive on. So something like this is not likely to be the undelying cause of your BB, but less dairy and similar protein-rich foods will no doubt help reduce it.

I think there are rules with NHS waiting times, maximum of 3 months from intial consultation.