Relationship between white tongue and bad breath

halitosisux · Post by **halitosisux** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 12:29 am

Brightonguy, I know you shouldnt have to do this, but you could get referred to see a private ENT specialist. Your GP cant refuse your request to see a private ENT. It doesnt cost as much as you think for a consultation, and any scans or xrays can be done through the NHS.

brightonguy · Post by **brightonguy** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 3:09 am

Thanks Hal. Is an ENT my first port of call in your opinion? I'm hoping to get the chance to get confirmation from my boss next week that I often smell like hell, I need that ammo. My GP simply doesn't take on board when I say I smell so bad that it even makes me dizzy.

halitosisux · Post by **halitosisux** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 10:26 am

Yes, if you havent seen an ENT yet, then you should.

OneDay111 · Post by **OneDay111** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 12:54 pm

halitosisux wrote: Yeah.. you got me.. I work for Katz. That's why I'm always trying to tell people not to scrape their tongues or use any type of mouthwash. That's why I hardly knew anything about bad breath until I came on this site and started interacting with other real sufferers. That's why I try to help people in every area of this subject that I can and try hard to understand what unknown problems might still exist so that I can no longer exploit vulnerable people with my extortionately priced crap that doesnt work.

I agree with the notion of overcleaning. However you reccommend people not to scrape their tongue? Does this also apply for Tung Brush.

I'm intrested in why that is your opinion.

halitosisux · Post by **halitosisux** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 4:13 pm

There is no need to do any more than remove any thick sludge of dead cells at the back of your tongue. Any more than that and, apart from being completely futile, is disturbing any microbial balance in a detrimental way.

If you scrape too hard, you injure these very delicate tissues that your tongue surface is made of, which releases blood, white blood cells and god knows what else in response to the injury, which bacteria will feed off and cause even more odour.
Then, because the ends of your tongue papillae are growths of keratin and other dead cells which harden like tiny fingernails, the tissues react and protect themselves as part of this injury response by thickening the growth of the papillae. The result of this is even thicker growth, and you end up with a perpetual cycle of scraping harder and harder. This then creates even more 'sponge' and anaerobic area for bacteria to give you even worse breath than if you had just left it as it was before you started scraping it.