The Bad Breath Test

[RED1214]

hi guys. i heard from halitosisux about how to work up some saliva and spit it into a tub with a lid, store in the heat for a few hours then smell it and it's what your breath smells like (but worse!)
i did this recently and it smelt of mouthwash (the mouthwash i had used). i have tried it a few times after aswell and it always seems to smell just like mouthwash, even like five hours after i mouthwashed.
just wondered if anyone could tell me what this means? does it mean that my halitosus is coming from somewhere else? if so, where? could it be TMAU? i have fecal breath.

please somebody reply before i go absolutely bonkers (even more than i am already lol)

[KeepTrying09]

hi guys. i heard from halitosisux about how to work up some saliva and spit it into a tub with a lid, store in the heat for a few hours then smell it and it's what your breath smells like (but worse!)
i did this recently and it smelt of mouthwash (the mouthwash i had used). i have tried it a few times after aswell and it always seems to smell just like mouthwash, even like five hours after i mouthwashed.
just wondered if anyone could tell me what this means? does it mean that my halitosus is coming from somewhere else? if so, where? could it be TMAU? i have fecal breath.

please somebody reply before i go absolutely bonkers (even more than i am already lol)

First off, I want to say that I think halitosisux is a very beneficial member to this forum and I always enjoy reading his insights regarding bad breath. I'm not too sure about this bad breath test that you say he mentioned though. Personally, I don't feel it's a very effective way to determine what your breath smells like.

My own opinions on bad breath are shaped from my own experience with it. I'm apart of the crowd that believes you can't smell your own breath. In all my years of suffering, I was never able to smell my own bad breath, not even once. I'm a believer in acclimatization, which means you become accustomed to your own smell therefore all attempts to smell yourself are pointless. It happens all the time. Have you ever walked into an old persons home that smelled of mothballs? Do you think that the old people who live there can smell it? Nope. Or what about Indians? In their culture they eat tons and tons of curry. Do you think that they can smell themselves? No way. They become accustomed to the smell of it, whereas someone who doesn't eat curry all the time can smell it a mile away (no offense to Indians, there's tons of other cultures where the people have a distinctive smell because of what they eat, I just pointed out Indian culture).

How do you know your breath is fecal? Did someone tell you directly? Ultimately, this is the best way to determine how exactly your breath smells, to have someone tell you directly.

[Phantasist]

KeepTrying09,
I beg to differ. I have always been able to smell my own breath. When I hold my hand in front of my mouth, exhale and then breathe in through my nose, I can very easily smell my breath. Also, when I lick the back of my wrist with the back of my tounge (where most of the coating is) and let the spot dry for about 20 seconds, there is a very distinctive smell there which lingers until I wash it off.
While I agree that we become acustomed to most odors after a while, don't say that none of us can smell our own breath.

[halitosisux]

thanks KT.. and its good that the cause of our BB was for completely different reasons and that we've had such different experiences to be able to share.

My bacteria test was just something i'd improvised years ago when trying to see whether adding lysozyme from egg-whites to my incubated saliva/mucus/bacteria would reduce the odours - which it did.

Also, there was a documentary on British television called Embarrassing Illnesses:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUYDWxUJG7c
They take a sample off her tongue and incubate it on a petri dish. Clearly in this video the smell is much worse than what it would normally be. Whether or not it actually smelled of her BB I dont know. But my own experiment cant be much different to this, except I was using my own saliva and mucus instead of whatever they use in petri dishes. And in my case it smelled identical to my BB.
I could smell my own BB very clearly by the way. Just by breathing out into the corner of a neutral-smelling room and then breathing in sharply.

Phantasist, I never actually dismissed hereditary causes of BB. I was only weighing up the possibility and looking at the facts logically. I agree with Aydin on the possibility of certain herediatary traits being passed on from one generation to another - things which generally give rise to known causes of BB. But the question is on the possibility of whether or not there are hidden causes to BB, like a missing component in saliva for example, which might therefore be hereditary.

RED1214, I would keep trying the test - try different incubation temperatures, because it didnt always work with me either.
Just a piece of advice - dont use any mouthwash on the day you try it. Allow your mouth and your breath to become as bad as it can get. If your mouthwash contains bacterial inhibitors in it such as Triclosan or Zinc (which most do) then your test wont work.

Personally, I think this is a good test and may be a very simple way to determine whether your oral bacteria is behind your BB (type 1?), or whether you have more mystifying causes, such as hidden candidiasis in your esophagus for example.

I may be completely wrong. But all I know is that the odour was JUST like the smell of my BB, multiplied by 1000x.

[KeepTrying09]

KeepTrying09,
I beg to differ. I have always been able to smell my own breath. When I hold my hand in front of my mouth, exhale and then breathe in through my nose, I can very easily smell my breath. Also, when I lick the back of my wrist with the back of my tounge (where most of the coating is) and let the spot dry for about 20 seconds, there is a very distinctive smell there which lingers until I wash it off.
While I agree that we become acustomed to most odors after a while, don't say that none of us can smell our own breath.

Phantasist,

I'm not discrediting your experience at all. It's just the whole holding your hand in front of your mouth, exhaling, and then inhaling though your nose or licking the back of your wrist and then trying to smell it when it dries are not reliable indicators of what your breath smells like to other people.

I can lick the back of my wrist right now, let it dry, and it would have a funny smell. Yet I can go out and chat away with other people without so much as a flinch from them.

I read all kinds of things on the forum of people trying all these methods to try and smell their own breath, yet they never ever ask another person to give them an honest assessment. I know it's easier said than done, but once you just get it over with and do it, you will at least have a definitive answer.

I've been bad breath free since the end of 2007, and I still worry about it sometimes guys. The psychological scars are so hard to get over, but honestly, trying all these "bad breath tests" are enough to keep you going mad. Just build up the courage and ask someone. Simple as that. I know everyone here can do it.

[KeepTrying09]

My bacteria test was just something i'd improvised years ago when trying to see whether adding lysozyme from egg-whites to my incubated saliva/mucus/bacteria would reduce the odours - which it did.

Also, there was a documentary on British television called Embarrassing Illnesses:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUYDWxUJG7c
They take a sample off her tongue and incubate it on a petri dish. Clearly in this video the smell is much worse than what it would normally be. Whether or not it actually smelled of her BB I dont know. But my own experiment cant be much different to this, except I was using my own saliva and mucus instead of whatever they use in petri dishes. And in my case it smelled identical to my BB.

Hey Hal,

Thanks for your reply.

I just want to understand your thoughts on this one. Are you saying that the way your saliva smells is equal to the way your breath smells?

Thanks for the link. It's an interesting video.

About this whole testing experiment, you are taking saliva out of it's natural environment, exposing it to another environment (the petri dish or whatever other medium you're placing it on), then letting it sit in the heat for several hours (which allows the bacteria to multiply rapidly). Unless this experiment was done in a lab somewhere in a controlled environment such as was done in the video, there are so many variables that could skew the results of this experiment that I wouldn't feel comfortable with the outcome.

This video might also explain why the research I posted several months ago about the Metronidazole mouthwash was successful in treating bad breath. The findings from the video seem to correlate with the findings in the Metronidazole mouthwash study.

I could smell my own BB very clearly by the way. Just by breathing out into the corner of a neutral-smelling room and then breathing in sharply.

Back when I had bad breath I would have envied you if you could truly smell your own bad breath. It was something I was never able to do but would have given anything to be able to.

Personally, I think this is a good test and may be a very simple way to determine whether your oral bacteria is behind your BB (type 1?), or whether you have more mystifying causes, such as hidden candidiasis in your esophagus for example.

I think a better way to determine your own personal balance of oral bacteria would be to have a doctor take a sample and then have it cultured in a lab under a controlled environment as in the video, otherwise you might get skewed results.

I may be completely wrong. But all I know is that the odour was JUST like the smell of my BB, multiplied by 1000x.

Exactly, multiplied by 1000x. This gives a false sense of how bad someones breath actually is, causing them to believe it is much worse than it might be. I'm sure you can see the danger in this for those who are already emotionally distraught.

[halitosisux]

Hey KT,
Yes, the odour produced from doing this experiment smelled almost identical to the stench inside my mouth. When I say it smelled 1000x worse, im purely referring to the intensity of this same odour. Believe me, when the experiment works, its enough to make you gag. The first time I was able to reproduce this stench it actually made me feel quite ill and put me off eating a while, because it seemed to make me super sensitive to the taste and the smell. If you've ever had food poisoning from eating a certain food type (such as chicken) you go off that food for a while like a psychological response. Its a similar offputting feeling.

I think it would be an amazing coincidence for this odour to be so similar through contamination with bacteria other than my oral bacteria. I made sure that all equipment was boiled to sterilize it. I used lids. The sample I used would have been teeming with my oral bacteria which would have become the predominant bacteria way before any contaminanting bacteria would have had a chance to catch up.

I didnt know about the existence of metronidazole mouthwash. That's interesting.

My tongue had the most potent surface odour. All tongues have a certain level of odour. That's why the lick test is so flawed, because just about everyone will produce some odour. The more bacterial activity the stronger the odour. So its about being able to accurately determine what intensity of odour correlates to actually having bad breath.

If this odour is strong enough, you'll smell it when you are able to catch it sometimes, like turning your head quickly or breathing into the corner as i did. I dont think familiarization applies to this type of odour, otherwise we wouldnt be able to smell our foul tongue odours at all if it did. But I do believe that its a different thing altogether with bloodborne odours because of the different mechanisms involved.

I think this experiment proved that my BB was absolutely relating to my oral bactera. How else can this sample go from smelling of hardly anything at all, to being the exact same concentrated stench which would normally build up inside my mouth unless it was my oral bacteria behind it?

I'm not really sure what you mean in the last part of your post. I think that even someone who has never had BB before were to try this experiment, they'd also end up with a stench. Whether it would be the same as mine I do not know. But mucus/bacteria allowed to incubate will always produce a stench. So there would be no danger for the emotionally distraught, because this is a mere fact. The important thing is that the odour produced correlated to the stench inside my mouth - which looking back, was a very important insight to me.

[KeepTrying09]

Hey KT,

My tongue had the most potent surface odour. All tongues have a certain level of odour. That's why the lick test is so flawed, because just about everyone will produce some odour. The more bacterial activity the stronger the odour. So its about being able to accurately determine what intensity of odour correlates to actually having bad breath.

I'm not really sure what you mean in the last part of your post. I think that even someone who has never had BB before were to try this experiment, they'd also end up with a stench.

Yeah, that's kinda what I was talking about. The fact that if a person was to try this test, they would definitely be producing a possible stench that was 1000x worse than what it normally is. My main concern was that if someone suffering from Halitophobia were to try this test, it might leave them with a false impression of what their breath smells like to other people, therefore trapping them in the continual circle of worrying about bad breath.

It's the reason I don't recommend any self bad breath tests. Sorry, but if a person suffers from bad breath, or thinks they suffer from bad breath, they just can't be objective enough to give themselves a fair assessment. Researchers did a study that found patients complaining of bad breath almost always rated it worse than what it actually was. So for example if your bad breath was a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, the patients would almost always rate it as 9 or 10.

I was just making the point that the best way to figure out what your breath smells like is to get honest feedback from another, which means you have to suck it up and ask someone about it (something that most people find impossible to do). But in the end, it's the only way to know without a doubt what your breath actually smells like to another person, that way you can quit driving yourself mad with all the guessing games.

[Hooch]

I think you're right keeptrying....It's pretty impossible for a person to judge their own odour accurately. I have been to a Fresh Breath Clinic and the hygenist said they should ban the lick wrist test because everyone has bacteria on their tongue and when it dries it will of course smell on the wrist. But it aint easy askin or gettin an honest answer from friends and family...all mine deny I have a problem and then every day have people backing away from me, coughing violently in my face (a cashier did that, the second I opened my mouth to say thankyou) and touching their nose. Ho Hum

[halitosisux]

I completely agree with you KT, but, I think there are still some misunderstandings.

Firstly this is not a bad breath test at all.
And, i didnt make the thread so unfortunately the subject title is somewhat misleading.

As I said before, its just something I was improvising a few years ago when trying out some of my own experiments. And to my surprise, the odour it produced was exactly the same as my BB odour. It is the fact that it produced EXACTLY the same odour as my BB which told me at the time that it probably directly relates to the profile of my oral flora - or in other words, it was like confirming that the odour wasnt being produced in my gut for example - something which I now know for certain to have turned out to be correct.

I dont know if this simple test has any validity. But looking back I know what it told me, and that's why I shared the info.

I'm sorry if something like this might give rise to or exacerbate halitophobic tendencies, but just a single visit to this site by anyone worrying about their breath could do just the same thing.