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not sure if you have bad breath?

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lost1234
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not sure if you have bad breath?

Post by lost1234 »

So I met up with a member from here again, and again we could not smell anything. So we decided to come up with a plan to test out on strangers. We would go up to a stranger in NYC and tell them we work for a magazine and we are doing a taboo study on bad breath and dating. We would give them 5 dollars for 2 minutes of their time, but they have to be 100 percent honest. I told them I sprayed something in my mouth and then I would have them smell it and answer a few questions. First I would ask them if in fact do they smell it? And both times the strangers said they didnt smell anything on either me or the other member from this forum!! I asked them to smell real close multiple times and they still could not smell anything. So I then just played off that the spray must have worn off. But I went on and asked them a couple more questions like if they could ever date anyone if they had bad breath and so on.(just to keep up with my act). Now if you are going to do this, you may have to improv a bit on the approach to a stranger. But after doing this, im kind of debating if I really have imaginary bb all along. I still have the dirty mouth feeling though and get the nose rub reactions alot. But nose rubs aren't a hundred percent foul smell reactions I believe. But I think this method is the closest way to get some real answers. Just need the courage. You'll never see these people again. Just pick people who dont look intimidating to ask. Actually the people we asked, came up to us asking us a question.


halitosisux
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Post by halitosisux »

Great idea. Maybe one thing you could add to this is to put something in your mouth that will definitely smell, just to help you to feel they are telling you the truth. Try it with your BB friend to make sure it works first. You could get your friend to try out the things that smell while you stick to your pure breath.

I dont really know what things you could try. We need an expert like Aydinmur to let us know what chemicals would be safe to place a drop into the mouth that would cause a guaranteed temporary stink. I remember Aydinmur mentioning that the chemical cysteine is guaranteed to cause bad breath. You could try things like powerful smelling cheeses for example. It really wants to be something bad smelling though and not something pleasant like strawberries, to eliminate the possibility that they are withholding the truth because of embarrassment - which I'm sure a lot of people do when it comes to telling the truth about bad breath.
halitosisux
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Post by halitosisux »

Whether your BB is intermittent or whether only certain people are capable of smelling anything bad on your breath, at least this may prove to you that the taste in your mouth and the awareness and any possible obsession you might have developed over your tongue cleanliness and overall oral cleanliness, which you associate with having bad breath, are completely false.
halitosisux
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Post by halitosisux »

I know I'm hated for some of the things I say, but halitophobia is a very real possibility for every sufferer who isn't sure about whether they have bad breath or not.
Phantasist
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Post by Phantasist »

Hali,
Nobody hates you. It's just that sometimes you say things that are just not logical. If you put some bad smelling stuff in your mouth, of course people would detect a bad odor. How does that prove whether you have bad breath or not?
The hand we are dealt is fate. How we play the cards is free will.
lost1234
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Post by lost1234 »

Hali, I may try that the next time we try this again. I think the only way il get over halitiphobia is keep doing the test and keep getting positive results. I feel like im gonna venture out a little more and more and not hold back as much from talking directly into peoples face I deal with daily. I did make out with a girl for a long time new years eve. I havnt talked to her since but im guessing when I give her a call soon, if she still wants to hang out again.. I'll feel even some more confidence hopefully. It's just im almost certain I get wiffs from myself though. The mind is a crazy thing I guess. But like hali said, maybe its just smells intermittently. I'd still like to work up the courage to ask a close friend eventually though.
halitosisux
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Post by halitosisux »

Phantasist, how many times have we heard people say on here that they've asked others to test their breath and when they are told that they don't smell anything, they dont feel they are being told the truth?

Whether the tester is embarrassed or trying to protect the person worrying about their breath, it's impossible to know. But picture the scenario where two people, like lost1234 and his/her friend, are testing their breath on volunteers. If one of them uses a reliable way of deliberately making their breath smell bad (unknown to the volunteer) and the volunteers admit they can smell it, they can be relied upon to be telling the truth when it comes to smelling the non-deliberate bad breath of the other person. If you do this enough times with enough people then you build a reliable picture of the reality of the situation.

Good luck with what you're doing lost1234, it's a brilliant lateral way of discovering what's really going on.

Don't forget that every tongue will give off some whiff if it dries out. Some people are just really lucky, perhaps, because they have certain favourable microbial populations in their mouth, or they have perfect ecology that keeps their BB threshold lower than most people's, but for the 98% of normal people who generally may have acceptable breath for most of the day, it's normal for their breath to go a bit stale if given a chance to. There's always the possibility these are the whiffs you are detecting. There are only two people I know of in my life who never get morning breath, everyone else I've ever encountered gets it.
Phantasist
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Post by Phantasist »

Halitosisux wrote:

"If you do this enough times with enough people then you build a reliable picture of the reality of the situation."

If you do this enough times with enough people, two guys in white coats with a butterfly net will come and get you!
The hand we are dealt is fate. How we play the cards is free will.
halitosisux
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Post by halitosisux »

Oh well, just sit at home and do nothing then.
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deebo
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Post by deebo »

Phantasist wrote:Halitosisux wrote:

"If you do this enough times with enough people then you build a reliable picture of the reality of the situation."

If you do this enough times with enough people, two guys in white coats with a butterfly net will come and get you!
Generally in our western culture ,the best way to test bb is to check many peoples reactions . Of course this can lead to a bit of neurosis .

Let me also add something some long time bb/bo members have been noticing . The possibility that others can have reactions to our odor (coughs,sneezes , nose irritations ..) But Still not smell us ! I've spoken with a few people who have recently discovered this likelihood . This makes me less pissed off at all those people I've asked to be honest in the past that told me "I don't smell anything ..COUGH!!"

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Last edited by deebo on Sun Jan 08, 2012 10:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
halitosisux
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Post by halitosisux »

deebo, I saw a programme on TV here in the UK recently, which showed an experiment where they tested random people in the street whether they could smell a certain chemical contained in a jar. Some could smell it normally, but some could smell nothing whatsoever. The programme was a very popular chemistry documentary series on BBC, I'll have to look for it after and let you know what the chemical was. The purpose of the experiment was to show that this was a genetic change which rendered certain people completely unable to detect this particular chemical. They didnt mention any other chemicals, but undoubtedly there must be other chemicals which we're all gradually evolving to lose the abilty to detect.

This had nothing to do with habituation or familiarity etc, it was purely to do with genetic changes we're going through with normal evolutionary changes, probably because we're not as reliant on our sense of smell for survival purposes, so we're slowly losing our sense of smell.

So, this might be a factor which explains why you get reactions from some people and nothing with others, expecially if it's involving one particular kind of chemical, which is probably more likely to be the case if it involves issues with metabolism and blood borne causes as opposed to general bacterial putrifaction involving lots of different chemicals that are easier to detect.
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