My STRUGGLE & How to OVERCOME - Simple Self Help Guide

[Neroia]

My story goes like this… and I hope most of you will go on this journey with me.
I’ve suffered from bad breath for years. The first time I noticed I had bad breath was when I tried to break the ice with the girl I liked. When I talked, she turned her face, covered her nose, showing me the face that I could never forget. Since then, I’ve become more self-conscious when talking face to face with others. I started to lose confidence to talk and the social part of my life ruined, I got isolated, I ate alone, I sat silence in meeting, when talking I got nervous about the others’ reactions… through the years I did what you guys did to try to cure it. I carried a toothbrush and mouthwash everywhere I went, I tried different tests, I had two wisdom teeth extracted for this reason, but it was all in vain. I almost had a nervous breakdown, and eventually I learned to accept it as a part of myself, until recently…

First of all, you guys have to bear in mind that the hygiene in mouth – the oral cavity – is the most important part for the clean fresh breath. If you do not maintain the hygiene well, the bad breath haunts you like a ghost. Sometimes it comes out of your mouth, and sometimes it comes from your nose… And if you DO NOT KNOW you didn’t maintain it well, you are bound to find many other ways, i.e. brushing your teeth as hard as you could, chewing gums that in fact help emit the bad breath, applying medical tests for your nose, throat, stomach, lungs to make sure they aren't the main causes of the bad breath, then to use it as counterevidence to narrow down the possible causes… hope you know what I’m saying as English is not my first language. So, I will only conclude that if you’re pretty sure you are quite healthy overall, you can skip all these tests and focus only on the hygiene of your mouth and teeth, which will surely save you a lot money and time.

Here I will sort out 2 kind of bad breaths according to my own experience. And I think most of the sufferers’ halitosis is either one of them.
The 1st kind is something smells like the dirty water in sewer – how stinking it is? Please imagine or find a sewer. Short duration, foul and pungent. If comes out only when you open your mouth. The treatment for this kind is quite easy because the origin of such smell is from tooth decay. The suggestion is go find a dentist for scaling and filing.
And the 2nd kind is very cheesy and pungent odor – like what? Just like the smell coming off from rotten food. This lasts much longer than the first one and it’s there even you keep your mouth shut. I believe many of you can relate to this kind of smell. People can smell your coming even they don’t see you coming. Sometimes the odor just comes out from your nose, making you wonder if it’s the nasal problems like post nasal dripping, sinusitis, or the throat problems like sore throat or even the stomach problems, thinking that you may get some serious diseases.
I can relate all of this experience because it’s what I WENT through these years.
But now, I will introduce you some steps as a self help guide to monitor, to test and to cure halitosis without much trouble as I assume what many of you are suffering from is the 2nd kind of bad breath I mentioned here.

Now, let’s start the journey!
Step 1, TESTING (what you need is finger tip and nose – stuffy or running nose is NOT recommended)
First, you need to know you have bad breath. Okay, it seems like a silly question. You’re here just because you know you have bad breath and look for cure and treatment, right? But how do you know you have? The reactions of others when you talk? And perhaps, sometimes you smell it yourself? But you never really smell it yourself, right? According to many which say, you will get used to something if you stay long enough with it. So you can’t smell it yourself no matter how hard you blow breath to your hands and smell hard like a marathoner.
The truth is NO!
You can actually smell that once you put it away, just like tonsil stone or wisdom tooth extracted off your mouth.
The test goes like this: at anytime, several hours after eating preferably, please rub the side of the teeth gently with your finger tip, especially on the most suspicious ones like premolar or molar teeth. After rubbing the teeth, now you can put it off your mouth and try hard to smell it all the way, and then feel it now. If it smells grossly enough, that IS the origin of place. If you cannot smell the odor at once, wait until the saliva gets dried a bit and try it again. And then repeat this step to check the other teeth.
But why there’s such foul odor inside the mouth? The answer is the food residue left unremoved in the gaps of teeth. The situation there is like the garbage collector under the sun. The warm and wet surrounding allows the food residue to get rotten time to time by bacteria or enzyme, you name it, and by decomposition generates the extremely cheesy, foul and pungent odor.

Step 2, REMOVING
If you now can locate the origin(s) of the smell between your teeth, now you can proceed to remove it. When considering what to use to clean out the residue, the first priority of mine is how convenient it would be to use in any condition.
My experience was once I had tried to carry a toothbrush everywhere so that I could do cleaning whenever I wanted, but it’s just way inconvenient, so I dropped it and picked up a small bottle of mouth wash instead. As well mouth wash has its limitation as to us and was not that convenient at all. So then, I chose dental floss… it worked good though. But then I found whenever using it, I would get both of my hands grossly wet with my saliva, not work either.
At the end, I found this “Dental Floss Toothpick” – if you do not know how this small tool looks like, google it please. That tiny little thingy you see is the thing that works a wonder on me now.
THIS IS NOT AN AD! I don't sell nor manufacture these little thingy. I won't get a cent even you buy a whole lot of them.
How to use it? Simple and easy, this thingy is quite self explanatory in its name. It is composed of two things, a dental floss and a toothpick. So you use it like a toothpick to reach the deepest part of you mouth and work it like a dental floss to clean the residue left in the gaps between the teeth. The first time you use DFT, you may find it very easy to push out some residue (if any) left in the gap. If you’re brave enough, please give it a try to smell that stuff. You’ll have no regret at all for you have experienced one of the most unpleasant and stinking smells in the world. After that, I will suggest you to do the next tooth, or even try to reach deeper and to clean the gaps like you’re sawing between the gum and the tooth with the DFT. But be gentle! It’s not wise to hurt the gum at any circumstances.
Now, if you’ve done one gap finally, please proceed to the next ones. I will not suggest that you’d better stop here or there until you clean up all the gaps… don’t ever think the front teeth will never be the origin of the odor, I tested it myself. I will urge you to clean up all the gaps between teeth in your mouth until you can make sure you can't smell the odor at all. The whole thing here doesn't require much time and you can really practice it everywhere (of course my suggestion is in washroom).

SHARING & CONCLUSION
My struggle of bad breath in these years tells me some truth: Tooth brushing is very important, and cannot be replaced or skipped by other means. I brush it twice a day now. Mouth wash can only refresh your breath for a short while, but sometimes it’s deceitful – even it claims to kill bacteria, but it’s just like lawn mowing, cutting the grass without removing its root. Chewing gum helps indeed, especially helps secrete saliva to keep mouth wet. Dental floss is a thing of little value to me though it really works wonder, I think.
The fact is if you do not remove the residue in time, the bad breath recurs in time too. In my opinion and experience, I think rotten food residue left in the teeth gaps is the most possibly main cause for the bad breath of many fellow halitosis sufferers out there. That's why some of the sufferers would take surgeon to have their wisdom teeth extracted because the areas there would easily form gum pockets for residue to hide and erode and get rotten.
And that’s why I prefer DFT, just way too convenient to use anytime anywhere. And to your surprise they're cheaper than all the tests you would take. Even now, I will always use DFT to clean up the teeth as daily routine work after eating, before brushing or whenever I suspect the smell recur. I strongly recommend you all to use it and follow this practice… even though at the end you may not find it helpful to your situation at all, it’s still quite a good way to clean up your teeth.
I hope it really helps you out of the embarrassment you’re in for years and can help you eliminate, if not totally annihilate, the bad breath.

[Neroia]

Really there's no one wants to try this dental floss toothpick? It did work on me and I really hope that can help you guys too. Or you have TRIED but it doesn't work?
Why no one replies?

[glamourgirl05]

Hi did you have nasal bb? And how long did it take for you to notice a decrease on the bad breath after flossing routinely?

[FedUp]

I'd say this would be good for acute halitosis, not shit breath,

[sadmum]

Neroia.....How severe was your bad breath? was it room filling? How sure are you that you are bb free now? and how long have you been using the DFTs?

[Neroia]

Hi did you have nasal bb? And how long did it take for you to notice a decrease on the bad breath after flossing routinely?

No I didn't have "nasal bb" but I really thought that I had one like sinusitis or post nasal dripping so I went to ENT to check and got the result that I only had deviated septum which had none probability to cause bb.

At first I thought the origins were only somewhere near the wisdom teeth (because I had decay before) and I kept cleaning them with DFT, pulling out food residue and making sure no smell detected, but then I found the crappy smell persisted. So I got the gaps in canine teeth & front teeth cleaned in same manner and I then realized they were the origins as well.
Actually the decrease of bb was quite obvious as I could tell the yellowish coating on the tongue was fading time by time. The coating itself, as I believe, is because of the bacteria caused by food residue left in the teeth.

[Neroia]

I'd say this would be good for acute halitosis, not shit breath,

I cannot tell mine is acute or chronic halitosis, nor can you tell yours, right?
But whether it's acute or not, it's indeed worth your try. If you can spend money to take tests, why can't you afford this, try this and keep this practice?

[Neroia]

Neroia.....How severe was your bad breath? was it room filling? How sure are you that you are bb free now? and how long have you been using the DFTs?

The severeness of my bad breath was the smell worse than the feces. People could smell it even I kept my mouth close. I couldn't breath hard in a lift, let alone talk.
I dare not say I'm totally bb free now for I haven't yet wholly rebuilt the confidence to talk aloud, to talk in public, face to face or to stay close with people. I don't even dare to ask friends, colleagues "am I getting better now" since I'm afraid that they may be out of sympathy to show me no reactions of my bad breath. But from the reactions of others, those who aren't close, I can tell my bad breath has been greatly reduced since I started using DFTs for month or two.

FYI, now I will carry 2 or 3 DFTs in my pocket everywhere I go. And I usually spend several minutes to check, to clean all the teeth with 1 DFT only. The floss will wear out very soon if you have to check all the teeth and if your teeth gap is like seamless to push through.

[glamourgirl05]

@neroia you make a interesting point, you say you don't have nasal bb, but that your bb could be smelled with ur mouth closed... Do you think it would come out of your mouth?

[Neroia]

@neroia you make a interesting point, you say you don't have nasal bb, but that your bb could be smelled with ur mouth closed... Do you think it would come out of your mouth?

Yes. For ENT is a whole complete system with passages to different openings and affecting each other. But the truth is, one's ear cannot exhale and inhale like a nose does, so the ear as the origin of smell is already excluded from one's conjectures.

As a matter of fact, my point is if "someone doesn't know he/she doesn't maintain the hygiene of mouth well", he/she is bound to seek for other ways to confirm his/her assumption. Internet sources and ENT doctors will also tell us sinusitis sufferer has bad breath for sure, which answers our assumption that our bb comes from the nose, so we think we've got sinusitis anyway - but the truth is, you don't have any symptoms a sinusitis sufferer SHOULD have. No thick greenish discharge, no facial pain, etc. And regarding the post nasal dripping, my doctor told me that if I had it, I could surely feel there's some liquid discharge going down from the nasal passage to the throat, which I never felt it myself unless I got a cold.

[sadmum]

The severeness of my bad breath was the smell worse than the feces. People could smell it even I kept my mouth close.

How can the smell travel out of ones mouth when it's closed? I'm never sure whether I have nasal bb or not but I also feel that even with my mouth closed and holding my breath in, people around me can still get whiffs of my bb, which is so puzzling!

I remember someone here on the forum mentioned the effectiveness of dental floss and how using it on their top front teeth gave them temporary relief.

I actually used it a couple of days ago and it made my breath worse! It's like I unleashed a monster in there. So dental floss is not my answer!

[Stankie]

....

[glamourgirl05]

@sadmum I agree with you that flossing can make the bb worst! That's why I asked neroia how long was till they noticed a decreased on the bb?

[Neroia]

The severeness of my bad breath was the smell worse than the feces. People could smell it even I kept my mouth close.

How can the smell travel out of ones mouth when it's closed? I'm never sure whether I have nasal bb or not but I also feel that even with my mouth closed and holding my breath in, people around me can still get whiffs of my bb, which is so puzzling!

I remember someone here on the forum mentioned the effectiveness of dental floss and how using it on their top front teeth gave them temporary relief.

I actually used it a couple of days ago and it made my breath worse! It's like I unleashed a monster in there. So dental floss is not my answer!

Let me ask you another, are you confirmed that you have nasal bb, instead of the mouth one?

In your quote here, I see you've been trying to use dental floss (why not dental floss toothpick???), but got scared by the fecal smell of the disgusting thingy you pulled out from the teeth gaps. Let me tell you, I had the same experience like yours - you can check it in my original post up there. And I tell you now, the thingy that got pulled out is exactly the food residue left unremoved for an unimaginable long time that cause halitosis! You smelled the pungent odor yourself, right? So why don't you believe it?

The big problem in your case is you tried and made it, and you stopped there. But it's not the end, and SHOULD NOT BE the end. Just like "Stankie" here says, "it's a war, not a battle." We aren't like normal people out there, we've been halitosis sufferers for years, the road we have to take is long and winding and full of obstacles. Just look at me, I'm convinced by no one that I'm bb free now. The rebuilding of my confidence to talk freely is yet hard and difficult...

And why your situation is likely getting worse instead, in my assumption, I think it's because there's layers of residue. You got the upper cleaned, then you have to deal with the second one that's much worse and worse. But if you keep cleaning it, thoroughly one tooth after one, you may eventually get rid of... at least, mouth bb. By that time if you do feel the bb persists, whatsoever kind of that bb is, I can only say I'm sorry for you.

[Neroia]

Dental floss is pretty much mandatory for good oral hygiene. I remember when I first started to floss, I would get nasty stink out of between my teeth sometimes. It's rotting food. It's gonna smell worse if you don't floss, than if you do. If you never floss, I would make it a part of your daily routine.

Remember it's a war, not a battle.

Yes, dental floss is really helpful! But I even recommend dental floss toothpick, helpful and handy. It allows me to do a quick check for the bb in washroom without getting my hands wet with saliva.
And yes, it's rotting food that matters.