My story (long) about bad breath (potential cure?)
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:30 pm
Hello everyone,
I have been looking on this website for months now but now I have the courage to join and make a post myself. I feel grateful that there is this huge community support for this condition that we have. Although our situation sucks right now I know there is a way for us to get to the bottom of this.
So my story... I've probably had bad breath probably since I was a elementary kid. I remember one day my friend told me to brush my tongue... and she looked at me and asked if I understood what she meant. I knew she meant my breath smelled bad. As a kid, I just brushed it off. From then i don't ever remember anyone telling me that I had bad breath. There would be occasionally when someone would say "What is that smell?" but I just dismissed it thinking it wasn't me when I was a teen. Whether I actually had bad breath since I was a kid or not, I'm not sure. I was able to make a lot of friends, I didn't get reactions from what I remember and no one would tell me my breath smelled bad after those couple of instances. Then came University, it seemed like my breath was fine, I made a bunch of new friends and nothing would happen. I noticed a few times that after I drank bubble tea (i usually drink the milk tea) it would make my breath really bad to the point where friends would offer me gum or sometimes they would just hold their nose but thats the only time I noticed reactions. Come the past year, I became super aware of my breath. I take the bus to go to school and initially no one had reactions to me but then I think I started to have nose breath as well (the room filling type). People would rub their nose, cough, sniff, people move away from me - those reactions we all know too well. I became so upset and really self conscious. I tried so many things as you have:
because i thought it was coming from my mouth i thought I had a lot of bacteria in my mouth so I used
- hydrogen peroxide
- therabreath (toothpaste, mouthwash, longezes, throat spray) - none of those really helped
- gargled with baking soda
- tongue scrapped a lot - i do have a lot of it as well
- went to the dentist - she said my teeth and hygiene is good, no gum pockets or tonsil stones, etc.
Because i thought that it started coming from my nose i began to:
- sinus irrigation (i think i did have post nasal drip and a lot of mucous build up but now it's stopped)
- irrigated with GSE, baby shampoo - didn't help
- was told I had a nasal infection so I took so antibiotics and had a steroid nasal spray which i stopped after 3 days because I didn't think i actually had an infection
i began to think it was something from within especially my stomach/candida
- i noticed that I would have constipation, i would only have bowel movements 2-4 times a week only. which isn't normal. i see my other members of my family go to the washroom multiple times a day or atleast once a day
- I began to have acid reflux
- i was tested positive for h pylori - just recently finished with the 14 day course. Didn't help at all with the smell (CRAZY RIGHT?!) (still have to retest to make sure it is actually gone)
- I took digestive enzymes, GSE, caprylic acid, chlorophyll, activated charcoal - none of these worked for me
- took probiotics - didn't work
- tried peptobismol - didn't work
- tried lactase enzymes (i'm part lactose intolerant)
- changed my diet to become healthier - eating more salads, veggies, less meats, etc. didn't work.
i was at a lost of what I can do at this point. i thought h pylori was the culprit but it clearly isn't. So today, i booked to see a naturopath doctor.
Let me start off with this, they are EXPENSIVE!! i just spend 300 dollars there but honestly, it gave me so much more clarity of what is happening.
She told me this:
I HAVE EXTREMELY LOW STOMACH ACID.
because i have low stomach acid, it means that the food is not being digested well, and it is just fermenting inside of me which causes the odour and gasses and bloating I feel. It's likely due to genetics. So therefore, my body is lacking in nutrients because it's literally not being digested and absorbed. Why I had h pylori is because of low stomach acid. The doctor said that your stomach acid can kill those things if you have enough and she thinks I have extremely low, she didn't even need to test me. So now i am to take betaine HCL with pepsin everyday for about 8 weeks until the next time i see her. She also said it was because of stress from school and work since i am in a very intensive health program right now that my body is always at high stress. She suspects that I probably genetically have low stomach acid but i haven't had this type of severe symptoms until now because the stress lowers the acid even more!! She gave me a lot of advice and things like that to help with my stress levels as well.
This is where I am right now, so HOPEFULLY this is the cure. I hope that this is what will help me, everything makes sense now after spending so much time with her to really talk about my diet and symptoms and she really listened well unlike those doctors or dentists which wasn't helpful at all. If you were at ends wit like me, perhaps try and find a naturopath doctor who will really listen to you and spend time with you to figure out what is the problem with you. Of course, I'm only starting my treatment now and I have yet to be retested to see if h pylori is still in my system or not.
I will update you over the next weeks to see if i have any improvements.
Ask any questions if you have any!! We're all in this together friends
I have been looking on this website for months now but now I have the courage to join and make a post myself. I feel grateful that there is this huge community support for this condition that we have. Although our situation sucks right now I know there is a way for us to get to the bottom of this.
So my story... I've probably had bad breath probably since I was a elementary kid. I remember one day my friend told me to brush my tongue... and she looked at me and asked if I understood what she meant. I knew she meant my breath smelled bad. As a kid, I just brushed it off. From then i don't ever remember anyone telling me that I had bad breath. There would be occasionally when someone would say "What is that smell?" but I just dismissed it thinking it wasn't me when I was a teen. Whether I actually had bad breath since I was a kid or not, I'm not sure. I was able to make a lot of friends, I didn't get reactions from what I remember and no one would tell me my breath smelled bad after those couple of instances. Then came University, it seemed like my breath was fine, I made a bunch of new friends and nothing would happen. I noticed a few times that after I drank bubble tea (i usually drink the milk tea) it would make my breath really bad to the point where friends would offer me gum or sometimes they would just hold their nose but thats the only time I noticed reactions. Come the past year, I became super aware of my breath. I take the bus to go to school and initially no one had reactions to me but then I think I started to have nose breath as well (the room filling type). People would rub their nose, cough, sniff, people move away from me - those reactions we all know too well. I became so upset and really self conscious. I tried so many things as you have:
because i thought it was coming from my mouth i thought I had a lot of bacteria in my mouth so I used
- hydrogen peroxide
- therabreath (toothpaste, mouthwash, longezes, throat spray) - none of those really helped
- gargled with baking soda
- tongue scrapped a lot - i do have a lot of it as well
- went to the dentist - she said my teeth and hygiene is good, no gum pockets or tonsil stones, etc.
Because i thought that it started coming from my nose i began to:
- sinus irrigation (i think i did have post nasal drip and a lot of mucous build up but now it's stopped)
- irrigated with GSE, baby shampoo - didn't help
- was told I had a nasal infection so I took so antibiotics and had a steroid nasal spray which i stopped after 3 days because I didn't think i actually had an infection
i began to think it was something from within especially my stomach/candida
- i noticed that I would have constipation, i would only have bowel movements 2-4 times a week only. which isn't normal. i see my other members of my family go to the washroom multiple times a day or atleast once a day
- I began to have acid reflux
- i was tested positive for h pylori - just recently finished with the 14 day course. Didn't help at all with the smell (CRAZY RIGHT?!) (still have to retest to make sure it is actually gone)
- I took digestive enzymes, GSE, caprylic acid, chlorophyll, activated charcoal - none of these worked for me
- took probiotics - didn't work
- tried peptobismol - didn't work
- tried lactase enzymes (i'm part lactose intolerant)
- changed my diet to become healthier - eating more salads, veggies, less meats, etc. didn't work.
i was at a lost of what I can do at this point. i thought h pylori was the culprit but it clearly isn't. So today, i booked to see a naturopath doctor.
Let me start off with this, they are EXPENSIVE!! i just spend 300 dollars there but honestly, it gave me so much more clarity of what is happening.
She told me this:
I HAVE EXTREMELY LOW STOMACH ACID.
because i have low stomach acid, it means that the food is not being digested well, and it is just fermenting inside of me which causes the odour and gasses and bloating I feel. It's likely due to genetics. So therefore, my body is lacking in nutrients because it's literally not being digested and absorbed. Why I had h pylori is because of low stomach acid. The doctor said that your stomach acid can kill those things if you have enough and she thinks I have extremely low, she didn't even need to test me. So now i am to take betaine HCL with pepsin everyday for about 8 weeks until the next time i see her. She also said it was because of stress from school and work since i am in a very intensive health program right now that my body is always at high stress. She suspects that I probably genetically have low stomach acid but i haven't had this type of severe symptoms until now because the stress lowers the acid even more!! She gave me a lot of advice and things like that to help with my stress levels as well.
This is where I am right now, so HOPEFULLY this is the cure. I hope that this is what will help me, everything makes sense now after spending so much time with her to really talk about my diet and symptoms and she really listened well unlike those doctors or dentists which wasn't helpful at all. If you were at ends wit like me, perhaps try and find a naturopath doctor who will really listen to you and spend time with you to figure out what is the problem with you. Of course, I'm only starting my treatment now and I have yet to be retested to see if h pylori is still in my system or not.
I will update you over the next weeks to see if i have any improvements.
Ask any questions if you have any!! We're all in this together friends