- First of all, what type of bad breath did I have?
I came to realize that, unfortunately, I had all types. It was coming from my mouth, throat and gut.
- When did I notice I had bad breath?
Started to notice when I was 14/15 (I'm 28 now) but always looked at it as an oral issue and tried not to think much about it, because I didn't have the means to keep going to the dentist. So I was waiting to start making money and fix the issue. Silly me.
- When did I notice I had severe bad breath, aka the type that fills up a room and can even be smelled through your nose?
When I was 21. So, it's possible that I have been dealing with this severe bad breath since I was way younger, but only started to realize it was way worse than I thought when I managed to fix all my oral issues by going multiple times to the dentist and the bad breath persisted. For this reason, I started to wonder where it was coming from and that's when I also began to notice the extremelly putrid smell that was coming out of my body. It smelled like a literal sewage. Both my mouth and nose. I became even more insecure and started paying attention to people's reactions. And only God knows how heartbreaking it is to see people grasping for air because of how you smell
- When did I actively started taking measures about the issue?
Also when I was 21 and started working after finishing university.
I can say that this issue was already affecting my life pretty bad, but when I realized that people could smell it when I breathed next to them I hit rock bottom. Became really really depressed and started developing anxiety. Because one thing is not speaking so people don't smell the odor that comes from your mouth. Other thing is not breathing. It's just impossible. So, to avoid social interaction, I developed this resting b*tch face at work to scare people away. And that hurt, because I'm actually pretty zen and hated the idea of looking angry all the time. But I did what was necessary to avoid speaking and breathing next to people. I became really anti-social and never managed to make friends to this day.
I can say that I tried pretty much all (or, at least, 95%) the solutions I managed to find on the internet. I can also say that the expenses managed to reach the 4 digits land. I even did a surgery! Keep in mind that I'm far from rich, so the little money that I used to have left after paying bills, buying food and etc, was all used to find a cure. I didn't even have time to think about savings. I was broke. But giving up was not a plan.
So what exactly helped me be BB free?
1st: I focused on the gut. Long story short, stopped eating meat and pretty much anything animal related in the first year. I noticed an amazing improvement in like a week! The best so far! My hopes were so high when that happened.
Let's say my bad breath was level 100 and the bad breath a 'normal' person has (for instance, in the morning) is level 3 to 5. When I stopped eating meat, it came down to level 30-35. Say what you want, but that was one hell of an improvement, since the max other solutions did for me was reduce it from a 100 to 95.
I got a little bit sad when I noticed it wouldn't go lower than 30 but felt encouraged to continue, because I was definitely on the right path. 30 is still pretty high, compared to a 'normal' human with 3-5, but much better than what I had before. Most importantly, I was no longer filling up rooms. I still had mouth and nose bad breath though. But at least I would stop hearing the question "Did you fart?" whenever someone would come into my room.
I should also mention that it fixed my chronic constipation. And that's when I realized that my breath definitely smelled like poop. Did some research, and found out that constipation can cause bad breath in some people, and I was definitely one of the unlucky ones. I've been suffering from constipation since I was a literal infant.
But yeah, I went plant based in 2018. After a year I started eating eggs and it didn't worsen my breath. Two years later I tried to eat a little bit of fish and it didn't seem to affect me either. One thing I never tried again and don't plan on trying is definitely red meat and pork. I know those are the worst things I can put in my body and will definitely make me smell like sh*t.
2nd: Started taking digestive enzymes and betaine HCl. I have tried this before with no success, but now that I had fixed most of my gut issues with the whole plant based thing, I had a different result.
Before I started taking these supplements, I used to be able to smell what was inside of my stomach/intestines when I burped. But then it stopped.
I must say that my bad breath level didn't reduce that much (probably went from 30 to 25), but I knew that taking those pills were the right thing to do because it helped me with my digestion.
3rd: I started focusing on my throat/mouth again after trying the bleach suggestion that I saw here in this forum (I mean, what could I do? I was desperate). I noticed that it worked but had to stop because it was making my teeth look really yellow. I ran to the dentist to do a teeth cleaning but was happy I've tried this method, otherwise I wouldn't realize that yes, there were some issues in my mouth as well, but not related to tooth decay at all. I guess I was just very unlucky and produced more stinky bacteria than the average human.
So yeah, I decided to try to do nasal rinses again after a long time and gave in and bought one of those mouthwashes they sell for bad breath.
So this was my routine:
1) Nasal rinse 2x a day (morning and before bed) with my homemade saline solution (500ml of water, salt, baking soda)
2) Diluted hydrogen peroxide as my first mouthwash before brushing my teeth, making sure I gargled as well. Would do it around 4 times before I moved to brushing my teeth
3) Brushed my teeth with a toothpaste from this brand called Halita
4) Flossed
5) Used the mouthwash from the same brand as the toothpaste. Diluted a little bit just to gargle, then used the concentrated mouthwash normally
And that's when I found out that that was all that was missing. I finally managed to tackle all the issues that have been haunting me for over a decade.
I noticed improvement with this oral routine literally the next day. But didn't celebrate because I've been fooled like this too many times and I know a lot of people here can relate. I was praying it wasn't a false alarm.
Almost 2 months later, I'm happy to say that I'm still doing pretty fine. I actually can't believe I'm BB free. I don't even know how to behave yet. I used to be so scared I would live my whole life like this.
For this reason, I promised myself I would let people here know what helped me. You guys have no idea how discouraged I always felt when I rarely found a success story. Throughout my whole life, I think I just read 3 or 4. That's very little. To make myself feel better, I would make myself believe that it was because people were so happy they were healed and could finally start living their lives that they forgot about all these forums.
Can we blame them?
Anyway, to summarize how I'm currently doing:
1. I'm still 95% plant based. Eat eggs almost daily and eat fish rarely;
2. Take supplements to suport my bad digestion (TMI, but I poop everyday. Apparently that's very important);
3. Do nasal rinses and use special oral care.
What I learned about this?
Sometimes we need to try several methods at the same time. I tried nasal rinses and special mouthwashes many times before and they never worked. I would even roll my eyes whenever someone would recommend a mouthwash or something like that because, in my head, their issue was definitely not as accute as mine.
This oral routine only worked for me because I already had my digestive issues fixed.
All this time I've been focusing on one part of my body at a time, when I should've been focusing on all of them. Lesson learned.
I think that's all I have to say for now.
Feel free to ask me any question.
Good luck, guys!
Which they were a little, because the doctor had the nerve to tell me he didn't smell anything (after I supposedly followed all his advice. I didn't), when I knew that whole room smelled like poop. But yeah, they told me at the time to stop eating certain type of meat, use a mouthwash for bad breath called Ultradex, and take these antibiotics.
