ANTIBACTERIALS VS NO ANTIBACTERIALS

[Snobuni]

I was wondering what pecentage of people on this forum still use antibacterial mouthwashes, toothpastes etc?

I don't think I've had a day without some sort of antibacterial product for about twenty years. But I had an ENT appointment on Tuesday so I thought I'd make sure my breath would be terrible and stopped all my rinses and nasal sprays and just gently scrapped my tongue, flossed and brushed with biotene for 3 days before. I also ate everything bad for my breath (fish, cheese, milk, sweets, bread), I really went to town!!!

Strangely enough, my breath seemed to improve!! No matter what I ate!!! By the time my appointment came around my breath was the best it had been for a while, even though my tongue was still quite coated. Strange!!!

The ENT said my mouth was VERY dry, and that I should stop all antibacterials as they just dry the mouth and upset the bacterial balance (I don't use any with alcohol, but they still seem quite drying).

So, as of today, I'm going cold turkey from my antibacterials for a couple of weeks, I'm also going to concentrate on improving the saliva flow in my mouth and see how that goes...

Does anybody else find that antibacterials make their bb worse instead of better?

[Archimonde]

Same here Sno, i've stopped taking those products years ago, they did nothing for me except dried my mouth. Same with chewing gums, it worsen my breath after about 10 minutes of chewing, especially in the throat area, it felt much worse there when chewing gums. Occasionnaly, i use baking soda but that helps psychologicaly more than anything. Really, the *only* thing that helps is a clean diet for me.

[DRASTIC]

Snobuni and Archimonde,

You are so right. I use antibacterial mouthwash without any alcohol and it dries my mouth within 30 sections of using it. I swish then gargle for 30 seconds and within that time I could feel gum tissue being stripped off my mouth and it feels like it stripping away tisue/flesh.

I am thinking of diluting the antibacterial mouthwash with water. Half mouthwash half water. When I do that my mouth feels so much better.