Measuring one's own breath odor

[mel rosenberg]

A lot of recent posts on various topics dealt with the issue of measuring one's own breath. This is very difficult, not because of habituation, but because people have trouble translating what they smell to what others are smelling. If you smell some floss (yes, flossers have somewhat less breath than non flossers), a tonsil stone, lick your wrist, you may smell an odor, but do others smell it? And if so, at what level? We have found that trying to smell your own breath objectively is difficult, same with the tongue lick test (which I developed), saliva smelling is only semi-objective. That is why it's better to ask an adult in your family how bad your breath actually is. I wonder how many people visiting and posting on the site have asked other adults in their family to what extent they can smell the odor. Taste is also not related to bad breath.
A few other issues raised over the past week. Acid reflux is only considered a possible contributor to bad breath in very rare cases. Mastic is a bad breath remedy from the time of the Bible (it may even be the 'ladanum' referred to in Chapter XXXVII of Genesis), but I would try to obtain the actual resin itself, not a diluted form, which may contain only a small amount of this very expensive natural product.

[Larc400]

Hi Mel,

would love to hear your comments on my post in this thread:
viewtopic.php?t=464

Regards,
Karl

[Busted]

Hi Dr. Rosenberg

I've got my brother who doesn't suffer from chronic halitosis to do the lick wrist test too. He said his saliva had a smell too. I personally don't think it's accurate.

[hungrygirl]

Well, i have breathed? into someone's face today and she said there was nothing.

And then we both commented on me being very brave .


These are my symptoms:

Quote:
Again, it may be a mistake to assume that you have bad breath because of some taste in your mouth. There is no statistical correlation between mouth taste and mouth odor, at least in the research I've been involved with.


Hope thats correct Mel. Can we attempt a bit of an online diagnosis?

I have tonsils and tonsilstones about 5 times a week.
I can clearly smell the tonsilstones when i swallow and breath out of my nose (among others smell too).
I have a white coating on my tongue, which does clear up after cleaning, but never from the back of my tongue.
When i touch that white coating at the back my finger smells really bad, i would say the same as tonsilstones.
I have dry mouth and not a lot of saliva.
When i do the wrist lick test, most of the time smells bad, sometimes like burnt plastic or something like that.
I have bad taste most of the time.

In your opinion, what are the chances that i DO have bead breath?

Thanks in advance

[noptical]

1. Get a tongue scraper and wash it, it shouldnt smell.
2. Scrape the very back of your tongue.
3. Smell it, quick!
4. Ewwwwww

That works for me. Of course this way you can only smell the stench that comes from your tongue... If your have bb e.g. coming from the nose, I think the only possible way is to ask someone.

[unsungzero7]

ya i smelll the scraper right away its usually pretty shitty

[mel rosenberg]

The answer to hungry girl is tha, yes you are brave and on the right track: if an adult in your family or close friend can smell bad odor when you breathe out or count aloud, you probably do have a breath problem. IBut if the adult cannot smell anything, then you may not have a 'chronic' breath problem after all. Regarding the tongue wrist licking test, I agree, it's not good for self-assessment. Unfortunately, neither is smelling your tongue coating or the guck on the cleaner following tongue cleaning. Ask someone with no breath problem to clean the very back of the tongue, there should be a smell on the cleaner as well. Everyone's tongue has some smell (so does everyone's saliva, if it's left to rot). So all these attempts to infer from smelling your own tonsils, tonsil stones, saliva or tongue are not going to give you the same level of feedback as asking an adult to smell you and level with you. Even more important, how are you going to know whether any treatment works or not without some objective feedback? We've published several peer-reviewed scientific papers (which you should read) showing that patients are not able to objectively assess real improvements in breath. You can't go on taste or inferences which you draw from other people's behavior. If someone tells you that you have bad breath, you probably do. If someone opens a window, scratches his/her nose, offers you a mint, takes a step back from you, comments on odor in the room, sorry but your inferences from these observations may be more subjective and less scientific than you think. I know it's not easy to ask the ones closest to you, but that's the correct way to proceed and find out for once and for all. And finally if someone says that you don't have bad breath, that doesn't necessarily mean that his/her sense of smell is lousy. It means that you have to consider the possibility, however remote it seems now, that this person is right. This can take months, or even years to come to terms with. I know I'm going to get some flack here, but I have to call it the way I see it.

[waitingforrelief]

I know it's not easy to ask the ones closest to you, but that's the correct way to proceed and find out for once and for all. And finally if someone says that you don't have bad breath, that doesn't necessarily mean that his/her sense of smell is lousy. It means that you have to consider the possibility, however remote it seems now, that this person is right. This can take months, or even years to come to terms with. I know I'm going to get some flack here, but I have to call it the way I see it.

i agree. i wish i had the courage to ask more than one person in my life, but i believe i'll get there. i just need more time.

we understand that you are not saying everybody has imaginary bad breath, but that it happens to only some people. i actually know someone like that ... personally, that's a condition that i wouldn't mind having.