What is the wisdom behind meeting others with bad breath?

[Scientist42]

Firebreath
If bb sufferers attending our meetups generally can't smell one another (something I first discovered 6 years back), I personally think that this finding might improve our understanding of halitosis in some way.

Regarding your comments about the perceptions of breath and body odour, I agree that bad breath is more quickly detectable than mild body odour. If a bo sufferer showers and puts on fresh clothes immediately before the meetup then their body odour might in theory be missed.

However, the site I administer deals generally only with members who have bo or halitosis that can stink out a huge room in minutes. This kind of odour would surely be detectable by other members over the course of so many hours. After all, we start our meetups at 1pm and most members are present until after 11pm.

One other bizarre thing I have found is that some members think they have body odour but actually have breath odour. This is because their breath odour is so strong that it quickly envelopes them making them think they have bo!

[Scientist42]

Halitosusix
To my knowledge, there is no specific research into this inability of breath/body odour sufferers to detect one another.

I have correlated my odour with low or normal halimeter readings so this is not typical halitosis. Others with halitosis at the meetups have said the same, that their halimeter reading was normal. GC measurements (my own experiments) were only conducted for hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan. These were both normal.

A couple of years back I went to Thailand and paid people to give me feedback about my breath! (heh). The breath odour is always there but is hugely stronger after eating chocolate, drinking alcohol etc. I get a lot of tongue plaque. When I scraped this with a stainless steel tongue scraper and rinsed my mouth with diet coke (that's all I had with me) the breath odour completely vanishes for at least a couple of hours. I now scrape the tongue after any food/drink.

The people who say they can smell my BB smell it constantly. However, I have had limited feedback and really need more feedback about this to be absolutely sure. My suspicion is that my kind of BB varies hugely with diet. Those who say they cant smell it, never smell it!

[Scientist42]

I sometimes hear people complaining about some other person's body odour, but 99% of the time I have no idea what they are talking about because I cant smell anything. Does this mean my nose is unable to detect certain odours? Does it mean that I have body odour? I think its more likely that my nose is simply unable to detect certain odours.

Hey, welcome to the club halitosusix I also can't detect the other person's body odour 99% of the time. It looks like you have the same thing as me! I haven't read your previous postings but suspect you have breath AND body odour. If I am correct, you have faecal breath (am I right in thinking you can't smell it?) and strong underarm odour which you definitely can't smell (!) My suspicion is that you have underarm odour that smells like regular bo but much stronger. Like the breath odour, It also changes with diet.

I will lay you odds of 10 to 1 that you won't be able to smell me (and most other members) if you ever attend our meetups. You say "If I had the confidence I'd love to go on one of these meetings, even now". Why don't you? Seriously, we won't be able to smell you and you won't be able to smell us! There are lots of gogeous female members there so you may even get a leg in your stocking for XMas!

[halitosisux]

Scientist42 (arun),
Thanks for the detailed reply, there's so much to think about and discuss here.
I'm quite surprised to see you mention that you have a lot of tongue plaque and that your BB vanishes when you scrape it off - I always thought your BB was the type that came purely from your lungs. Interesting that your breath gas analyses all turn out to be low or 'normal'. Its possible that the level of odour on your tongue relates to some systemic/blood cause which is also responsible for bad breath coming out of your lungs. Can you yourself smell any odour on your tongue?

As far as I know, I do not have any body odour. I can sweat my guts off doing sport or physical exersion and I never ever get any complaints and my clothes never smell. I dont get any BB either ever since I took out one of my problematic wisdom teeth, but until I did I had one or two strange symptoms which dont seem to happen any longer. Firstly, my skin would have a slight odour to it towards the end of a day. The usual place for me to detect this would be the top of my wrist or the underneith of my forearm. Since I had the wisdom tooth out and the total assurances that I no longer have any BB, I no longer get this odour appearing on my skin. My theory is that I must have been swallowing so much gunk and foul chemicals produced by this tooth situation in my mouth, that it was all entering my bloodstream and out through my skin. The other strange symptom I had was tonsil stones and odour, mainly on my right side - the side of the wisdom tooth. So I think it was connected, but I'll never know for sure because I had the tonsils out years before the tooth.

Out of interest, have you ever thought of performing a full GC test on someone who definitely doesnt have BB and comparing the results to your own full GC test? Is there even such a thing? - does GC not detect every type of gas present or do you have to specifically look for particular gas that you expect to be there?

I've never been able to detect BO in anyone.
Some people I know supposedly get terrible BO and just to seem normal I have to pretend I can smell it. The exception is the type of BO that smells of onions - I can smell that clearly - apart from that I have no clue what BO smells of.

I would love to go to your meetups, but for various reasons its just impossible for me to attend. I'll be fascinated to hear how you all get on.

[thanatos]

The answer is simple. If you can smell bad breath in your every day life but have never smelled bad breath on the 40 members you've met, then the most likely answer is that just a handful of us here actually have halitosis.

[halitosisux]

thanatos, is that another way of saying they are mostly all halitophobics?

[brightonguy]

@brightonguy ,
I must admit brightonguy that this is a great experiment but even if 'scientist' is right , it just means a handful of strangers cannot smell you , and well , the rest of the world can , so no big life changing experience is it?

It could mean three things.

(1) First of all, like you note, it could just mean that BB and BO sufferers cannot smell each other at these meetings even though there are bad odours to be smelt.

(2) People at these meetings have a transient problem - they smell some times but not at these meetings (perhaps because of lower stress levels).

(3) People at these meetings no longer have or ever have had an odour problem

[brightonguy]

Anyway, I will definitely be attending, so rest assured, if you ask me separately about your breath odour, I will tell you the truth.

At the XMas Meetup we usually get around 10-12 members coming. Only 2 members I have met have ever said they could smell other members however this was in a smaller gathering of 5 people. Apart from this, I have no independent proof though that the people who attend have an odour. However, many get frequent remarks or hand-over-nose-reactions at work etc.

Are you going to book a hotel or are you returning to Brighton at night? I am staying at the Hotel Strand Continental. The party goes on till late and we celebrate Xmas properly! (hic!)

Well, independent proof wouldn't be hard to get.... just talk to a *normal* person who is in the vicinity at one of these meetups and see what happens.

I would either travel back to Brighton or stay at a friend's house in London so no need for a hotel for me.

What does celebrate Xmas properly mean? If it means you all get drunk, throw caution to the wind and think "F**k off I don't care if alcohol increases halitosis by at least three different mechanisms, it's Christmas then it sounds good to me!"

[firebreath]

@brightonguy , I think you will need to make your own thread on the results...good luck!

[Hooch]

This is news to me , so far I have had no problem smelling some really bad breath

Far be it from me to dismiss Arun's findings at his meet-ups but I have smelled and can smell at least one case of bb, mild or otherwise, on someone every day. I have also met up with someone on this forum and they most def did not have bb and they reassured me that neither do I. Our problem could be transitory or we have been cured or we never had a problem ( in my case I def used to..whether I still do is up for question)..my point is...I don't believe bb sufferers cancel each other out..it doesn't make sense. From an evolutionary point of view the reason we can't smell ourselves is so that we can detect others (smell danger approaching etc in days of the cavemen etc). We all smell the same when we have sweaty armpits etc..so if the same bacteria cancels each other out we wouldn't be able to smell bo on anyone else...I can def smell plenty of bo on London transport. I'm sure that after a while you can become acclimatised to a smell...but that would take time..it wouldn't happen immediately on meeting a total stranger. So I'm guessing that when the group meet up, they are relaxed and non- stressed which helps to lessen the odour..it's likely a transitory prob on a lot of the members and the ones that can be detected are the ones with the chronic prob.

[firebreath]

Actually,some good can from these meet ups,specially if you are looking for a partner or a long term relationship.Then this can only be a good thing.
I suppose it's irrelevant if the rest of the world can smell if you have a loving and understanding partner to come home to...
Not perfect but better than being all alone - don't u think?

[brightonguy]

I've met three different people off this forum since the beginning of September. Two of those people I've met twice, so five meet-ups in total. I really like all of them, I'm so glad I did this.

I will not reveal anything about their identities for obvious reasons but I will say that on all five occasions I could not discern any odour on them whatsoever and vice versa, they could not discern any odour on me. Do I think it's because we cancelled each others odours out in some way? No I don't. Although the time I spent with these people was mostly one on one we had enough interaction or were close enough to other people (who didn't react to us badly) for me to believe that we genuinely didn't smell. Does this mean that we never smell? Well I can only speak for myself and I'm afraid that the answer is definitely no. I definitely smell bad at times and I'm still trying to figure out the dynamics of that better.

Meeting these three people was one of the best things I've done in my battle with BB because (a) I got to meet and talk to people with similar stories and experiences to me; (b) I got validation that my odour problem isn't there all the time; (c) I got to meet three really nice people

[stressedout]

From an evolutionary point of view the reason we can't smell ourselves is so that we can detect others (smell danger approaching etc in days of the cavemen etc). We all smell the same when we have sweaty armpits etc..so if the same bacteria cancels each other out we wouldn't be able to smell bo on anyone else...

Hooch, what a great point! That exactly is. Or someone lost their sense of smell.

Brightonguy, good foor you, such positive experiences and Im sure you will stay friends for a long time. More people should be doing this. As for the transitory BB, most likely it happens due to stress and therefore constant worrying = halitophobia.

[brightonguy]

Brightonguy, good foor you, such positive experiences and Im sure you will stay friends for a long time. More people should be doing this. As for the transitory BB, most likely it happens due to stress and therefore constant worrying = halitophobia.

I definitely think more people on this forum should meet with each other. I'm still keen to meet other people off here.

I wouldn't label myself as halitophobic,I have days where I don't smell bad and sometimes a number of consecutive days where I don't smell but it hasn't (not yet anyway) gone away for good. Yesterday, for example, I did not smell bad and so I took advantage of it and went out with my friend last night and had a good time. Today, I clearly smell bad. I tested this this morning on the way to work by breathing with my mouth open when I was on the bus. I do this frequently when I'm on the bus in order to gauge from others how I smell. Someone sat next to me and then moved after about 5 minutes. At another stop someone else got on, sat next to me and moved after about 5 minutes. Just to be certain that it was because of me, when the third person sat next to me I made a phone call and watched him squirm and fidget with his nose whilst I spoke. When my stop came and I asked him if he could let me pass he said "Stinks". I do smell today, particularly from my nose - I can smell it. First thing I did when I got off the bus was go and see my GP about another issue. My GP asked how I'd been getting on with thinking that I smell. I told the truth, I said well I didn't smell yesterday but today I clearly do. She played dumb, I didn't have the energy to explain what had happened to me on the way to work, she doesn't want to know, she can't help and would rather just say it's in my head like the vast majority of medical professionals. Sigh. The only way I'm currently managing to deal with all of this craziness I go through with this BB is to write about it. I'm hoping to pass it off as a work of fiction - shouldn't be too hard, it's pretty unbelievable what I, what we, go through.

[halitosisux]

Brightonguy, when you have these 'bad' days, does it make any difference if you irrigate your sinuses?