Bad Breath Halitosis Forum

I have been reading this forum for a while but just signed up now. This might be a little long but please take 5 mins to ready it.

ABOUT ME: I am 21 yo. My life has been good for the most part except for this horrible bb. It has become pretty bad last 2 years, i always had it slightly but usually a peace of gum would do the trick. Now it seems like its getting worse and its affecting my work to the point that i am considering quitting or stepping down even though i ABSOLUTELY LOVE my job.

ABOUT THE JOB
I am a supervisor in a fortune 500 company, i become a supervisor when i was 20 yo one of the youngest supervisors in the store and probobly in the district. The company has about 1000 locations all over USA and is doing very good. I love my job, I love going to work for the most part and I would say that i am very good at it. I have changed so many people's lifes where they were about to get fired for bad performance and i told the managment not to fire them but to transfer them to my department and i would work with them.Not only do they get to keep their job but some of them are even getting a promotion into a leadership role and getting MVP awards. This is why this job gives me satisfaction, and it is also a challenge for me because its not easy bringing the best out of a person.Also recently we got the results and my department has been the best out of 18 stores in the district for the past 6 months. Out of about 40 stores my department is usually1st or 2nd in the territory.

THE PROBLEM
Obviously i have bad breath because i am on posting on this site and its affecting my work. First problem is that we have leadership meetings every week and i have to attend them even though i make the meetings hell for everyone. They can smell me EVEN WHEN I DONT OPEN MY MOUTH, I THINK IT COMES THROUGH MY NOSE. The room is very small for the amount of people that are in there and we have to literally squeez in to fit everyone. This is like hell for me as you can imagine, anytime i come in they start to hold their nose, turn on the fan, start coughing, give each other the look, tell others to open the door "its hot in here", leave the room to go to the bathroom every 20-30 mins. One time this older supervisor lady maybe 60,65yo said "IF you are sick you shouldnt breath". This killed my mood that day and wanted to hold it against her but i am sure that they are sick of it and i really dont want to make them go through this. I am smart enough to get the freakin hints, it drives me crazy! Obviously i have the same problem when training/coaching employees, talking to customers, or talking to managers but atleast we are not stuck in a SMALL ROOM and i can back away or turn around when talking to them. I chew a pack of gum in about 7hr shift and i am not sure that helps much although it gives me confidence for first 30 mins or so.

This post is starting to be too long so i will stop here but i would like some advice on what to do here. I thought about doing either of these

-Stepping down and just doing the job that DOESNT involve too much customer interaction, coaching training, working with others, attending meetings. This would probobly bore me to death but there is a job like this in the company.

-Talking to the main manager and seeing if i can skip the meeting and maybe see what i should do. He has told us that he overcame some obsticles like being homeless, having to leave home early when he was 17 yo, had some medical issues etc. He has also told me if i ever wanted to talk about anything i can always come to him...and i have seen him help some people out around other things.

- Quit this job and find a job that i can do from home. Talking on the phone or answering calls, selling stuff on ebay etc ... i dunno.

Also this situation is starting to make me depressed and i would liek to chat with some of you that have the same problem. If you want to chat send me a pm and ill give you my aol msgr or some other msgr.

Thanks for reading such a long post and thanks for all the advice/comments.

how about seeing a doctor?

halitosisux wrote:how about seeing a doctor?

I did, 3 months ago i was told i have a very bad sinus infection. I took all the antibiotics and scheduled appoitment with another ENT. The one i went to first time was too far away, 1.5 hrs driving so i decided to go to a closer one. Well the other ENT told me that the infection is gone now and i dont have any symptoms of sinus infection anymore.

2 days ago i went to a family doctor and did the full physical (blood work, hernia check, urine sample etc). i will be going back in 2 weeks for the results. I told the doctor of my condition PND etc and she prescribed amoxicilin again.

Hi bbsux,

Give your ongoing treatment a chance to work. I hope you find relief eventually. You mention about having PND - did this coincide with your problems you are having or have u always had PND? Is it odourless or does it smell too? If it coincided with your problems then your sinus problem clearly hasnt been eradicated.
How long did you have sinus problems before you noticed BB and went to seek treatment? because the longer sinusitis is left untreated, the harder it is to deal with and the further it penetrates until it irreversible damage that can only be dealt with by surgery.
Have you got any dental problems? by coincidence you might be having dental problems at the same time as your nasal problems and not realise it's causing your BB. Sometimes wisdom teeth (yours are probably still growing at this age) can penetrated into the sinuses and cause your symptoms. Please try to say as much as you can so people can have more chance of advising you.

Work is HARD.

You can't communicate when something is wrong. You can't explain yourself, you can't question anything, you can't exercise an opinion.

Obviously this affects our personalities and mannerisms around people. I know I can come off as cold, especially to the certain people who like to 'gesture' and rub it in your face about your BB. There are, however a few individuals who seem to be kind hearted, and try to treat you like a human. In that case, I try to be extra kind in return. Problem there is, you let up your guard and mutter one too many sentences and reveal how powerful and threatening your shit breath is. No one ever forgets the smell of death. People are people. What are you going to do if you have to walk into a room with a dead exposed corpse everyday? Pretend everything is jolly?

You are the weirdo, no matter what. People look at you funny, people run away from you, they treat you like you're mentally ill because you're awkward around people. People are literally scared of me.

Everyday is torture, but what can you do? Start another job, if you can get hired, just to shock the hell out of a bunch of complete strangers?

I know I'm going to either get fired or walk out one day. Only occupation I know of that can be done at home is 'day trader'. Great time to be getting into that eh?

edit: maybe you should talk to the manager and tell them you have 'health problems' and see if you can be moved? I personally wouldn't /couldn't do it, but it seems to beat the other options, if you love your job.

you have to soldier on and make adjustments... i always book meetings in larger rooms or have them near our work space...

make an excuse that the room you have the meeting in is too confined or you want to talk to people where they work or something like that to talk to people in a more open area...

if you build peoples respect and confidence on a one-on-one basis, they will be more likely to forgive you your BB also

but at the end of the day you have to put it to one side... of course there will be days when someone reacts badly and it puts you off but there will be other days when you get through to someone or something positive happens and you will forget about BB for a while..

either way you have to manage it because the only other option is hiding or running away from your problems, which is for weak people which I'm sure you are not as you are posting on this forum