Bad Breath Halitosis Forum

I'd like to share with you something my dentist told me. He said most people have a white tongue at some point during the day or night on the back portion only. When the whiteness is there ALL THE TIME and ESPECIALLY in the front, then you have a problem.

This is usually a sign that you have an overpopulation of opportunistic bacteria in your mouth. He told me that this can happen even if the health of you gums and teeth is perfect. When he encounters such a case he usually prescribes Chlorexehedine for 1 month and re-evaluates the patient. Most times this is enough to cure the problem.

If this tactic fails, he then treats the patient for thrush (with lozenges) just to cover his bases..although, he says this hardly ever makes any difference.

Once this has been done and if the patient returns with the white tongue again, he then refers the patient to a maxifacial surgeon for some lab work. Why a surgeon is needed for this, is beyond me. Maybe for insurance reasons? I don't know.

Anyway, the surgeon will run tests on the bacteria on your tongue to determine which bacteria and in what quantity, exist.
This way the doctor can TAILOR a dose of antibiotics for YOUR PARTICULAR BACTERIAL INFECTION! Now isn't that some cool stuff?

I have spoken with my dentist at length about this and he assures me that if your problem is related to a white tongue then it is actually pretty easy to fix. He did say that healthy teeth and gums are definitely a good thing so he knows these aren't contributing factors. However, In my opinion, if your teeth and gums are in bad shape then your dentist isn't worth a damn in the first place.

I really hope this helps someone and take care everyone.
Keep up the fight.

NOTANYMORE

when people say "white tongue" are they applying this term to "off-white" or "yellow-white" tongue? the back of my tongue always has an "off-yellow" "yellow-white" appearance (lesser so after oral care routine, moreso after eating, long time without oral routine)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUYDWxUJ ... =1&index=7

I wonder if they did this for her?

Hey halitosisux, I saw that video too a while ago and i asked my doctor if i could get a test like that and she said no. She was like: every human being has millions of different bacteria in their mouth and it's impossible to kill them. I told her that i didn't wanted to kill all bacteria, but just the one that gives me BB. After that she told i have no BB.

It would be interesting to know which doctor treated the person in the video.

Hey billie, what you said about your doctor is just so typical. They just dont want to get involved its as simple as that.

Its so frustrating When you think of all the SHIT people get help for, being FAT from eating like a pig, taking drugs, drinking alcohol etc etc, and whenever we need to try something just in the hope of maybe getting somewhere in trying to solve this problem, we just get swept aside.

We should be able to walk in to a surgery and leave it to the FFFFF***ing doctor to solve, but instead we have to become smarter than they are and yet they STILL wont even try things.

Anyway, I have no idea whether that video is just some bullshit to cover up the reality that they dont really have a fkn clue what to do about her BB or whether they really did target the strains of bacteria they found 'overgrowing' in her mouth. I have heard of this approach before though. But from the reality of what we know from aydimur, anything we do with our oral microbial flora, whether it be antibiotic or antiseptic mouthwash, the bacterial profile will revert to the way it was as long as nothing else changes.

I agree halitosisux...you are right..doctors don't even know what halitosis mean. I learned a lot in this forum. You guys are being a great help to me. But I was thinking how dr Murat said that halitosis 1 can be cured if on the other hand he said that whatever we do anything could change our microbial flora....that is a little confusing to me..If that is the case, we are lost...no much hope for us...

Antibiotics cure the overgrowth and restore your body to it's normal state. These meds are prescribed for infections in all parts of the body. If they didn't work we would all be screwed.

Antibiotics kill some bacteria, which is sometimes necessary to cure a certain condition, but they do not restore the normal bacteriological state in your body. In fact, it is well known that treatments with antibiotics often disturb the bacterial balance in your colon (and vagina) and it takes a while to get the normal balance restored. That is why probiotics are often recommended.

Good luck with those probiotics.......hope that helps everyone.

That video clip is from a British show which I watch regularly. I don't watch it because it's any good - it's complete crap; I watch it because my housemate is domineering when it comes to the remote control. I can only speculate (cuz I haven't spoke to the lady to see if that cured her or not) but I VERY much doubt that she got anything in the way of a revolutionary antiobotic. The limitations of taking antiobiotics to try and cure bad breath permanently (even if it is caused by the overgrowth of one or more anaerobes on the tongue) have been discussed extensively here. The doctors on that show are plastic idiots who rarely say anything that anyone with half a brain can't figure out from a decent Google. What they do is examine patients with various embarassing illnesses (because your average tv viewer seems to relish that kind of thing) and then more often than not provide some half-baked solution to their problem. This is most evident with some of the plastic surgery solutions offered for certain physical ailments - I've winced at the looks of disappointment on patients faces which they try unsuccessfully to shield when they say "Oh yes, thank you, that's a big improvement".

I hadn't seen that clip before and I've never seen the show so I don't have an opinion on the validity of it. I do know that according to my dentist, several people a month come in complaining of a white tongue and bad breath. He treats the all the same way and says he has success and that his partners do as well.

I am obviously not an expert on anything in the field of dentistry so take my story and use it as you like. I have taken the time to talk to a medical professional about this problem and I am simply passing it on to you folks in hopes that it will help someone.

I can tell you something else he said. If your saliva smells funny, so does your breath. And probiotics are for supplementation only. They will not treat a serious infection or extreme overgrowth. You need strong meds, whether you like it or not. Holistic medicine is all smoke and mirrors in my opinion.

notanymore. thnks for the thoroughly informative posts..tried to ask my dentist to do somethin bout my white tongue and she said its normal

Doctor,

How can you say, without having seen the patient, that a white tongue is not an infection? Is candidiasis not a fungal infection?

As stated, I am not sure why the dentist would send the patient to an oral surgeon. Perhaps my dentist does not have the recommended tools to perform the test or maybe for insurance reasons? I don't know, that's just what he said.

Also, yes, It may not be the source of the halitosis, however, when you are scraping stinky white stuff off your tongue that makes for a good starting point for a cure.

I agree that broad spectrum antibiotics may in fact exacerbate the problem. This is why a culture is needed to isolate the offending microorganism.

Once again, not an expert........just passing on what a medical doctor has explained to me.

A typical white coated tongue is not candidiasis, even though fungus may be involved. Fungi are part of the normal microbial flora. The tongue is constantly shedding dead cells from the ends of its papillae, and like other areas where there are a lot of dead cells, you'll find a lot of fungi - the feet for instance.

You know when you have oral candidiasis because its nothing like a normal tongue coating.

Google some images and see.