Bad Breath Halitosis Forum

Hello,

I never had bad breath until about 4 years ago. I hadn't been to the dentist in a long time and I got an abscessed tooth. I had it for a while not knowing it was abscessed and hoping the pain would just go away. After a while my breath became pretty bad. I finally got a dentist appointment and fixed the problem but my breath never improved.

I get the feeling I've infected something in my throat because of the abscess. It's weird, when I eat a meal my breath becomes better for about an hour. It almost seems like when I eat maybe I am physically clearing away bacteria back there. I always feel like there's something in my throat. I clear my throat and swallow a lot. I've experimented with this by eating stuff like rice cakes and not chewing them too much and trying to swallow large pieces and it does seem to help, not great but helps. Don't know if that sounds dumb.

Do you have post nasal drip?

to me it sounds like your tongue spreads the odor, so plz check following things:

is your tongue coated? what color?

does your tongue has any odor when you tough it with finger or cotton pad? whats the smell after you let it dry? try different spots, dont forget the very back and the middle.

does your floss/ any spot at your gum/ your fixed or any other tooth /tonsils smell? etc

how would you classify those smells?

Do you have post nasal drip?

any known problems with gums or teeth or anything?

more information would be helpfull.

I'm not sure if I have post nasal drip but I wouldn't be surprised.

My tongue has a white coating and actually has some fissures.

My tongue doesn't really have any odor shortly after brushing but then slowly gets worse. It's the back of my tongue that's bad. I think it spreads to the rest of my tongue.

I often have a bad taste in my mouth that I would probably describe as kind of sour.

My breath recently improved for a few weeks when I switched toothpaste. I started using Crest Pro Health and it made my breath noticeably better whereas no other toothpaste had done that. Shortly after changing to that toothpaste I got a bit of a cold so I bought myself some Daytime Buckley's cough and cold medication and that actually helped my breath to become basically normal. These two things still help my breath but definitely not as well as they did at first.

I wonder if it's the Pseudoephedrine in the Buckley's that is helping with nasal congestion and helping with the breath.

do you figure you have bad breath or have you been told?

what about the floss related things i asked for?

I've never been told I have bad breath. My breath isn't the kind that some people describe here where people can smell it from like 10 feet away. It's definitely very bad but I don't think people would smell it unless they're like two feet away. I've sort of changed the way I talk to minimize how much I breath out while talking. My main problem is that I'm super afraid of kissing anyone.

I've never bothered to smell my floss actually. Before starting Crest Pro Health I'd only brush like once a day or sometimes skip a day and my teeth would definitely smell real bad. I would get tons of plaque buildup very fast. I was amazed at how fast it would accumulate. Now that I've switched toothpaste and brush twice a day my teeth don't really seem to smell anymore. It's mainly the back of my tongue/back throat area.