The Bad Breath Blog

If you have bad breath, it’s important to remember that the only way to truly get rid of halitosis is to have a proper oral care regimen that you follow every day. While this may sound like common sense, you may be surprised to learn that Americans received an average score of “D” on a national dental health quiz administered by the American Dental Association (ADA). People were unaware of some of the most important ways to keep teeth healthy and avoid bad breath, such as when to replace their toothbrushes and how often to go to the dentist.

“The results of the survey were quite shocking and really show how important it is for people to become more involved in their own oral health,” said William R. Calnon, D.D.S., ADA president and a practicing dentist in Rochester, New York.

October is Dental Hygiene Awareness Month, and in honor of this occasion, now is a good time to go over some dental care basics and learn why practicing proper oral care is crucial if you want to cure bad breath.

Keep that bacteria in check

First, you need to understand what causes oral hygiene problems such as tooth decay, gum disease and halitosis, and that’s bacteria. Your mouth has so much bacteria in it that if you were able to see them all, it could take all week.

According to Dentistry IQ, nobody knows for sure how much bacteria there is in the mouth, but they do know that it multiplies fast. In a perfect environment, such as a Petri dish, some species of oral bacteria can double their numbers every 20 minutes.

Bacteria also eat and produce waste like most other living organisms, wreaking havoc on your gums and dental enamel and causing some nasty bad breath. This is why you need to brush, floss and use alcohol-free mouthwash and oral care probiotics. These products are designed to help keep bacteria in check and introduce healthy bacteria in the mouth to counteract the bad.

Steps to follow

So what should you do to fight bacteria and keep your mouth healthy? Well, the steps are simple but, you have to do them every day. You can’t brush a few days a week and think you’re doing the trick, since bacteria in the mouth are constantly growing. This is why you have to brush twice a day, every day, and floss at least once.

Also, you should be using alcohol-free mouthwash daily, not only to prevent bad breath, but to keep from developing dry mouth. The bacteria in your mouth can thrive when there are insufficient amounts of saliva to wash them away, which is why you should avoid alcohol-based mouthwash.

You should also avoid snacking between meals, since eating throughout the day will keep your teeth coated in sugar and leftover food particles. Many people mistakenly believe that sugar causes cavities, but in reality, it merely acts as a snack for the bacteria in your mouth. So, stick to three meals a day and consider using alcohol-free mouthwash throughout the day to wash away any remnants of these meals. Remember, you shouldn’t brush after every meal, since this may wear away tooth enamel. Twice a day is enough for a healthy mouth.

Keep all of this in mind as you celebrate Dental Hygiene Awareness Month.

Over the last few years, TheraBreath products have shot to the top of the list of best-selling oral care products in stores across America. TheraBreath Oral Rinse is now the best-selling mouthwash on Amazon, TheraBreath Toothpaste is shooting up the ranks at Walmart, our TheraBreath Oral Health Probiotics Kit is the most successful oral care probiotic treatment in the US, and the remarkable TheraBreath Mouth Wetting Lozenges have already started to outsell products like Tic Tacs and Ice Breakers Mints at many of America’s Drug Stores. I want to thank all of you for helping our award-winning oral care products become such a huge success. It is due to your support that TheraBreath is now available at tens of thousands of retail stores across the country!

If you have already tried TheraBreath Mouth Wetting Lozenges, you know they are unique. The first breath lozenges of their kind, TheraBreath Mouth Wetting Lozenges don’t just extinguish bad breath on the go — they also stimulate your mouth to produce refreshing saliva that continuously protects you from bad breath germs and their odors. This is due to a special ingredient exclusive to our lozenges that gives them a mild, pleasant tingle. This tingle encourages your mouth to restore natural moisture when it starts to feel dry or taste unpleasant. If you haven’t yet tried this remarkable new product, I really hope you go online to THERABREATH.COM or visit your local TheraBreath retailer and give it a shot. I am even including a link where you can download and print a coupon you can use to save on your purchase at retail. Click here to get your coupon you can use at retail OR if you would like to purchase online, just use coupon code BLZ2 when you checkout at TheraBreath.com and we will take $1.00 off each box of lozenges you purchase.

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In childhood, pulling baby teeth is a rite of passage. At first it can be a little scary, but most kids get used to it, and many look forward to their next empty socket – and visit from the tooth fairy. Of course, some tykes need help with their first loose tooth, and that means being prepared as a parent to deal with blood, germs, dry mouth and bad breath.

According to a recent post at Nanny.Net, it’s not too tough to help your child pull his or her first tooth. To start, you’ll need to wash your hands, get some gauze ready and keep your little one relaxed…

Then comes the actual pulling

This can require some wiggling or apple-eating. (Ditch the string. It’s no better than using your hands.) Finally, the source recommends putting pressure on the empty socket after the tooth comes out to stanch the blood flow, then applying ice in order to numb any little aches your child may feel.

However, things don’t end there. What many parents don’t realize is that a newly pulled tooth presents a unique opening for infections, dry mouth and bad breath. In large part, this is due to a side effect familiar to nearly anyone who’s had their wisdom teeth pulled: a dry socket.

A clot, lost

Dry sockets occur when a blood clot, the one that fills the hole in lieu of a tooth, accidentally falls out. This is most common among teens and young adults, whose wisdom teeth removals often leave large, tenuous scabs at the back of the jaws. A little too much negative pressure – say, from sucking on a straw – can pop one of these clots out.

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As if ladies didn’t have enough to worry about, now there’s this. According to scientists in Brazil, being on your period can give you halitosis. And not only that, but even before you start menstruating, premenstrual syndrome (PMS) can lead to bad breath.

The problem isn’t that the monthly visit changes your oral health routine. Instead, having one’s period causes hormonal changes that can lead to oral odor.

Don’t kill the messenger

In the human body, hormones rule your every urge, regardless of your gender. Whether you’re hungry, tired, aroused, scared, moody or satisfied, hormones are the molecular messengers that are helping make it happen. In fact, hormones help control nearly every major body function, including metabolism, immunity, cell turnover and reproduction.

They also evidently cause bad breath. Here’s how.

As cellular signals, hormones stimulate various cellular responses. Some of these can be pleasant, like when serotonin makes you feel more relaxed. However, others are less welcome. For instance, the messenger hormones that initiate menstruation can cause cramping, irritability and – according to the study – halitosis.

Dry mouth, too

For their investigation, researchers from the University of Campinas in Piracicaba, Brazil, took periodic measurements of the breath odor levels of both women and men. To do so, they gauged the levels of volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs) in healthy participants’ mouths. (These molecules give oral odor its stinky scent.)

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In the quest to keep bad breath at bay, halitosis experts can (and have) tried all sorts of experiments to see what neutralizes odor-causing bacteria. In fact, all sorts of researchers and experts of every stripe – including chemists, bacteriologists, allergists, psychologists and even…martial arts masters? – are prey to bad breath, so why shouldn’t they take a swipe at eliminating it?

For example, I recently appeared on QVC UK to discuss the inception of my research into the connection between microbes, dry mouth and halitosis. The person who pointed me in the right direction was my daughter, who was 13 years old at the time. She said that her friends kept offering her breath mints and gum after athletic practice, and she knew (smart girl!) that they were tactfully telling her that she had bad breath.

Today, I hear this complaint in breath clinics all the time. The origin of this kind of bad breath is bacteria, since microorganisms are what release the sulfur-based molecules that give halitosis its bad scent. However, I knew there was an underlying problem, and eventually it occurred to me: dry mouth.

Whether or not you’re an athlete, you’ve probably suffered from this problem before. Lots of things can dry out your mouth. Physical activity parches your tongue and palate due to all the panting it requires. But just think of all the other situations that can leave your mouth dry: anxiety, fear of public speaking, mouth-breathing, talking for extended periods of time, smoking, sleeping with your mouth open, using an alcohol-based mouthwash, breathing cold or dry winter air, even having Sjogren’s syndrome, which is a fairly rare autoimmune condition that leaves the eyes and mouth chronically dry. (You might recall that tennis star Venus Williams recently announced that she’s been diagnosed with it.)

The solution is to use a product that can moisten the mouth, oxygenate the tongue, rinse away bacteria and freshen breath all at once. The History Channel recently called such specialty products a “modern marvel” as part of a special, odor-themed episode of the show of the same name. My daughter’s been using these products for years, and she no longer gets offered free gum and mints, that’s for sure!

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