Causes and treatment of bad breath

Unpleasant odor from the mouth - a very common phenomenon among us. The cause of this are various diseases of the digestive system.

Bad smell from the mouth is another problem in communicating with other people. Modern medicine calls such a state when the mouth of a man smells of an extremely unpleasant smell - halitosis. In Latin - Halitoz.

In fact, halitosis can not be called an independent disease, rather it is a sign of pathological processes taking place in the body. In the absence of proper oral care, a bad smell intensifies, causing discomfort not only to the patient, but also to others.

In this article we will consider why there is an unpleasant odor from the mouth in adults, what are the main causes of this symptoms, and how to get rid of it at home.

How to check if you smell from the mouth?

Many people who have an unpleasant, repulsive breath, do not even know about the existing problem. It's good if a close friend or friend points to it. But it is not always possible, relatives are afraid to offend a loved one, and colleagues prefer to reduce communication with him to a minimum. And the problem remains.

instagram viewer

There are several ways to test yourself:

The wrist test. It is enough to lick your wrist and let the saliva dry. The smell that you will feel after a few seconds is the smell of the front of your tongue. As a rule, it is much weaker than what it really is, because the front part of the tongue is cleaned by our saliva, in which there are antibacterial components, whereas the back of the tongue, in turn, is the hotbed of unpleasant odors.
You can also trybreathe in your palm and instantly smell what you exhale. Alternatively, try to stick out the lower lip, pushing the jaw slightly forward, and the upper one is rolled in and make a sharp exhalation of the mouth, then sniff that which you exhaled.
Test with a spoon. Take a teaspoon, turn it over and several times draw on the surface of the tongue. On the spoon there will be a little white plaque or saliva. The smell coming from them is the smell of your breath.

Additional signs include the formation of a plaque in the tongue, inflammation of the mucous membrane, a sense of unpleasant taste in the mouth. These symptoms do not point directly to halitosis and can vary, depending on the cause of the disease and the presence of complicating factors.

Causes of bad breath

The causes of halitosis may differ significantly, but before you look for them, you need to make sure that this smell does exist. Modern doctors distinguish several types of halitosis:

True Halitosis, in which unpleasant breathing is objectively noticed by surrounding people. The reasons for its occurrence can be related to the peculiarities of physiology, insufficient oral hygiene, metabolic processes in the body, or to be symptoms of certain diseases.
Pseudohalitosis- this is barely perceptible unpleasant breath, which can be felt by close contact with a person. Usually, in such a situation, the patient exaggerates the problem and resolves it simply enough with the help of strengthening oral hygiene.
Halothophobia- the conviction of a person in the smell of his mouth, however, this is not confirmed by the dentist or the surrounding people.

Also according to statistics:

80% of the causes of bad breath are associated with problems in the oral cavity.
10% with ENT diseases.
only 5-10% with serious diseases of internal organs and systems - liver, kidneys, organs of the gastrointestinal tract, organs respiratory system, hormonal failures, metabolic disorders, autoimmune and oncological diseases.

The most basic thing to understand is that the main cause of the unpleasant odor emanating from the person's mouth is the vital activity of anaerobic bacteria (that is, bacteria that grow and multiply without access to oxygen). Their products of life - volatile sulfur compounds and are the smelly gases that are very unpleasant smells and lead to the appearance of a smell from the mouth of a person.

Why does bad breath appear?

But the reasons that lead to the multiplication of these bacteria, a lot. We will discuss them in detail:

Poor hygiene of the oral cavity. Most often putrid odor from the mouth is associated with unsatisfactory oral hygiene, for example, when a person does not use dental floss to clean the interdental spaces from food residues. Surely many of you felt the stink from the mouth of colleagues who snacked at work, but did not brush their teeth.
Diseases of the gums(gingivitis and periodontitis). The cause of these ailments is poor oral hygiene, soft microbial plaque and hard tartar. When the amount of toxins released by microorganisms of plaque and stone exceeds the possibilities of local immunity of the oral cavity, inflammation develops in the gums.
Caries. Carious defects of the teeth are filled with a huge amount of pathogenic microflora and there are always remains of food in them. This food and tooth tissues quickly begin to rot and as a result - you have a bad smell from the mouth. If you want to eliminate the smell from the mouth - in the first place you need to cure the sick teeth.
Development of tartar- dental plaque, which seeps with salts of minerals (calcium salt) with its hardening and the development of chronic infection in it. More often tartar is the result of gum disease (gingival pockets), which loosely cover the cervical teeth and the spaces between their lateral margins.
Diseases of the digestive system(gastritis, ulcers). In this case, this problem is caused by the abnormality of the esophageal sphincter, when odors from the stomach penetrate directly through the esophagus into the oral cavity.
Chronic tonsillitis. Those who suffer from chronic inflammation of the tonsils - the same bad smells from the mouth. If you have weak immunity or in the oral cavity a lot of infection, in this case, periodic inflammation of the tonsils can develop into a slow chronic form of inflammation. People who suffer this kind of inflammation of the tonsils often complain of a terrible smell from the mouth.
Stomatitis is an inflammatory disease that is accompanied by the formation of ulcers on the mucous membrane of the mouth. Sores and a dense white coating are the source of halitosis.
Glossitis is an inflammatory process in the lining of the tongue, which can occur together with gingivitis or stomatitis.
Pathology of the intestine(enteritis and colitis). As a result of inflammatory processes in the intestine, toxic substances enter the bloodstream, which the body takes out, including through the lungs, resulting in an unpleasant odor from the mouth.
Another common cause of halitosis isdry mouth: saliva does not moisten and cleans the mouth, washing out plaque and dead cells. Thus, the cells located on the gums, the inner surface of the cheeks and the tongue, decompose, becoming the cause of halitosis. Dryness in the mouth can be caused by the use of alcohol, some medications, pathologies of the salivary glands and so on.
Medications: Many medications, including antihistamines and diuretics, can cause dry mouth, which can cause bad breath. Such odor and treatment are often interrelated - a number of drugs can lead to a bad smell (insulin, triamterene, paraldehyde and many others).
Quite often, the cause of bad smell from the mouth aresome products. Of course, the champions are the onions and garlic. However, after noisy feasts with lots of meat and fatty foods, too, an unpleasant odor from the mouth may appear. True, and it passes pretty soon.
Tobacco products: smoking and chewing tobacco leave chemicals that are retained in the mouth. Smoking can also accelerate other causes of poor breathing, such as gum disease or oral cancer.

Whatever different reasons cause bad breath, the source of all problems is bacteria. They are always in our mouth, creating a certain microflora there. Any living organism, and bacteria, is not an exception, eating, produces the products of vital activity, which are volatile sulfur compounds. It is these fetid sulfurous volatile compounds that we sense from our mouths.

Experts believe that one of the most obvious reasons for its appearance is a white substance that accumulates on the back of the tongue. It occurs when a person improperly cleans his teeth, ignoring the language.

How to treat an unpleasant smell from the mouth

In case of bad breath, treatment is a separate topic for conversation, but what can be done To prevent it from appearing, it is important to know even those who do not suffer from such a problem. After an unpleasant odor from the mouth, if it appears, do not disguise it with a mint candy.

As mentioned above, the food particles left after eating - the soil for the reproduction of bacteria. That's why a lot depends on the hygiene of the mouth. It is advisable to take care that, after eating, no food remains in the mouth, which, among other things, contributes to the formation of plaque and stone. This requires:

brush your teeth with a toothbrush with a soft bristle thrice a day to remove food particles left in the mouth and stuck in the teeth;
interdental spaces cleaned with dental floss;
daily clean the back of the tongue with a brush with soft bristles;
regularly stimulate saliva to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, adhere to the diet;
to eliminate xerostomia (dry mouth) rinse your mouth with warm water;
visit the dentist regularly.

At home, get rid of bad breath from mouth rinse with vegetable oil. To do this, draw a small portion of oil in the mouth and hold it there for 10-15 minutes. Oil has a good property to dissolve all rotting products. Then spit and rinse your mouth thoroughly. You can not swallow such an oil! With the proper procedure, the oil should become cloudy.

The ability to remove the unpleasant smell has infusions of such herbs as peppermint, turn, cumin, bitter wormwood. To clean the pockets in the gums, it is good to use a rinse after eating 3% hydrogen peroxide solution, in dilution with water 1: 1. Peroxide will well clean even the deepest pockets and eliminate the problem.

In addition, there is a large number of modern means of quickly getting rid of bad smell from the mouth: aerosol fresheners, gum, sugar candy, etc. They are characterized by both quick efficiency and low stability, due to the short duration of the action.

To which doctor to apply

If you get stale smell from the mouth, you need to go to the dentist, get a professional tooth brushing, cure dental diseases, gums, get rid of tartar.

If there is no effect, you need to consult a gastroenterologist, and in rare cases - an ENT doctor (when sinusitis or chronic rhinitis), pulmonologist (with bronchoectatic disease), endocrinologist (with diabetes mellitus).