Cures For Bad Breath
Cures For Bad Breath
Bad breath can really make your life hard. First of all, no one will tell you that you have it, so you'll probably never know. You'll have a hard time keeping relationships, people will avoid you, and you'll never really know why. Even if you do know that you have bad breath, it isn't as easy to get rid of as you'd think. Or is it? Are there any cures for bad breath? Or just different ways of covering it up?
Most of the cures for bad breath you'll see are definitely the latter; they are basically scents and perfumes for your mouth that will wear off in time. And as strong as they may taste or feel in your mouth, severe cases of bad breath will still be noticeable over and above these treatments. In order to really find a cure for bad breath, you have to understand what's causing it.
So what does cause bad breath? In a word; bacteria. Everyone's favorite microbes are once again to blame. In fact, just about every bad organic smell you can imagine comes down to bacteria. Even though they are vital for our survival and are an integral part of the world's ecosystem, bacteria really know how to stink things up.
So a cure for bad breath should focus on killing or reducing bacteria, right? Yes and no. Here's where the cures for bad breath distinguish themselves. Most claim that they kill some ridiculously high percentage of bacteria in your mouth, and that's just great. However, killing large amounts of bacteria isn't really the goal. Removing the specific odor causing bacteria, and neutralizing their odor producing compounds is the goal.
The vast majority of the odor causing bacteria in your mouth are centered on one place; your tongue. Specifically, the back parts of your tongue. And trust me, they're stuck on there good. A little brushing of your tongue may help, but won't really be a cure for bad breath. To really cure bad breath, you have to physically scrape the bacterial biofilm off of your tongue. This isn't as easy as it sounds as it can produce a gag reflex if you're not used to doing it, but in time you'll get over it and it gets easier. You can use a tongue scraper, or anything that has enough of an edge to scoop up the plaque, but isn't so sharp that it will cut your tongue.
A good compliment to scraping your tongue is of course regular brushing and flossing, but also using mouthwash. Not just any mouthwash will do; there are specific odor neutralizing chemicals in some brands that are vastly superior as a bad breath cure than the more popular brands, like Scope or Listerine. Alcohol and menthol don't do anything; look for brands that advertise the ability to neutralize volatile sulfur compounds, as those are the ones that will help serve as a cure for bad breath