Dental Treatments for Bad Breath

After a long week, you decide to head to your favorite restaurant and ask a few friends to accompany you. The problem is that once you get close to them, you notice they make a faces, you take a sniff and notice your breath smells terrible.

There is an oral pathology that affects 1 in every 12 people; in this case the symptoms are usually not seen, but smell, the name of the disease is: Bad Breath or Halitosis. This disease primary result from poor dental habits and can lead to many health problems; both the foods we eat and our habits have a direct effect on our breath, but with a few tips from our dentist we can reduce and even prevent bad breath.

Bad Breath

In medical terms, Bad Breath is a symptom in which an unpleasant odor is present every time one exhaled breath; as mention our habits and the foods we eat affect our breath.

Poor Oral Habits: How they affect our Breath

In a previous post, we read how saliva helps to prevent dry mouth; in addition to hydrating our mouth, saliva helps to break down all the foods we eat.  Once food is swallowed it begins to flow through our esophagus and reach our stomach, food is digested and absorbed into the bloodstream. During digestion and absorption gases and odor travels to the lungs and can be given off in your breath.

When eating foods that naturally have a strong odor (example: anchovies, bourgogne cheese, garlic, hongeo, onions, rakfisk, among others). In the case of these foods; brushing your teeth, using dental floss and/or even using mouthwash only cover-up these odors, these products are often unable to fully remove it the bad odors.

The odor that these foods give, will only fully go away once it they have completely passed through your body.

The Food we Eat: How they affect our Breath

There are habits that can wreck out teeth and smile; we read some of these in a previous post, this we will learn how some habits can cause bad breath. Bacteria growth between teeth, surrounding gums and tongue; when one does not properly remove these bacteria, your oral cavity will offer an unpleasant odors.

Antibacterial rinses will reduce the number bacteria in your mouth; because in addition to causing bad breath, bacterium can lead to other more complicated diseases.  

If you use dentures and these are not properly cleaned, odor-causing bacteria can grow and give off bad breath.

Health Problems Associated with Bad Breath

Remember 1 out of 12 people have been diagnosed with bad breath or halitosis.

Curiously in a significant number of these cases, patients who visit their dentist thinking they have bad breath are actually diagnosed with a different oral disease after examination.  When patients are not diagnose with bad breath they are often have disorders in the esophagus, lungs, nasal cavity, sinuses, throat and their surroundings.  In some rare cases, bad breath has been associated with liver failure and other chronic diseases such as:

• Allergy
• Bronchitis
• Diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2)
• Sinus Infection
• Sore Throat
• Tonsillitis
• Trimethylaminuria (Fish Odor Syndrome)

Dental Health and Bad Breath

In addition to causing foul smells, other dental diseases bad breath is associated to cause are: dry mouth, gum disease, thrush and tooth decay. Saliva can help reduce bad breath; remember saliva moistens your mouth, washes away dead bacteria accumulate in the tongue, gums, and cheeks; it neutralizes the acids produce by plaque. Our dental clinic in Los Algodones can help you prevent this oral disease and many others, we invite you contact us and set up an appointment with us for additional assistance.

Treating Bad Breath

Sani Dental Group has professional dentist in our dental clinic; they can offer you different tips and treat numerous diseases.  Only your dentist can determine if the foul smell is cause in your mouth or in another area; if the source is located in an area outside of your mouth your dentist might address you to your family doctor or to a specialist to determine the odor source and treatment options.

The steps and procedures mentioned in this post are procedures available in the medical field; however, not all these treatments and procedures are perform at Sani Dental Group. To confirm if this procedure is perform at our dental clinics, please contact us directly.

Our dental clinic in Los Algodones has more than 25 professional dentists whom can assist you and take care of all your oral needs; the clinic has dentists who specialize in treating many conditions, even those that lead to bad breath. Our dentist can offer you several treatment options that will reduce the nasty odors and prevent future embarrassing situations.