Oral Care: Tame your Bad Breath

Whether it's a fleeting case of morning breath or a lingering bout with halitosis, everyone has bad breath sometimes.

Bad breath can happen to anybody, and it sure is a mood killer. Here's presenting a few tips and tricks to ensure you don't suffer from it. Ever been in a situation, when you were trying to talk to someone and they were trying to avoid you by looking in another direction and wrinkling their noses, all because you have the breath of a dragon that lunched on an entire pod of garlic? Let’s face it, bad breath is very undesirable, uncomfortable, and can certainly ruin our day. But fortunately, these fixes will help tame your bad breath or halitosis.

The most effective treatment is usually improving your dental hygiene. As part of your daily routine you should:

• Brush your teeth and gums
• Floss in between your teeth
• Clean your tongue

Brush your teeth and scrape your tongue first thing every morning and also after each time you take a nap. Foul-smelling bacteria have had a chance to take over your mouth while you slept, and are most likely causing yucky "morning breath." Tongue scrapers can be found in most health food stores and also in drug stores and convenience stores as they become more popular.

A dry mouth is a haven for bacteria that causes bad breath. So, swish water around in your mouth. Water will temporarily dislodge bacteria and make your breath a bit more palatable. At the end of a leisurely lunch or romantic dinner, munch on a sprig of parsley that’s left on your plate. Parsley is rich in chlorophyll, a known breath deodorizer with germ-fighting qualities.

If you can get your hands on an orange, peel and eat it. The citric acid it contains will stimulate your salivary glands and encourage the flow of breath-freshening saliva. If there are no oranges in sight, eat whatever is available, except known breath-fowler like garlic, onions or a stinky cheese. Eating encourages the flow of saliva, which helps remove the unpleasant, odour-causing material on the back of your tongue.

Vigorously scrape your tongue over your teeth. Your tongue can become coated with bacteria that ferment proteins, producing gases that smell bad. Scraping your tongue can dislodge these bacteria so you can rinse them away. If you have a metal or plastic spoon, use it as a tongue scraper. To scrape safely, place the spoon on the back of your tongue and drag it forward. Repeat four or five times. Scrape the sides of the tongue as well, with the same back-to-front motion. Don’t push the spoon too far back; however, you may activate your gag reflex.

Tips and tricks

• Use toothpaste that contains tea-tree oil, a natural disinfectant.
• Use an oral irrigator, which is a handheld device that rapidly pulses a small jet of water into your mouth, to flush out the bad bacteria, which can go deeper than a brush or floss string can reach.
• Carry a toothbrush with you and brush immediately after every meal. With prompt brushing, you thwart the development of plaque, the soft, sticky film that coats the teeth and gums.
• To keep your toothbrush free of stink-triggering bacteria, store it, head down, in a lidded plastic tumbler of hydrogen peroxide. Rinse the brush well before you use it.
• If you wear dentures, it’s possible that they are absorbing the bad odours in your mouth. Always soak them overnight in an antiseptic solution, unless your dentist has advised you otherwise.
• Don’t skip meals. When you don’t eat for a long period of time, your mouth can get very dry. It becomes a perfect breeding ground for bacteria.
• Some things can sour your breath even if there are no bacteria in the neighborhood. These include cigarettes, alcohol, onions, garlic and especially strong cheeses like Camembert, Roquefort, and blue cheese. In situations where sweet breath is a must, use the commonsense approach—just say no.