Bad Breath and Dental Care

Bad breath is really bad news for everyone, but it can be addressed through expert dental care to alleviate the causes of the bad breath and restore clean, fresh smelling breath. Most of the time, bad breath is the result of bacteria inside the mouth, the throat, or even deeper down into the digestive system. Once the offensive smelling bacteria is dealt with effectively and eliminated, it cancels out the cause of the bad breath and remedies the problem.

Often times these areas of bacteria will accumulate where food has been trapped in between the teeth, or they will be found in the back of the tongue where it may be harder to reach when cleansing the mouth. In many cultures people not only use a toothbrush and dental floss, but they also use a dental hygiene implement known as a tongue scraper. The typical tongue scraper is made of plastic or metal and it is shaped like a horseshoe. You rub it along the tongue to scrape off food residue that accumulates as a film on the surface of the tongue. Then you rinse off and clean the scraper tool, wash out the mouth, and freshen the mouth with a dentist-recommended mouthwash. Using a tongue scraper removes much of the hard to get residue from the mouth, and that can help to get rid of bad breath. If you have problems with bad breath your dentist may recommend that you use a tongue scraper in addition to your normal toothbrush routine.

Food can also get stuck along the gum line, where the teeth and the gums meet. This is especially true in the back of the mouth where it is difficult to brush or floss, but determined flossing can usually get back into these hard to reach spots. If the floss you are using is not getting the job done, have your dentist recommend other types of floss. There are ribbon flosses, thinner flosses, and floss that is attached to special little tools to help you reach tricky crevices. You can also use other dental instruments available for home use, such as mirrors, picks, and probes; and your dentist can help you by explaining which products are best for your particular needs.

Dental health care is the key to curing bad breath, and most of the time instances of bad smelling breath can be directly traced back to a lack of proper oral hygiene. Your dentist may recommend a change in diet if you eat lots of especially pungent foods like onions and garlic. She or he may find that the cause of the bad breath is related to alcohol consumption or use of tobacco products like cigarettes or chewing tobacco. Or the dentist may discover a diseased tooth or an infection in the gums. In some cased the dentist will discover that the source of the problem is in another part of the body and is caused by a different type of illness, and he or she will refer you to an appropriate medical doctor for treatment.

But in most cases the dentist can alleviate foul breath by helping you maintain your teeth through regular brushing and flossing and routine visits to the dentist a couple of times per year.