Have you ever caught someone breathing into their cupped hand? Perhaps you’ve done it yourself. This is a quick way to test the smell of your breath. It’s typically done before meeting someone of importance, like a date, your client, or the boss. We merely want to make sure that bad breath is not appearing with its ugly scent.
If you just had a meal with known breath-affecting foods, then that little test might be needed. If you regularly brush your teeth for two minutes, twice a day, and use dental floss, then bad breath is rarely a concern. Nevertheless, let’s discuss a few points about dealing with bad breath.
Bad Breath Triggers
We’re all familiar with different foods that affect our breath. Cutting back on the frequency and amount of such foods reduces bad breath. For when you eat such things, keep a small tube of travel toothpaste with a toothbrush available for afterwards at work, or maybe a little bottle of mouthwash to bring back the freshness to your breath.
Food is not always the culprit, however, as over 6 billion individual bacteria within 700 different species can reside at any one time in the human mouth. These bacteria intertwine to help or harm your digestion and health. Some of those bacteria are gram-positive, meaning they have no fatty outer layer. These types cause dental plaque. Gram-negative bacteria have a fatty outer layer and produce noxious gas particles. When you exhale, the particles head out of your mouth and get picked up in the ambient air by noses, hopefully just your own.
“Pulling” the Triggers
Harmful bacteria are therefore either eating away at your teeth and gums or charging your breath with stink molecules. Breath mints only mask the effects, chewing gum actually offers some small assistance by activating your protective saliva, but the best way to stop any harmful effects from oral bacteria is with proper oral hygiene. Brushing your teeth twice a day along with flossing dislodges and removes bacterial buildup and the food they rely on for survival. For problem bad breath, prescription mouthwash kills and rinses away stragglers, and may even add a pleasant-smelling replacement odor to obscure what the bacteria left behind.
If you regularly deal with bad breath, keeping your semiannual appointments with the Yuba City Dentistry Group is critical. You may even want to up your visits to triannually or quarterly. We inspect and analyze the effects that different bacteria have on your teeth and gums, and we help you make corrections before, during, or after any issues brought on by bacteria — including bad breath. We’ll help you keep your breath on the positive side, so when you cup your hand to your mouth, you’ll have nothing to worry about!
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