Beating morning breath

BY NICKY PARK

When I wake up in the morning I have stinky breath.

I brush my teeth in the shower before breakfast and mask the odour.

Colleagues and friends haven't mentioned oral hygiene to me, I don't get frequent mint offerings and no one pinches their nose when I speak so it was fair to assume I was doing a good job.

So, when I visit the Australian Breath Clinic in Sydney's eastern suburbs you can imagine my surprise when my "inadequate mouth and tongue cleaning" are revealed.

Everyone has bad breath in the morning, don't they?

Turns out they don't.

Clinic founder Geoffrey Speiser says if you are vigilant about teeth and tongue cleaning every day, morning breath will fade in a week.

Dr Speiser is the only dentist in the country to use air-testing technology to detect different bacteria in your mouth.

After filling in a quiz about my teeth-cleaning habits, an assistant sucks a 30-second sample of my breath through a small syringe.

A few minutes later Dr Speiser calls me to his office where my worst nightmares are displayed on a colourful graph.

"But you told me not to brush before I came in!" I said, arguing the shocking results of the Halicheck breath-testing machine.

He tells me I have high levels of two out of three bad breath causing bacteria.

There are up to 800 different types of natural bacteria living in your mouth and throat, some haven't even been identified yet, he said.

And when this bacteria breaks down protein it "gives off a waste product" made of sulphur waste which causes bad breath.

So, when you're asleep, you're not eating, your saliva flow slows down or shuts off, you're mouth might be wide open and some people snore, all triggering a "radical increase in bacteria", Dr Speiser said.

"Whatever bacteria that are on your tongue when you go to sleep will multiply anything from two to four times while you're sleeping," he said.

Hence my stinky morning breath.

The best way to keep the bacteria down is to have a thorough cleaning regime just before bed.

About one third of Australians have chronic bad breath, Dr Speiser said, and your chances are increased as you get older.

The bacteria in your mouth is increased when you eat protein rich foods, and dairy and eggs in particular will "make your breath stinky".

For this reason, Dr Speiser recommends sticking to a diet of carbohydrates for breakfast and lunch and getting a protein hit at dinner so you can brush all the bacteria away.

Other bacteria boosters are dryness, caused by stress, smoking and alcohol, and acidity generated every time we eat.

Coffee and softdrink are particularly bad.

"If you graze on food all day you tend to increase the acid in your mouth, generate more bacteria, (and) cause more of a problem than if you're eating set meals," he says.

At least half of Dr Speiser's patients are producing a smell that only the person themselves is aware of.

This seemingly odourless smell is caused by the mucus in the back of your throat, such as when you have a cold.

Because friends, doctors and dentists are unable to pick up the smell, these people are often falsely tagged as halitophobic – living in fear of having bad breath.

"These people swear blind they can smell their bad breath," Dr Speiser said.

Dr Speiser says he is the first dentist in Australia to be able to detect the gas and confirm that there is an odour there.

Often lasting psychological damage has been done to the client.

"It (instills) a sense of paranoia to the person and then the personality will come into play," Dr Speiser said.

"If you feel you have a breath problem you start to look for signs in the people that you're talking to.

"They're being made (halitophoic) by society.

"Some people are emotionally scarred and that's never gonna go away."

Dr Speiser hands me a tongue-cleaning device, tells me to quit brushing in the shower and sends me on my way saying, "bad breath is basically part of life".

How to keep bad breath at bay:

- Use saline nasal flushing morning and night.

- Clean tongue, teeth and gums morning and night.

- Floss morning and night.

- Eat carbohydrates and breakfast and lunch and eat protein at dinner.

- Eat set meals and try not to graze.

- Chew sugarless gum for five minutes after eating to bring saliva flow back to normal.

- Use non-foaming toothpaste and an alcohol-free, neutral pH mouthwash.

 

- AAP