Lynn Capehart Wellness Project

BE SURE YOUR BREATH IS ALWAYS FRESH!

CATEGORY: 4: Excess Toxicity https://lynncapehartwellness.com/2013/09/01/blog-30-essay-2-the-seven-categories-of-illness/

RECOMMENDED SUPPLEMENT: Concentrated Chlorophyll

I don’t like mean people. They bring out the nasty avenger in me, so I try to avoid them. Many times I have witnessed these cruel ones use the accusation of “bad breath” just to hurt someone’s feelings. Even when it’s not true! There is actually a medical term for people who were teased or bullied or otherwise made to believe they have persistent bad breath, when in fact they do not. It’s called Halitophobia, or Delusion Halitosis. So don’t believe just anyone who tells you this. Believe it only if it comes from a reliable source, like a good friend, immediate family member, or health care provider.

But what if it’s true? What if you have good reason to believe that your breath is even slightly offensive day to day? If so, it can be a real confidence killer. Can cause you to withdraw from social situations, surrender your poise, and be less successful than you can be—because of that lingering doubt. The good news is that supplements and good dental habits can eliminate and control this problem.

Oral health care providers believe that nearly 85 to 90 percent of ordinary, occasional bad breath originates in the mouth due to consuming certain foods. But Halitosis is not the same as the smell of garlic on your breath from last night’s pasta e fagioli, or the onions you had on your salad for lunch. Or the occasional dry mouth day when your breath could be fresher, but can’t be said to smell bad. Halitosis is persistent, there all the time, and can get as bad as the smell of rotten eggs.

According to dentists and hygienists, there are many things that go wrong in the mouth that can contribute to persistent bad breath. The most common causes are a poorly cleaned tongue, which accounts for the largest percentage of mouth related bad breath, and the mouth itself, where the failure to brush properly and floss regularly permit microscopic bits of rotting food to accumulate between teeth, and in the niches between teeth and gums.

Over 600 kinds of bacteria live in the average human mouth, though not all of them cause bad breath, and some are even necessary for good dental health. But to ensure fresh breath you have to reduce the level of bacteria in the mouth by properly cleaning your teeth and tongue.

BRUSHING YOUR TEETH PROPERLY

Dentists recommend brushing a minimum of two minutes. Most people try hard to do this for the whole two minutes. My electric toothbrush has a timer that beeps when two minutes are up, indicating that I have passed my recommended brushing time.

This is crazy. If you want to ensure fresh breath you have to brush a lot longer than two measly minutes. Adults have approximately 32 teeth. All of them have two or more surfaces that need to be cleaned. That’s a potential of over 80 separate surfaces. If you follow conventional advice and brush for only two minutes, 120 seconds, you spend only 1.5 seconds per surface, or 3 to 4.5 seconds per tooth. That’s not enough, especially if you’re worried about your breath.

I brush my teeth in the morning with an electric toothbrush for about 15 minutes. It may sound like a lot, but that’s only about 10 seconds per surface, plus 20 seconds to clean and rinse my tongue. In the evening I brush with a manual toothbrush for about 5 minutes. My hygienist never fails to mention how clean my teeth are, and how easy it is for her to do the cleaning. I’m not saying you have to brush 15 minutes with an electric toothbrush. I don’t know, maybe that’s excessive. But try to brush at least 5 minutes, regardless of the toothbrush; that’s around 10 seconds per tooth.

While brushing your teeth is important for fresh breath, more mouth odor starts on the tongue than on the teeth.

CLEANING YOUR TONGUE

When you finish brushing your teeth, your work isn’t over. You still have to clean your tongue where 80 percent of malodorous mouth smells originate. Without proper cleaning, the tongue becomes coated with microscopic bits of food that you ate. You wake up each day with morning breath and a white coating on your tongue, due to your body using the mouth as a way to excrete toxins and wastes. Make no mistake. That white coating on your tongue is waste matter and needs to be removed. Preferably before you eat breakfast, so you don’t swallow the waste along with your food, and reintroduce the toxins to your system.

If you don’t clean your tongue every time you brush your teeth, more and more organic detritus piles up every time you eat. It festers and the bacteria happily feed on it. Remember that great Thai meal you had last week? Well, if you don’t clean your tongue each time you brush, some of it is still hanging around in there. This supply of rotting matter supports myriad populations of bacteria on the tongue, and the combination can ruin your dreams of fresh breath.

You don’t need a special instrument to clean your tongue, though many people prefer to use one. You can use a junior size, soft bristle manual toothbrush reserved for this purpose only. [Do not use an electric toothbrush for this, as it is too harsh for the tongue.]

Do not use the old toothpaste left from brushing your teeth to clean your tongue. After you brush your teeth, rinse your mouth as usual. Add a dab of fresh toothpaste on your special brush. Run warm water over it. Get it foamy by brushing your front teeth for two seconds. Then brush your tongue for 15 seconds, with short, gentle but firm strokes, front, middle, and sides, and as far back as you can go without gagging, which is about one half to two-thirds of the way.

Do not try to brush past a point of comfort. After you spit and rinse, hold your toothbrush under cold water. Use the cold water on the brush to scrub the toothpaste and any residual coating off your tongue. Do this cold water rinse a couple times. Compare the way your tongue looks now with the way it looked before you cleaned it. Big difference, right?

Note to singers: some of you come on camera dressed to kill, and singing like some wonder from another planet. But when you open your mouth wide to hit those high notes the camera gets a really good look at your tongue. So maybe you should too, before you sing.

FLOSSING IS ALSO IMPORTANT TO FRESH BREATH

Besides brushing well and cleaning your tongue, you have to floss as well. If you don’t you will lose teeth. Above I mentioned that microscopic bits of rotting food accumulate between teeth, and in the niches between teeth and gums if you don’t floss. This causes a continual odor in your mouth. After a while the food forms a hard plaque. The plaque accumulates, opening a pocket, forcing the gum away from the tooth. Eventually, the tooth loosens and falls out, or has to be pulled. This can happen to all your teeth, and the process causes ongoing and persistent bad breath.

By flossing you can clean below the gum line between teeth, as well as the sides of each tooth that you can’t reach otherwise, and prevent this plaque buildup.

You’re supposed to floss daily, but you can cheat here by keeping with you a pack of “The Doctor’s Brushpicks, Interdental Toothpicks.” (Brushpicks.com) One end is shaped like a regular toothpick, but has ridges for scrubbing between teeth; the other end has stiff hair like projections that are perfect for flossing below the gum line between teeth. Use these to clean between your teeth after every meal. And floss for real as often as you can.

Also, try to see a hygienist at least twice a year and have annual checkups at your dentist.

OTHER CAUSES OF BAD BREATH BESIDES MOUTH AND TONGUE

Occasional bad mouth odor and Halitosis can come from causes not directly related to the mouth, tongue or gums. In the nose, an impacted or infected sinus, or post nasal drip can cause unpleasant breath. Putrefaction can develop in tonsils and cause a terrible stink in the mouth. All sorts of hideous things can happen in the esophagus, the tube that connects the mouth to the stomach, to cause bad breath, including a poor fitting cardia valve, or a diverticulum. Other general causes cited are obesity, poor digestion, chronic constipation, smoking cigarettes, or drinking alcohol.

Halitosis affects one in five people in varying degrees, and besides your tongue and mouth, is also caused by your body’s long term inability to efficiently remove waste matter. It comes from diet, and how well you digest and assimilate food. Therefore, further steps must be taken to clean up Halitosis, in addition to having good dental hygiene.

If you opened the door to a closet or a refrigerator, or pulled out a drawer in your kitchen, or removed a sock from your foot, or lifted the lid from a garbage can, and a hideous stench wafted up your nostrils, you would immediately conclude that something needed cleaning. Same with the human body. If you have bad breath you have to cleanse your whole body, and take steps to ensure that it remains clean. Then you won’t have to worry about your breath ever again, except for the occasional pasta e fagioli.

Chlorophyll Concentrate, Activated Charcoal, Aloe Vera Gel Liquid and the one day fasts are recommended to actually clean out various areas of your body, and prevent odors that are expelled through your mouth. Betaine Hydrochloride, which is a supplemental form of stomach acid, is recommended for better digestion, ensuring that your food will be adequately digested before it leaves your stomach. You don’t want any big chunks hanging around too long in your intestines, stinking up the place. (For that same reason, remember to chew your food well in order to properly prepare it for digestion, before it hits your stomach.) L-Cysteine, Lecithin, and C Complex assist with after-cleanse waste removal.

NOTES

► You can take Betaine Hydrochloride even if you have acid reflux. In fact, Betaine Hydrochloride is what I recommend for that condition, which is actually caused by not enough acid present in the stomach, not too much.

Please be nice to each other, and look for my next post: Blog 11: Herpes, where I tell you how to absolutely avoid cold sores and the genital variety, or stop an outbreak in mere hours.

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