Help! Halitosis is affecting our lives

Dr Nwabudike

Many Nigerians, suffer from Halitosis (mouth odour) but they don’t know what to do because of ignorance.  In this report, Medinat Kanabe, speaks to a dentist on what they are passing through and how it can be managed.

Oluwaseyi and Bayo (not real names) met during their service year in Owerri, Imo State. Everyone knew them as lovebirds until the service was over. After the service year, they went to their different states.

“After I landed in Ogun State I called him to find out if he had reached Ondo, he said yes. I asked when he will be coming to pay me a visit and he promised in two weeks,” she told The Nation.

“After that day he stopped picking my calls. I called his friends to find out if he was fine and they all said yes, after trying for three days I decided to stop calling and wait for him to come.

“Two weeks passed but he didn’t come. Two weeks turned to three weeks and two months but he didn’t show up or pick my calls, yet his friends said he was fine and that he spoke to them regularly. After about six months, I picked up my phone and called him and to my surprise he picked it.

“He spoke as if nothing had happened before but I was not ready to leave it like that so I asked why he ignored me for that long. His response shocked me. He said I was his girlfriend just for the youth service period that he couldn’t continue the relationship.”

The shocker

Then he added that: “Moreover the smell that oozes out of your mouth cannot make me continue. I cannot take you home to my parents or friends at home because your mouth smells. That is the reason I avoided kissing you in Owerri. I only stayed with you because of your beauty.”

Seyi said she was prepared for a break-up but wasn’t prepared for the insult.  If she wasn’t ignorant about her halitosis, she would have definitely visited a dentist before going to Owerri.

According to her, she had never visited a dentist in her life and had always thought that halitosis could never be managed by anybody.

Another sufferer who posted her ordeal on a medical platform online said: “I suffer from mild and sometimes sever post nasal drip and around the end of March I was diagnosed with a sinus infection and took a course of antibiotics. It helped with eliminating the migraines I was suffering from and getting rid of the post nasal drip. At that time I didn’t focus on my breath, so I assumed I was fine.

“Sometime that month, I suffered from a half erupted wisdom tooth, and developed a flap of gum. There was no pain or inflammation, but the minutes that took place I started noticing some changes in my breath.  Now post nasal drip is back, mucus is also present in my throat, plus a nasty taste in my mouth.

“I also noticed some reactions from people, and it makes me feel so bad. Even after I brush and chew gum, I feel I am still getting reactions. I’m so paranoid lately as I constantly smell my breath, and the funny part is I get annoyed when I don’t smell anything.

“I am like I know it is there, but I don’t know what to do. I cannot even say yes to a man because I fear he will leave me because of the smell.”

Hearing from an expert

According to Dr. Victor Nwabudike, Chairman, Product Committee, Nigerian Dental Association (NDA), bad breath, which is called Halitosis or fetor Oris or as the man on the street will call it ‘mouth odour’ is a term that is used to describe unpleasant odour that is exhaled in breathing or when a person talks.

According to him, it is grouped into non-pathologic, pathologic and psychogenic halitosis. The pathologic is the one that shows that the person has a disease condition, the non-pathologic is when there is no disease condition and psychogenic has to do with a mental condition.

“For the pathologic causes too we have oral and non-oral. The oral pathologic causes are the disease of the mouth- parentheses, oral oscillation, decays and other diseases of the mouth.

“The non-oral causes are the systemic cause like diabetes, local infection in the respiratory tract, chronic sinusitis, postnasal drip, chronic bronchitis, gastrointestinal disturbance, liver or kidney ailments can cause bad breath.

“The non- pathologic cause is usually physiologic and usually temporal. They are caused by the normal metabolic function like when you eat garlic, onions, drinking of alcohol or smoking.

“For the psychogenic halitosis, the patient feels he or she has bad breath but in the real sense there is no bad breath. It is usually caused by a psychiatric disorder. Usually when we manage such a patient, we do it along side our psychiatric doctors; and usually such a patient comes in with accompany conditions like depression and anxiety.

“For treatment of pathologic, we look at what may have triggered it and treat collectively, that is attack it so if diabetes is the cause of the halitosis, we will treat the diabetes.

“For diagnosis, we listen to the person’s history but now we have a device called Halimeter which is a sophisticated gas sensor used to measure the VSC in the mouth, essentially quantifying bad breath in parts per billion.

“The medical device tells you and your dentist whether you have mouth odour and at what level. It’s a distinction that in almost all cases individuals can’t determine on their own. The device makes diagnosis, easier and faster

“On prevention, we basically advise our patients to improve their hygiene by doing regular scaling and polishing, use the right toothbrush and tooth paste, brush twice a day, visit the dentist twice a year and use the brushing technique when brushing. Your dentist will teach you the brushing technique.”

First published in The Nation of October 11, 2015