Bad breath can be a big discomfort and an
embarrassment in social situations. A person suffering from bad breath can be
quite unaware of his situation as our noses are programmed to ignore and filter
out our own bad breath.
There our many unscientific ways to determine if we have bad breath and measure
the intensity of offensive odor. These are not specific evaluations of bad
breath and can be done by the person to check if they have bad breath to some
degree.
You might suspect you have bad breath if you notice people constantly backing
away when you talk to them or offering you gum and mints. You might also be
suffering from dry mouth conditions, be a smoker or have gum disease.
The easiest way to determine if you have bad breath is to ask somebody close to
you to give you an honest opinion. A dental hygienist could also help to a
certain extent in giving you an opinion.
Other indirect ways of smelling your own breath are to lick your wrist and smell
it after letting it dry for a few seconds. In the event that your breath does
not smell too offensive at this point, you can proceed to the next level of
testing which is to test the odor on the back region of the tongue where most
bad breath originates. To test the posterior region of the tongue, take an
inverted spoon and scrape the back region of your tongue. You can expect some
gagging when you do this. You are likely to scrape off a lot of whitish material
if you are prone to bad breath. Now take a whiff of this smell which will be a
more accurate indicator of the way your breath smells to others.
