Have you ever had this experience:
When I woke up, I found saliva on the pillow, and I couldn't help but smell a faint smell;
The boyfriend thinks you're so cute, can't help but bite your arm, and after a while smell it and find that the smell of the place where there is saliva is not fragrant.
Why does saliva have a peculiar smell, is it because of bad breath?
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Saliva is spit, commonly known as Harrah's seed, normal adult daily secretion of 1.0 ~ 1.5L, of which water accounts for about 99%, under normal circumstances colorless and odorless, in the oral cleaning has an important role. What reasons do we think of when the saliva stinks?
Garlic, onions, stinky tofu... Foods with a pungent odor remain in the saliva, and fermented food scraps can also produce an avoidant odor.
Leaving aside these "foodie" and "lazy" factors, what remains may be oral diseases, such as:
Common oral inflammation or calculus, gums or periodontal inflammation often breeds putrefactive bacterial infections, these decaying bacteria present in the mouth for a series of physiological metabolism, metabolites infiltrated into the saliva, will leave "traces",
In addition, bleeding gums caused by periodontal disease can also give the mouth a bloody taste.
Of course, if the saliva-secreting gland becomes blocked, the pus produced after causing obstructive inflammation will also make the saliva smelly.
In addition, tonsil stones can also cause saliva odor, because there are many tonsillar crypts on the tonsils, if the crypt is too large to accumulate food residue, and the secretions of the crypt itself are dehydrated to form calcium stones, it will be accompanied by a putrid smell, and it will also cause saliva to stink [1].
So some people will ask, is bad breath also because of these reasons?
First of all, we must understand that drool and bad breath are different concepts, drool odour is generally only caused by oral diseases, and the cause of bad breath is not only oral factors.
More than 85% of the factors that cause bad breath are local to the oral cavity, but the remaining non-oral factors also occupy a place [2].
Common odors in the mouth after waking up in the morning, as well as long-term hunger or fasting caused by physiological bad breath, this is because saliva secretion in sleep and fasting will be reduced, the self-cleaning ability of the mouth will be reduced, so it feels breathy.
It is also normal to have physiological bad breath in the days when you are pregnant with a baby or an aunt visit.
It should be noted that the symptoms of bad breath associated with diseases of other systems, long-term bad breath may not be as simple as the mothers say "on fire", some diseases will also be accompanied by malodor or oral discomfort during the onset period, such as nasopharyngeal diseases in respiratory diseases, bronchiectasis, and the taste of "old sauerkraut" will be emitted when secondary infection.
Gastroenteritis, gastric ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux, etc. common in gastrointestinal diseases will have a certain degree of bad breath; dry mouth disease, leukemia, diabetes and lead poisoning will also cause oral odor.
In addition, bad breath in smoking people is the most common to us. I'm sorry, I'm not talking about the lyrics of "missing your white socks and fingers with a faint smell of tobacco", and no one in real life should miss this smell.
Smoking itself can reduce the secretion of saliva, causing dry mouth, losing the buffering ability of saliva will reduce the self-cleaning ability of the mouth and aggravate bad breath. This, coupled with the burning of tobacco itself, releases an unpleasant odor that attaches to the teeth and oral mucosa, and the more it is smoked, the heavier the smell becomes.
So how to identify whether you are oral-derived bad breath or non-oral bad breath, Zhimei gives everyone a trick: if there is still a bad smell exhaled from the nose after closing the mouth, it is non-oral halitosis.
Friends with foul saliva, maintain daily oral hygiene can avoid embarrassment, rinse mouth after meals and brush your teeth before going to bed, do a good job of oral cleaning, use floss and brush between teeth.
Put down the tobacco and alcohol in your hand, eat less irritating foods, avoid staying up late; when you find oral diseases, you must treat them in time. If you're socializing, it's also helpful to chew gum temporarily or use some spray.
People with bad breath should also remain vigilant, after eliminating oral haatism, if bad breath still exists, we must consider other systemic diseases, seek medical treatment as soon as possible, and treat symptomatically.
"Bad breath is not embarrassing, opening your mouth is terrible." It has to be said that whether it is bad saliva or bad breath, it will have a negative impact on our normal life, and fresh breath is also an important part of social interaction.
Review expert: Jingquan | chief physician of the Department of Stomatology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital
bibliography
Analysis of foreign bodies in 12 tonsils[J].Practical Clinical Medicine,2020,21(08):59-60.
Zhang Tianyi,Guo Yunze,Xiao Yuhan,Li Xia. Efficacy of honeysuckle extract for inhibiting bad breath in adolescents[J].Journal of Clinical Stomatology,2021,37(05):275-278.
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