Dr James Le Fanu answers readers’ questions. This week: What do you when a loved one has halitosis? Q. For the 20 years we have been together my partner has always had terrible bad breath.
Her dentist says her teeth, though a bit discoloured, are sound. But despite flossing twice a day and brushing after every meal, within an hour the smell is as pungent as ever. I suspect the malodour may be emanating from elsewhere – but what might account for it and is there anything that can be done? A.
Bad breath (or halitosis) is an ancient affliction whose adverse social consequences have been remarked on, variously, by the Roman poet Ovid (“those with strong breath don’t talk when you’re fasting and always keep your mouth a distance from your lover”); Jane Austen, who complained of her neighbour’s in a letter to her sister Cassandra (“I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow”); and the philosopher Bertrand Russell, whose affair with Lady Ottoline Morrell, he acknowledged, was vitiated by his “offensive breath.” The obvious culprit, then as now, would be the putrefaction of food debris by bacteria in the mouth resulting in caries [tooth decay] and gum disease – the implication being it is the sufferer’s fault for failing to pay sufficient attention to their dental hygiene . But this is certainly not the whole story: Those self-conscious about their bad breath are probably, as here, more assiduous teeth brushers than most – but are still unable .
