Please help with GERD and horrible breath!

I have suffered from bad breath for years! It was brought to my attention in my twenties. I had my gallbladder removed in my early twenties not sure if that could be related or not. It's not the kind of BB that I can smell. I can tell from other people's reaction that it smells bad. I only suspect it smells when my mouth is dry or a bad taste in my mouth. I get tired of people assuming I don't brush/floss. I go to the dentist every 6 months! If I get a cavity or other dental issue I get it taken care of ASAP. I also scrap my tongue. I always have a white coating on my tongue! It never completed goes away. Even after brush/floss/scrap/rinse routine it can still smell because I FINALLY figured out it was coming from my stomach. Let me digress....

Doctor's are not really helpful. Most just tell you to see a dentist. The dentist will check everything out and say see your doctor. This went on for years! I keep asking doc's about the white coating but they all seem to brush me off. I guess it doesn't look like thrush to them. One doc said we are supposed to have some white coating and it's normal. So, I asked him why his tongue wasn't white? It was pink and healthy looking! He really didn't have an answer.

About 4 or 5 years ago I developed geographic tongue! That only made the BB worse!!

I do have seasonal allergies. That's the only time I get post nasal drip or when I have a cold. Is it possible to have post nasal drip when I'm well and not know it? A year or so ago I had a MRI of my head for something unrelated to this. The tech mentioned something about sinus along with the results. The doc got the results but never mentioned any treatment for the sinus. I figured it wasn't bad. I felt perfectly fine so I didn't worry about it.

Ok, on to GERD. I would get subtle symptoms of GERD every now and then. I mean months or years could go by before I had any noticeable symptoms. I NEVER had heartburn. Only as a young child but never as a teen or adult. About 8 years ago a doc gave me meds for acid reflux. All I remember is that when I swallowed I could smell a bad taste. The symptoms went away and I stopped the meds. Other times over the years I would get random symptoms that seemed to go away on it's own. Again, it would happen every blue moon so I didn't think much of it. In 08 the doc gave me some meds for it again. This was a different doc. It didn't seem to help so I didn't take the meds for long and again the symptoms went away on it's own. Keep in my mind I would get what I thought was vomit back in my throat when I had a big meal and was really full! That could be my only symptom!

As a matter of fact. I remember when I was 18 and away at college. We were drinking wine coolers. Well I finished the bottle I had before entering the party. All of a sudden the wine cooler came back up. I say came back up because I didn't actually vomit. It was like my stomach overflowed and the excess simply came back out. It was weird to me because I wasn't drunk at all! It wasn't that kind of situation. That never happened again but looking back I wonder if that was somehow related to reflux?

Fast foward to this year. One night I was laying down after having a big meal. Out of nowhere I felt a burning sensation thru my nose! It scared the **** out of me! I sat straight up in bed not knowing what was wrong. When I settled back down I felt the acid or whatever come back up in my throat. That's when I knew for sure I was refluxing! All these years I was probably refluxing but it was silent! I started doing research and noticed that bad breath is a symptom of acid reflux.

I asked my doc for a referral to a G.I. specialist. Which I was going to do anyway because I have developed a burping problem. I can't pinpoint what triggers it. It can last for one day or weeks on end. I feel pressure in my upper back and when I move around I start to burp. The burping can last for hours at a time. I also started to have trouble with loud stomach noises! One time I ate a peach and my stomach was so loud I thought all my cube mates heard it! Also, some foods run right through me. Meaning soon after I eat them I might get a minor stomach cramp and a sudden urge to have a bowel movement. This was a problem before with certain fast food places but it started to get more frequent and not just with fast food.

Around June of this year I started to get a unusually dry mouth and horrible taste in my mouth. Sometimes when I swallow I can feel what I believe is phelgm in my throat that is sometimes resistant to go down. I could also smell/taste something horrible when I swallowed. If this is what people have been smelling all these years when I talk I feel horrified! It's disgusting! Now the dryness is more in my throat. I still have the bad taste just not as intense.

I have the upper endoscopy test scheduled for later this month. The G.I. did give me a PPI which is not helping. My bad breath is worse!! Even right after brush/floss/scrap/rinse routine it still smells. Not even fresh for 5 minutes! I hate to even open my mouth at work. I want to take off until I find out what is going on but I fear it will never go away.

I asked for a h.pylori test which came back negative a couple of weeks ago. All other blood work was normal. My vitamin D level was really low when I went to the doc in June. She gave me meds and it's back up to normal now.

Will the bad breath ever go away? I can NOT live like this!!! HELP!

[tiredofBB]

One last thing....I did see a ENT specialist about two years ago. He was highly recommended by my primary care doc. He gave me a check up and said every thing was fine. He didn't order any special test or blood work. Before I left he did mention one of his other clients that was otherwise healthy like me but had a BB problem swears by Profresh. I was skeptical but desperate so I tried it but it didn't work.

[PickleMC]

You may want to get an objective opinion from a trusted friend on just how bad your breath is. There are multiple sources of bad breath, and it can help to know some information on where exactly it is coming from. Many chronic bad breath cases involve anaerobic bacteria that live on the back of the tongue. These bacteria produce sulfur containing compounds, which can smell like anything from old garlic to rotten eggs. Ask your friend to smell the air exiting your mouth, as well as the air exiting your nose and note any differences in odor. A possible sinus infection or foriegn body in the sinuses can cause notable bad odors. If no friend is available, you can try using a spoon to gently scrape some mucus from the back of your tongue, which you can smell once it has dried. If you determine that the odor is coming from your tongue, there are a variety of methods for reducing bacterial populations so that the smell is less noticable. Tongue scraping, chewing sugar-free gum (to increase saliva prduction), and increased fluid intake (preferably water at 2 liters/day), can reduce bad breath provided that the problem is in the mouth. If it is a GI problem, taking activated charcoal (as needed only) can absorb many gases and toxis that may otherwise come out as burps or flatulence. It will also help curb diarrhea if it is problematic. Incorporating a good amount of insoluble fiber (lots of veggies) into your diet while reducing highly processed foods (fast food, soda, candy, etc) will help keep things clean. Hope this helps!

[arrbug]

I had some trouble will indigestion and supher burps as well as tonsil stones (those are often associated with bad breath) and went to see a Chinese Medicine doctor and Acupuncturist, and he took me off dairy and white sugar, as well as put me on a clense diet, and it got rid of the problem.  Most of the online solutions for bad breath are from herbal or chinese medicine doctors.  You might consider it.  If you feel queezy about visiting a nontraditional doctor, see if someone you trust can recommend you a good person to go see.