Eliminating Mask Breath: How Do You Do It?

Brushing your teeth, using dental floss, and gurgling mouthwash are the basic steps in taking care of your oral health. It promotes oral health and prevents bad breath, which is the concern of most people. Having bad breath is a hassle because in the previous years - when wearing masks is not yet compulsory - other people can smell the odor from the mouth. It cannot be very comfortable to talk or speak with someone when you have it. That is why oral health is important.

(Photo: Mudassar Iqbal )

ALSO READ: 3 Ways To Deal With Bad Breath Caused by Face Masks

Having bad breath is an indication that bacteria is building in your mouth. According to Kids Health, irregular brushing and flossing can cause the bacteria to accumulate on the pieces of food left in your mouth when you eat. They added that the sulfur compounds emitted by the bacteria cause the breath to smell negative. This year when everyone needed masks to protect themselves against COVID-19, it made people wary of their breaths because they can directly smell them because of the mask. In some cases, you might experience having mask breath. Well, if you are one of the people who realized they have bad breath after putting on a mask, you may still be lucky because you can use tongue scrapers to remove the particles that cause bad breath.

Tongue Scraping

Tongue scraping is a method of eliminating oral bacteria in your mouth. As the name suggests, you will have to scrape your tongue using a tongue scraper. In an interview with Well and Good, dentist Scott Young said that scraping the tongue can help prevent bad breath by removing odor-causing bacteria that stay in the tongue. He added that using the scraper, the build-up of sulfur compounds in the tongue can remove the foul odor you smell while wearing your mask. Healthline added that aside from removing the smell from your mouth, tongue scraping can also improve your sense of taste, improve your tongue's appearance, and improve overall health. This is why dentists recommend tongue scraping.

In the interview with Well and Good, Dr. Young added that proper tongue scraping should be from the back end of the tongue forward to the tip of the tongue, rinse, and then do it again. He also emphasized that scraping should not be hard enough to make your tongue bleed and painful. Doing it regularly and adding scraping to your routine every morning can be helpful for your oral health.

But what should you do when you brushed your teeth, scraped your tongue, gurgled mouthwash, and used dental floss, but the mask breath is still there? Maybe you're not doing it as often. But to be sure, if bad breath pursues after all the steps, like what we have mentioned, visit your dentist and ask for advice on where your bad breath is coming from. They may be able to determine the underlying cause, tell you to visit your physician for treatment. That is for the worst-case scenario, but when you scraped your tongue, and the mask breath is absent, then congratulations, because you were triumphant against the embarrassing condition.

Check out more news and information on Oral Health on MD News Daily.