Antimicrobial benefit of low-pH

[searching]

According to medical and veterinary literature, nearly all orally-ingested bismuth makes it through the mammalian digestive tract and is eliminated in solid waste, due to low-solubility in water, seen here.

As it moves through the digestive tract, bismuth medication, i.e. subsalicylate form (Pepto-Bismol™) taken for stomach upset, or subgallate form (Devrom™) taken for odor reduction of ostomy patients, chemically-sorbs sulfur from odorous VSCs, becomes bismuth sulfide, and is eliminated in solid waste, referenced here and here.

This may help in reducing VSC's, e.g. hydrogen sulfide, dimethyl sulfide, methyl mercaptan, from accumulating in the bloodstream and exiting in the breath via lungs or saliva.

Please check with your medical professional before using these medications.

[halitosisux]

This may help in reducing VSC's, e.g. hydrogen sulfide, dimethyl sulfide, methyl mercaptan, from accumulating in the bloodstream and exiting in the breath via lungs or saliva.

So it's definitely worth trying the gastro resistant forms of Pepto-Bismol which are certain to act on the VSCs in the gut, and not have any effect in the oral cavity and VSC production in the mouth. If a difference in BB is noticed, then that means it's likely that the VSCs which dentists and doctors always insist are produced in the mouth, are actually being produced in the gut in certain cases of chronic BB, which are then finding their way into the mouth via the blood/saliva/mucus/lungs pathway.

Wouldn't it be nice if it were possible to test concentrations of these VSCs in saliva before the saliva enters the mouth, to be able to confirm whether it's getting into the saliva via the bloodstream or not. Or better still, test the actual blood for these VSCs. Is this feasible?

[Searching4cure]

I'm on day 5 of the aspirin regimen for my mouth. I'm on day 2 for taking an aspirin and 2 pepto daily. I added the aspirin a day because I read on cure zone that people have seen success with BO. I have isolated BO in the female areas and armpits. Regarding the BO, the jury is still out. Went out with my hubby yesterday; no reaction. He even snuggled with me Sunday night. Today was what has me second guessing. I felt like I got reactions from people at a training. It's hard to know because I didn't say much, either. Has anyone besides searching seen success with this? Searching, does it take time to work? If so, how long?

[compor]

Re: halitosisux

There are some key points:

It has been found that administration of a bismuth salt or bismuth composition to a vertebrate suffering halitosis is an effective way of reducing or substantially eliminating malodorous breath. In general, the subject being treated is not suffering from H. pylori infection.

Examples of suitable formulations for enabling the bismuth to reach the gut include but are not limited to, liquids, suspensions, emulsions, non-chewable tablets and capsules. Oral administration of such formulations can also reduce the concentration of odorous gases (of gut or oral origin) within the oral cavity.

A large proportion of intestinal gas is reabsorbed from the colon and expired in the breath. This is usually without aroma, particularly in individuals (approximately half of the population) who have primarily methanogenic bacteria within their colon which product hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane. The remaining half of the population have a predominantly sulfite-reducing bacterial population in their colon and the principal gases produced are odorous volatile sulfur compounds, such as hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptain and dimethyl sulfide.

I have a question in my mind regarding this issue
Does bismuth have any curative effect on our guts to neutralize the effects of (or somehow fixing imbalance of) sulfite-reducing bacteria? Or will it be only effective as long as we keep taking the medicine, which is 4 to 8 weeks?

If this method really cures halitosis, why is it not a public knowledge? Why not a single GI doc mentioned about this? The patent claim has been made in 2003, still the method remains a mystery. Many sufferers went through tonsillectomy or septoplasty operations just to get rid of bad breath. I wonder if they ever heard of this?

Let's hope the doctor who made the claim has very bad marketing skills.

[foxhound]

Searching, do you know an alternative product to pepto bismol? Here in Germany I have to order it via amazon from the UK and its expensive (20 Euro for 48 tablets). Google seems not to be able to help me finding an alternative. Or do you think this liquid PB would last longer than 24 days (=48 tablets twice a day)?

http://www.amazon.de/Pepto-Bismol-Pepto ... auty_img_y

[halitosisux]

Hi Compor, I'm away from home for a few days at the moment and I have yet to get my teeth into any serious researching into this. In have only very briefly read through that patent application. So far, my understandings are very basic, i.e. Pepto Bismol has antibacterial properties, and that it's able to chemically alter the 3 main VSC gases involved in most cases of BB, into non-odourous forms.

I don't know whether the patent relates to these very simple facts or whether it relates to the utilization of bismuth in a way that increases it's effectiveness against halitosis in some unique patentable way.

Dr. Murat mentioned " On the other hand, I remember there are some studies on bismut prevents intestinal H2S especially in the terminal illeum." There could also be permanent changes due to its antibacterial properties.

I would be really interested to know how many forum members are helped by bismuth that reaches the gut. That would be the real proof of it's effectiveness. There seems to be more interest in the aspirin though, even though searching has indicated that he believes that it's the bismuth that is having the most predominant effect. Perhaps we should make a separate bismuth thread.

[searching]

Searching, do you know an alternative product to pepto bismol? Here in Germany I have to order it via amazon from the UK and its expensive

foxhound,

I have not found an alternative to bismuth subsalicylate, although I use the generic in the United States.

A price of 4,79 Euros for 24 tablets of Pepto Bismol is seen here on amazon.de.

[searching]

Does bismuth have any curative effect on our guts to neutralize the effects of (or somehow fixing imbalance of) sulfite-reducing bacteria? Or will it be only effective as long as we keep taking the medicine, which is 4 to 8 weeks?

compor,

In my case bismuth has been effective in managing BB, not curing it.

The composition of my digestive flora, diet, and physiology result in sulfur reduction to VSCs.

A more-radical change to my diet may affect my BB; however, I lack the discipline to maintain strict limitation of what I eat.

[searching]

searching, does it take time to work? If so, how long?

Searching4cure,

This method manages my BB within approximately 1 day.

[Searching4cure]

The bismuth had to be doing something. I stopped taking it because it was causing constipation and my BB seems worse along with armpit and private part increased smell. Anyone know what to do to combat constipation? Injesting the aspirin seems to help but it's clear the aspirin can't do it alone.

[halitosisux]

If you can't relieve constipation through your diet, then try something like lactulose or Movicol.

Lactulose causes less fluids to be absorbed from the gut, thus keeping it there to soften stool.

Movicol is a powder you mix with water or fruit juice and basically keeps that fluid there in your gut, which helps to shift things along.

When you are chronically constipated, and you use something like Movicol for a while, once your digestive system is restored to functioning normally, you may find you won't need the movicol anymore. It's miraculous stuff.

I don't know why Pepto Bismol (Bismuth) causes constipation, and I don't know if using Laxative to combat this is the correct thing to do. So best speak to a doctor.

[compor]

I contacted Prof. Bolin. He told me;
- success rate of bismuth on halitosis patients is around 80%
- dosage varies between 120mg and 300mg daily, depending on the patient (often 1 tablet is sufficient)
- try to minimize sulphite intake (preservatives in fruit juices, delicatessen meat, dried fruits, alcohol, garlic, onion, eggs, seafood. Consumption of these in normal quantities is perfectly okay

I managed to find 2 tablets with bismuth. One of them is chewable, which works pretty fast (makes sense cause I keep it on my tongue for a while) and turns my tongue black for hours (which then goes away). However, in the patent form of Prof. Bolin, it encourages use of "non-chewable" tablets. Actually, the tests were conducted with Denol:

Eight subjects exhibiting halitosis and having a dominant sulfite-reducing bacterial population in the gut as evidenced by the Halimeter™ according to Example 1, were administered a 120mg oral dose of De-nol™ three times daily for a period of 4 weeks. The eight subjects treated exhibited symptomatic improvement of halitosis within 3-7 days. Example 3

A lactulose breath analysis was performed on 25 human subjects exhibiting symptoms of halitosis. The test confirmed the absence of methane, which was indicative of a dominant sulfite reducing bacterial population in the colon. All 25 subjects were treated with De-nol™ (120mg, tds) and all 25 subjects exhibited subjective symptomatic improvement of their halitosis within 2-7 days. Example 4

De-nol™ was administered in tablet form (120mg) to 20 subjects exhibiting symptoms of halitosis at a dose rate of two tablets per day until the symptoms were alleviated. Once the symptoms of halitosis were eradicated, subjects were then administered 1 tablet of De-nol™ per day for 14 days, which was sufficient to maintain alleviation of symptoms of halitosis.

Luckily, the pharmacy store had Denol. I have been using it for 2 weeks now. The smell has definitely reduced. In the morning, my breath used to be horrible. Now I can only get a hint of it. In the daytime, I need to try a few times to smell it.

"Lick wrist" test still fails. But I'm not sure if there should be zero odor after wrist dries. Even in the healthy person there are good and bad bacteria in the mouth and on the tongue (maybe in lower concentrations), maybe "some" odor is normal. However, there was no smell (absolutely none) when I was on metronidazole or amoxicillin.

I went to an ENT specialist today, told him about my bad breath issues and asked him if a septoplasty operation would fix it. We talked for 10 minutes. He examined me, then said he could not smell it. I believed him, cause he didn't show a single reaction the whole time. Maybe bismuth works, I am not sure yet.

[halitosisux]

Good info there.

[yarahe]

my saliva\mouth PH is alkaline - 8.5 approximately.
i found that when i suck slive of lemon the bb is gone.

i looked for a mouthrinse which is acidic.
i bought listerine total care which is 3.5 ph. it helps my bb. i need to see for how long it helps. i guess it's only for 1-2 hours

if you also suffer from high ph you can try it.

[Mac]

I recently tried Pepto-Bismol and it seemed to me to have some positive effects. Morning breath was reduced. I had a kind of different taste in my mouth in the morning than usual. Also breath throughout the day seemed better. Cannot be sure if it's an actual improvement but I've ordered three boxes this time. Something which may or may not be relevant is that shortly after taking for the first time I had some green tea and it had a 'sweeter' taste than normal. This taste went back to normal after a few cups.

Does anyone know if there is a fundamental difference between the bismuth subgallate and the bismuth subsalicylate and the effect it has? I'm going to order some Devrom as soon as I get back from holiday.

Also are there any shops in England which stocks these? I haven't seen any.

Is the black tongue an indication of where the bacteria colonize?