Seeking advice on teaching with extreme halitosis
Hello all.
I had been posting on this board throughout my journey and after trying nearly everything, I believe I have figured some things out. I will be starting a new teaching job in the Fall and am terrified.
When I first began, I believed my odor was coming from my body. While this still might be the case, I now believe it is MOSTLY coming from my breath. I have learned that when in enclosed spaces, I can smell the odor, though it smells different to me than it does to others. Others say it smells fecal (and occasionally, like fried chicken). At my job, which is a medium sized store in the mall, people can smell it when they first walk in. It is like the odor settles in the opening of the store (the direction I am facing). People OUTSIDE of the store can smell it and they all rub their nose and glare at me from outside, or just look around confused as to why it suddenly smells so bad when they pass. When I speak to people, they put on chapstick, put gum in their mouth, cover their face (sometimes) or touch their nose.
Initially, I thought I had candida because I used to be constipated. I took antifungals, changed my diet for two months, cleaned myself out really well. Now I am having bowel movements very regularly and they are well formed, lighter in color, etc. But ever since I started cleansing, my odor changed to a fecal odor. Even though people in college would comment on smells when I was in class, they couldn't define the smell. Now, everyone says it smells like s***. People come in to my job (that have been there before) and they bring their friends so that they can witness it and laugh at me.
I am not entirely sure, but I believe I may have killed off the good bacteria in my body while trying to cleanse myself. But during the
Elimination Rotation Diet , I did find that I have a lactose intolerance. Previous to the diets, I was drinking dunkin donuts coffee with full fat cream and eating a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. I am wondering that had been my only real problem initially and had caused a slight
Body Odor and bad breath problem. Or if the heavy drinking I had done before had killed my gut flora and I made that worse when using antifungals/antibacterials?
Anyhow, I think I have narrowed my symptoms down to these: dysbiosis/Sibo or TMAU 2. Both of these deal with bad bacterial overgrowth but I am afraid to treat before testing. I am scheduled for a lactulose/fructose malabsorption test in August that should tell me if I have Sibo and I am going to purchase a tmau test kit online.
I say TMAU because I notice that protein as well as cabbage are the bane of my smelly existence right now. When I ate cabbage, people said I smelled like a garbage can from across the room! Eggs seem to be really problematic as well. I also smelled my breath for the first time in the car the other day just by breathing out into my cupped hand. I normally cannot smell it that way but there is a horrible taste in my throat that comes and goes. When I sit crossed legged at my computer and hunch over, the smell seems to rise up from my stomach and come out of my throat like a gas. I can taste it. It smells like sewage at dirty lake.
Do those with TMAU get a taste like this in their throat? I had mine before, but now I am trying a low choline diet and the taste/smell became stronger. Does this happen initially? How much can people with TMAU lower decrease their smell?
Also, I am a teacher (during my interview the entire staff covered their face when I spoke but they still hired me!) and will be starting in August. When I student taught, the highschool kids said horrible, horrible things to me. I am worried about my mental health as well as my new job. Does anyone have any tips on how to deal with this or ways to cover the smell in a classroom? I am very strong because I hear insults at work every day with customers but I have been becoming more stressed and depressed now that I have secured a teaching job because I am worried about losing it.
Thank you for reading a long winded post and remember, we can beat this!!!