Several men and women today are choosing to get bariatric surgery in Mexico and the reasons are clear. You can experience less hunger, lose weight, and ultimately have the figure that you’ve always dreamed of.
That being said, any procedure is going to have some side effects. And one of the potential side effects is bad breath after gastric sleeve surgery. So obviously it’s natural to wonder why you’re having bad breath after bariatric surgery in the first place.
In this post we’ll answer that question as well as give you some tips on how to mitigate these symptoms.
Further Gastric Sleeve Reading: Dealing with scars after bariatric surgery.
What Causes Bad Breath After Sleeve Surgery?
As mentioned, bad breath is something that can happen after a gastric bypass or gastric sleeve surgery. Gastric sleeve surgery or gastrectomy typically creates bad breath more often than the other options. It could be due to a change in diet, to stomach issues, or to stasis.
Some common reasons behind it are: high protein diet, acid reflux, indigestion, eating too much sugar or alcohol, eating too much acid, being dehydrated, smoking, bad oral hygiene, and food getting stuck in your digestive tract.
This is why one of the best ways to prevent bad breath is to have a low carbohydrate, low sugar, and low acid diet.
Drinking plenty of water is also hugely beneficial. However, if your bad breath persists, then you should be in close contact with your surgeon. They can help you identify other potential causes of the bad breath.
Potential Causes of Bad Breath after Bariatric Surgery
GERD and Stasis
When your stomach shrinks with bariatric surgery, your digestive tract may not deal with the food as quickly as it did before. If the food gets stuck, it can create acid reflux or
It can also create stasis. This is where stomach acid or food or bile goes the wrong way. It flows backwards and this creates bad breath as a result.
There are some medications that you can take to reduce the likelihood of this condition. Also as time goes on and your stomach gets used to its new shape and size, the bad breath will go away.
Fats
When your body uses fats instead of carbohydrates to burn energy, it means you’re in ketosis. This is actually a healthy part of recovering from bariatric surgery. However, you may have to deal with a little bit of offensive smell coming from your mouth as your body is still adjusting. That’s why gastric bypass and bad breath are also connected.
Dehydration
Sometimes you won’t want to drink as much water because you feel full faster. However, you should aim to drink plenty of fluids throughout the day. If not, bacteria won’t be rinsed out of your mouth and digestive tract fast enough to prevent some bad breath from occurring.
Bad Breath After Gastric Sleeve Surgery: In Summary
Gastric surgery makes some changes to your gastrointestinal tract. So it’s not uncommon to experience a gastric sleeve / bad breath connection. That being said, there are remedies to mitigate this.
And again, this is not something that you have to worry about for the rest of your life if you take care of yourself, change your diet and lifestyle, and eat correctly. You can ultimately relieve those kinds of symptoms with time and good advice from ALO Bariatrics.
That’s not to mention the fact that you’ll be able to lose pound after pound as the years go on thanks to your bariatric procedure.
