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Can you answer "yes" to any of the following:
* You shower or bathe more than
once a day?
* You use heavily scented soaps
and/or aftershaves in an
effort to mask any body odor?
* You plaster yourself in anti-perspirants/deoodorants?
* You avoid certain foods?
* You avoid getting physically
close to other people at
school, work or home for fear they get wind
of your odor?
* You still smell, despite
having taking all the steps above?
What Causes Body Odor?
If you suffer from body
odor, you'll know that it's no over-exaggeration to suggest that it's
a problem which is a defining force in your life. You devote a
significant amount of time and money trying to prevent the
embarrassment and shame that goes with having other people being
exposed to your smell.
Maybe you realised for
yourself that you had a strong body odor. Maybe someone told you.
However it happened, once the knowledge is out there, you live in fear
that someone else is going to smell you and respond negatively in some
way - a recoil, avoidance, rejection. Maybe they'll even gossip
about you behind your back.
Poor Hygiene?
While in other cultures a
strong smell in a man is sometimes regarded as evidence of his
masculine superiority, in ours, it's simply viewed as a mark of poor
hygiene. And that's plain embarrassing.
It's also grossly
unfair, because while body odor can be the result of failure to
bathe sufficiently frequently to remove stale sweat, in someone like
you, it's nothing to do with bad hygiene. You could take a vigorous
shower and be smelling just as badly 10 minutes later.
Why is that?
Odor Producing
Bacteria
Whether you're carrying
stale sweat or not, all body odor is caused by an overgrowth of
anaerobic bacteria. These bacteria are actually inside the body
- some may pass out via the sweat glands, but even those lying dormant
in the gut may cause you to smell - due to wind, flatulence or seepage
of their odor via the semi-porous membrane that is the skin.
Why doesn't everyone
smell equally as bad?
No two bodies are exactly
the same. Some people's bodies are more sensitive to particular foods
like diary and spices than others. Some people permanently carry a low
grade infection. Some bodies are simply more efficient than others,
with a high percentage of "good" bacteria which kill off the anaerobic
bacteria.
When you understand the
source of your odor, it's easy to understand why the steps you're
taking to eliminate it aren't working. As fast as you wash off that
surface smell, your body is manufacturing or breeding new bacteria
which produce the same smell. To have any impact, you have to
eliminate the source of the smell - that is, kill off those "bad"
bacteria.
Eliminating Body Odor
At Source
If you know that
your odor is caused by some controllable problem like food sensitivity
or infection, you can take steps to eliminate the problem.
However, it's often not practicable (or healthy) to completely cut out important
food groups like diary, and the use of antibiotics to clear infection
can actually exacerbate the problem of "good" v. "bad" bacteria.
Many sufferers find that
they are helped significantly by the daily use of so-called
"pro-biotic" drinks, which contain high concentrations of lactobacilli
and other "good" bacteria which help restore balance in the gut.
Others (including those
who have a lactose intolerance which rules out milk-based pro-biotics) use homeopathic
treatments to help manage the problem.
DeodoRite is a particularly good
example of such a treatment, as it is a homeopathic remedy especially formulated
to manage body odor associated with sweating.
Women who experience vaginal body odor also do well on
Enzara, an
FDA-registered drug originally developed for the relief of bacterial
vaginosis symptoms.
You can find out more
about DeodoRite
here.
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