Controlling Problem Body Odor

*   You bathe or take a shower several times each day?

*   You use heavily scented soaps, perfumes and aftershaves in the hope that they will mask your body odor?    

*   You use anti-perspirants/deodorants very liberally?

*   You avoid eating certain foods?

*   You avoid close contact with other people for fear they'll smell your body odor?

*   You still smell?

If you suffer from body odor, you'll probably agree that I'm not exaggerating when I say it's a problem which helps to define your entire life.  Chances are you spend a significant amount of i) time worrying about it, and ii) money trying to prevent the embarrassment and shame that goes with having other people catching your smell.

Maybe it was you that first picked up that you had a problem with body odor. Maybe you were unfortunate enough to have experienced someone telling you. Whatever way you came to realise you had a problem, once the knowledge is out there, you live in fear that someone new is going to smell you and you start anticipating the reaction - be it avoidance, withdrawal or straightforward rejection.

While in some cultures, it's regarded as manly to have a strong smell, in ours it's simply viewed as consequence of poor hygiene.

This is unfair, because while body odor can be sometime be the result of failure to remove stale sweat through washing, it's often very little to do with poor hygiene. You know full well that you could take long bath, towel dry and be smelling again within 15 minutes.

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 do I smell worse than everyone else?

It's unfair, but that's just how it is. Everyone's body reacts differently to the substances in the environment around them, including food. Some people are more sensitive to foods like diary, gluten and sugar than others. Some bodies work more efficiently than others, others carry a high proportion 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.

If you work out that your odor is worse when you adopt particular habits, you can do something active about it. For example if you know that your odor is caused by food sensitivity, you can cut out the food that is causing the problem.  Mike Ramsey has recently published an ebook on the subject; "Stop Sweating & Start Living". 

However, for lots of us, there is no easily identifiable cause, we just carry huge amounts of anaerobic 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. This is a relatively easy way to maintain a proper bacterial balance.

Those who have a lactose intolerance to milk-based probiotics, or who do not want the expense of consuming several doses of probiotic per day use homeopathic treatments to help manage the problem. Botisol 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.

Get Rid of Vaginal Odor

Coping With Body Odor