Antibiotics aren't an effective post-nasal drip treatment or bad breath eliminator

If you have post-nasal drip and sinusitis, it may be tempting to ask your physician about antibiotics. However, doing so won't get you very far. After all, these prescriptions aren't an effective post-nasal drip treatment - and, according to research, they don't do much for sinusitis either.

A study appearing in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association announced that, on average, the common antibiotic amoxicillin doesn't appear to clear up the sniffles any faster than your body's immune system would.

This is pretty big news, both in the world of clinical medicine and that of bad breath research. The authors noted that watchful waiting - that is, not treating sinusitis but simply monitoring your body's immune response to it - appears to work well.

"[The study] provides further evidence for what we've really suspected for a long time - that in the management of patients with acute sinusitis, antibiotics do not convey any additional benefit," co-author Jay Piccirillo concluded.

Sinusitis is a common cause of halitosis. If antibiotics are not the most effective post-nasal drip treatment, then it's important to use state-of-the-art therapies for oral odor that kill bacteria without resorting to prescriptions.

If you need something like this, you're in luck. Specialty breath freshening nasal sprays can clear up post-nasal drip while gently neutralizing odor and microbes. Likewise, mouth-wetting lozenges may suppress the urge to cough, even as they sweeten your breath.

And to complete the trifecta, you can gargle with an oxygenating mouth rinse to keep your throat clean and relatively free of germs.