Dental Health Advice You Can Trust

Reliable dental health advice can be hard to come by. Why?

I want to let you in on a little secret about dentists. It's something many of them would prefer you didn't know.

Unfortunately, it means that a lot of people are missing out on good dental health advice.

Actually, there are TWO things: Many dentists are NOT GOOD at explaining dental things to their patients! And even if they ARE good at explaining, quite a few are reluctant to talk about what they regard as "insider secrets".

What does this mean?

Say, for example, you have dull teeth. You would really like to have a brighter smile. So you go along for a check-up. The dentist's office looks nice and modern, the staff are friendly, and you're hoping for some great dental health advice.

But you're a little embarrassed to ask the dentist about your dark teeth, so you wait for him or her to say something. After all, if your teeth were dark, the dentist WOULD say something to you, right?

Wrong!

A lot of dentists get embarrassed about suggesting that something "cosmetic" may be wrong with a patient's teeth. They get all uncomfortable with the thought of saying something like:

"OK, Mrs Smith, your teeth are healthy, but they look kinda dark. I recommend some whitening treatment to improve things.".

It's a bit like a medical practitioner coming out with "Well, your blood pressure is fine, but you have a big nose - how about a little plastic surgery?"

See what I mean?

And it's even worse if you're waiting for a dentist to talk about bad breath! They are unlikely to come right out and say: "Well, your teeth are OK but you have bad breath - haven't your friends or family said anything?"

Of course, not all dentists are shrinking violets. Some will come right out and talk about potentially embarrassing things without flinching.

But many will not. They do not do this intentionally.

The problem is how they are trained. Nearly all dental schools in the world concentrate on teaching dentists how to do the technical things perfectly. So dentists become fantastic "mini-engineers".

But few dental schools have any teaching on how to communicate well with patients. Dentists tend to end up being great at fixing teeth, but poor at talking about dental health issues.

So where does that leave you? For most people, it leaves them without a reliable source of dental health advice!

Me in my dental practice

I know, because I AM a dentist.

My name is Dr Richard Mitchell, and I have been a dentist since 1979, working in the United Kingdom, Barbados, Germany, Australia and Spain. Click here for more about me...

I have put this website together with my wife Michelle, a dental hygienist with over 30 years experience, and a recent graduate from law school. Michelle has also just completed a master's degree in Medical Law and Ethics, so between us we can deal with just about any problem to do with dental health!

This is where we have distilled all our experience into one place - the place to get impartial, free dental health advice! Here are all the gems of knowledge that we've collected over our careers, tips that don't appear in any dental textbook, and gold nuggets that only experience can teach.

Here you can find out how to:

  • care for your teeth and gums
  • choose the best toothbrush
  • get the best teeth whitener
  • decide on an implant or a bridge

And much more.

Have a look at the navigation buttons on the left side of this page - we hope you find the information you are looking for!