![\"Dentists](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/927BCA13828FC360A632F2929465CE84.jpg\")
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PHOENIX<\/strong> – A group of compassionate dentists are teaming up to restore the smile of a cancer survivor. This smile makeover proves that healing goes beyond medicine, giving this survivor something to smile about again with a life-changing procedure that goes beyond cosmetics.<\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n “To this day everything means a lot more to me now,” said patient Brian Mitchell. “Every moment with my girls. Every date night with my wife, I mean even this. It means an awful lot to me.”<\/p>\n Doctors James Heaton and Michael Allen created the Smile Trend Institute to teach other dentists their top-tier techniques. Both specialize in veneers, but a class held recently changed more than just skills.<\/p>\n “We have 10 to 15 doctors coming today,” said Dr. Heaton, of Smile Studio. “They are going to be learning the process which is cool, but really it’s bigger than that. We’re going to be able to change someone’s life, someone who went through something really traumatic. We’re going to get him back to a place where he can eat comfortably and go through life in a comfortable manner.”<\/p>\n In August, Mitchell had a sore throat that wouldn’t go away. He went to a quick care clinic, which sent him to the emergency room for further testing. Once there, he received devastating news.<\/p>\n “She was like, ‘I hate to be the one to tell you this but this is cancer and it’s progressed to a point and it doesn’t look good,'” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n Mitchell was diagnosed with head and neck cancer and would soon start treatment. But before that treatment could begin, he received more bad news.<\/p>\n “The potential for infection during radiation and chemo could have been lethal, so I had to have all of my teeth removed in September while they were developing a treatment plan,” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n Local perspective:<\/p>\n Once the doctors heard his story, they knew they wanted to help. They decided to do a smile makeover completely free for Mitchell and make it part of their training.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other dentists stepped in to help.<\/p>\n “Once I found out what he really needed and it was out of the scope of what I can do, I called my friend Josh Nagao up and he said ‘absolutely, let’s do this and let’s do this at no charge to him,'” said Dr. Michael Allen of the Smile Trend Institute. “And I called Dr. Heaton and said we can do a smile trend on this and show others how to help a patient in need like this.”<\/p>\n Dr. Josh Nagao of Tucson specializes in dental implants, which is exactly what Mitchell needed.<\/p>\n “What he’s going to do is a little more complicated, whereas he doesn’t have any of his top teeth,” said Nagao, of Designer Dental. “We’re actually going to be placing six implants across his top jaw and some on the bottom. He does still have some of his natural teeth on the bottom.”<\/p>\n Since his cancer diagnosis, Mitchell has been wearing a denture, which he says is painful, slips, and makes it hard for him to talk and eat. Nagao said this smile makeover will improve Mitchell’s life, and the lives of the dentists involved in the training.<\/p>\n Why you should care:<\/p>\n “It’s not inexpensive, so to be able to provide that to someone who might not be able to afford it and would have functioned in a denture for the rest of his life is very rewarding,” Nagao said. “I mean one of the best gifts that we can give. The skills I’ve built to be able to do this, it’s incredible.”<\/p>\n Mitchell said the road to this point has been anything but easy, but with this smile makeover, he got something back he thought was gone forever.<\/p>\n “It’s going to give me confidence,” Mitchell said. “It’s going to give me the ability to put some weight on again. I lost a ton of weight. It’s been a challenge to eat. I used to be 210 and now I’m 170. I look forward to being able to smile with that confidence and reading again to my girls, that’s what I’m most excited about.”<\/p>\n He said he’ll forever be grateful to all of those who have helped give him this permanent fix.<\/p>\n “The gratitude, I can’t put that into words,” Mitchell said. “The things they’ve done to make sure this can happen.”<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n The dentists are hoping to give one smile away a year to someone in need and hoping to inspire other dentists at the training to also give back.<\/p>\n The Source:<\/b> This information was gathered by FOX 10’s Danielle Miller, who interviewed the dentists, and cancer survivor, Brian Mitchell.\u00a0<\/p>\n Phoenix<\/a>News<\/a>Cancer<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX – A group of compassionate dentists are teaming up to restore the smile of a cancer survivor.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":221505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,235,210,1588,50,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-221504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-cancer","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-maricopa-county","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-phoenix","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115192678745136437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}