The line, stated once
ToothPal reads visible appearance from photographs. It is not a medical device, it does not diagnose, and it cannot see the majority of what matters clinically — below the gum line, inside a tooth, or on any surface a camera can't reach.
Everything below is general information about when people typically seek care. It is not advice about your mouth.
Reasons to book now, regardless of any score
- Pain of any kind, including sensitivity that's new or worsening.
- Swelling, in the mouth or the face.
- A tooth that has moved, loosened, chipped or broken.
- Bleeding that doesn't settle within a couple of weeks of starting to clean between teeth.
- Any sore, patch or change in the mouth that hasn't resolved in about two weeks.
- Anything that worries you. That's a sufficient reason on its own and doesn't need a score to justify it.
None of these require a ToothPal reading, and a good reading doesn't cancel any of them.
Patterns in a trend worth mentioning
These are not warnings. They're the kinds of changes that are easy to miss between appointments and worth raising when you're next in the chair.
- A single region that declines while the others hold steady.
- A dimension that drops and doesn't recover across several scans, despite no change in routine.
- Gum appearance that worsens on one side only.
- A cleanliness reading that stops recovering after brushing.
- Any change you can see in your own photos that the score didn't catch — your eyes are still the better instrument for novelty.
What to bring
- Your scan timeline, which shows what changed and roughly when.
- The specific region, if you have Advanced Check-ins — 'lower left has been drifting since August' is a useful sentence.
- What you changed in your routine and when, so the trend has a cause to test against.
- The questions you actually want answered, written down. Everyone forgets them.
And then let them do their job. ToothPal's role stops at the door.
Questions
No. It describes what appears in your photos and how it changes over time. Determining whether anything is wrong requires an examination, and often an X-ray, which no app can provide.
No. Good appearance readings say nothing about what's below the gum line or inside a tooth — which is where most problems start. Keep the interval your dentist set.
Not as currently designed. The app is built on visible appearance and non-diagnostic language on purpose, and that's a product decision rather than a temporary limitation.