Join us on this episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast as we sit down with Dr. Tim Sims, your trusted hometown dentist in Johnston County. Dr. Sims shares his passion for dentistry and his commitment to providing top-notch dental care to the community. 

From preventive treatments to cosmetic procedures, he discusses the wide range of services his practice offers. 

If you're looking for a dentist you can trust, tune in to hear why Dr. Tim Sims is the go-to choice for dental care in Johnston County.

Episode 021 - Tim Sims

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Tim Sims: right? For the most part. Yeah. I know some of these big guys, their big thing is offering breadth of all services. I try to do as much as I can because I, you know, my biggest thing, especially again, when you're in a small practice like that, patients. They don't necessarily want to go out anywhere. They don't want you to send them to a specialist. They'd rather you could do the work to do it. I mean, I do everything. I call it, family in general dentistry. So, I I do see kids. think I've seen your kids since they were two. Um, so we see, lots of kids. always joke it's 2 to 92, you know, we'll see him, whatever age come, I do as much work as I can. I, I mean, obviously we do the bread and butter, the fillings, crowns, dentures, I take out a lot of teeth. it's not my preferred thing, but sometimes you have to do it. but we do take a lot of teeth, every so often we'll do some root canals, depends on what's needed. Okay. we're storing implants. That's what I like about my job is it's a little bit different every day.

I got to quit going to court. Right now. Anyway, tell the list. I know. Right. Tell the listeners a little bit about yourself. I know you're from Garner, and, how you ended up

Tim Sims: here. yeah, born and raised in Garner. been here basically my whole life. my wife as well. went to Garner high school and then went to Carolina, which I know you love, went to Carolina, did my, did four years undergrad and then did straight into dental school, did four years of dental school.

And then, when it came time to figure out where we wanted to be, this area came up as a Quick number one choice. And, so that's what we

Jonathan Breeden: did. So when did you open your practice here?

And then started my practice here. Started from

Jonathan Breeden: scratch, right? And you've been in the same location the whole time. I

Tim Sims: have been in the exact same location. It's a great location. It's right, sitting right at the junction of 42

And I believe the Huber's built that building. and they had, The, the human or family McDonald's offices there. and then there's bit of cleaners on the end, almost the entire time, right. quality cleaners. it's changed ownerships. I know three times. but, yeah. And at one point the humans were actually had a McDonald's training center in there, which is why I think they originally built the building where they had a makeshift McDonald's and they would bring people in.

Um, And they would train them on where to stand and how to do the fries and, and,

Tim Sims: And we would routinely have people come into the office and ask, uh, Why is that McDonald's not open . So yeah, that was there right when we opened and then it transitioned into the cleaners. Right.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh my goodness.

That's, yeah. And of course the Hubers have just sold all of their the area and they have now retired. and, maybe we'll have them on one of the podcasts talk about their experiences. Yeah. They

Great landlords. So yeah, we're missing them.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. So, I guess when you came here, uh, I mean, kind of, I mean, what was your vision for the kind of practice that you wanted to have and have you

Jonathan Breeden: Right. and you're the only dentist there in your practice, correct? Um, so people that come to your practice are always going to see you and you're able to build those relationships with them as you've built the relationship with me and my family over the years. Um, Which is a little different than some of the other dentists in the area where they're bigger and you don't see the same dentist

Tim Sims: every time yeah, I mean, that's, that was my purpose.

I mean, felt like, you know, my memories of going to the dentist when I was younger was, You know, we would go into the small office, we would sit there, you know, you'd hear the noises, you'd smell the smells. I mean, that's, that's a given. but we would go in, it was Dr. Kitchell was his name and I would see Dr.

There's, you know, I mean. there's plenty of people out there with teeth, plenty of people out there who need dental care. So, they provide a good service, but I just, like, especially in this area where we've got, you know, we've got a couple of those guys here. I feel like I'm a good alternative to that.

Right.

Tim Sims: Yeah. And I thought Johnston County would be perfect. I mean, especially this area. I mean, I'm sure every single guest that comes on here tells you Johnston County's growing, Johnston County's growing. But it's crazy to me that I've been here 22 years now. And I mean, it was growing a lot when we opened right now.

It's still growing. I mean, it's just, you know, I don't think that's going to stop. And, I mean, that makes for me, you know, well, it kind of validates the decision to be

Jonathan Breeden: here. Right. you know, I mean, you were from Garner and this is. Technically garner at this intersection if you go by the postal code.

So to me, it's gonna be 40, 42. Yeah. even if it becomes 40, 39. but yeah. But no, I mean, I, I, you know, I'm. From Burg and I came here because this area was growing and it was an underserved area for lawyers. Yep. and when you got here, it was an underserved area for dentists. Mm-Hmm. , uh, and, you know, it be, it's hard to believe, but I mean, Johnson County is still technically considered a legal desert based on the number of law offices in the county.

Tim Sims: it's the same.

Right. Set up in New Hanover. Right. They're gonna hit those massive, you know, those, those major cities and then everything else kind of falls away. I think I read somewhere there's a handful of counties that have less than four dentists in the whole county. Yeah. There might, there might be a couple that don't have,

Jonathan Breeden: maybe one.

Well, I mean there, there are now counties that are down to like one or two lawyers out in Northeastern North Carolina.

Tim Sims: So the rural areas are always. Is considered the desert.

As people want to live in the cities, they want those amenities for their families, right? And so

Tim Sims: there's a dense pack population of dentists, just like there's a dense pack population of lawyers in these areas. They're doing okay. Right. It's not like getting in there and not having any work patients.

I'm correct. They wouldn't go there if they couldn't find the work. Right.

Jonathan Breeden: So what kind of services does your office provide? You provide the same thing as all these big guys,

I, I mean, obviously we do bread and butter, the fillings, the fillings, crowns, dentures, I take out a lot of teeth. Um, it's not my preferred thing, but sometimes you have to do it. but we do take a lot of teeth, every so often we'll do some root canals, depends on what's needed. Okay. we're storing implants. yeah, I mean, it's like I said, that's actually, I mean, That's what I like about my job is it's a little bit different every day.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Right. That's what I love about my job. If you do family law, you have no idea what's going to walk in the door. you're not going to get bored for sure.

Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: so let's talk a little bit about, in general, the common mistakes that you see people make that lead to dental problem. I know people really should floss every day and I'm not always the best at that, but just some of the most common things to sort of educate the audience.

Tim Sims: Yeah, I mean, let's see the most common thing at this point, you know, there's three things that lead to a cavity.

You've got to have the environment, which is the tooth. You've got to have, you know, the bacteria, which everybody has regardless. And then you've got to have, you know, the fuel for the bacteria to create the cavity, which is sugar. you know, it's one of those three things. I mean, nowadays it's going to come down to, you know, Are you brushing properly?

I mean, all these processed foods and processed sugars, definitely leads to a higher cavity rate. Right. but that's, I mean, that is the most common

Jonathan Breeden: energy drinks. You, you, you've talked about energy drinks because of the sugar content in those

Tim Sims: content. I mean, caffeine's a whole different subject, but sugar content, acidity, you know, you pick up, you know, some of these drinks, you go through them and you start listing all the contents and it's, you know, it's high fructose, high sucrose.

Jonathan Breeden: So do you, would you say the rate of cavities have gone up in the 22 years you've been here?

Tim Sims: I mean, it's, I don't know that it's gone up. I mean, it's just, again, It's just one of those things where you see, I see it so often, so often that you're not going to say, you know, definitely don't think it's going anywhere right at this point,

Jonathan Breeden: right, right, right, right. I got you. Yeah, I got you.

So the, yeah. So, I mean, think that's interesting I've been fortunate that. I think I've had any cavities, even though I, I, sometimes I drink too much sugar. but so, but I've always, I've asked you this question before. So I'll ask you this on this are electric toothbrushes better than non electric toothbrushes?

They are. Okay. And why is that? Yeah,

And if I had a Sonicare rep come in here, he's going to tell you Sonicare. And they're going to produce studies to show that. Right. I mean, both of them will have studies shown that are, you know, footnote that are done by their people. That's pretty cool. But all the independent studies will without a doubt say electric is better than that.

Okay. So I don't care if you go buy a 10. You know. Right. $10 bat battery powered, whatever. Right. Cheap spin brush. Right. It's still gonna be better than man

Jonathan Breeden: brush. I got you. Yeah. was fortunate a few years ago, I think my mom for Christmas gave me one of the Sonic Fusion ones. suit toothbrushes each, well, you can buy it.

Tim Sims: Yeah. And it's, well, it's different too. Cause you know, someone may go to a, you're going to go to a store and you're going to see these brushes that are 160, 150 bucks. Right. And some people say, I can't, justify that money.

And that's why I always say, well, find one that you can, right. Or you can always look at it that this is something that's going to, I mean, brush your teeth, you're supposed to brush your teeth at least twice a day, but I mean, that's something you're going to get a lot of use out of. Right? And the benefits are massive.

And if you can spend that much for a toothbrush and not have to spend two, $300 on a cavity Right. To be filled. that's true. It weighs, you know, that's true. It far outweighs the

Jonathan Breeden: downside. Well, you do have to make sure you change the heads on those electric brushes, just like you change toothbrushes as they start to get loose and Oh, they're gonna lose their form and they're gonna get splayed and Oh yeah.

So you gotta make sure you do that. Yep. The Do you see any, I don't know. I mean, with AI and stuff, you see changes coming in the dental world in the next five to 10

It's not going to tell you this is what it is, but what it does is it actually takes your, uh, Takes the x rays that we take, you know, if you've ever been to the dentist, you bite wing x rays, the ones we put in there and you bite together on and they show us the purpose to show us the in betweens, you know, show us between the teeth, because that's one of the common areas to get cavities.

You actually take the, x rays. Put it in through this computer program with AI and the AI will actually using the gray scale of the x rays Oh, man, we'll diagnose and I say diagnose it will show you where there are changes in the gray scale Which is what normally we're visually looking for with our human eyes.

Oh, okay, they can actually break down You know, the, the digitize it and show you where the decay is. Okay. How

Cause I mean, you need an x ray and they can't actually

Tim Sims: look at the mouth. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because I know, you know, telemedicine is such a huge thing right now, you know, for basic medicine, but I'm not sure teledentistry has become quite as large. I, you know, I would have thought with, you know, especially with COVID and shut down and everybody trying to do things remotely, that you would have seen a little more of that, but because I don't know, I feel like dentistry is a little more hands on that we need to get in there.

I mean, it's easy for me to say, I need to take an X ray and then I can look at an X ray over, you know, Over a computer monitor. That's easy. Right. But to actually fix and go in and do right. You got it. Sometimes you got to kind of go in and be a little. Yeah, it's gotta be handled right

I mean, that's one way they're trying to address the legal days, of course, it's a whole different thing, the dentistry. but I was just curious as to what you'd, what you had heard there. have you had people. I don't know. I, maybe this is cause of what I have to deal with. If you had people coming in, that are just trying to get pain pills from you, you know what I mean?

Where they're coming in and they're, maybe they don't, they're just trying to see if you'll give them some sort of that. And how do you deal

The last 5 years or so that, you know, our, the establishment has done a lot of things to help sort of curb it. one of the things that they've done is, there's actually a controlled substance reporting system now where, you know, once a provider, like myself, Is registered, we can go in and I can look up and say, okay, Jonathan Breeden is here.

Even if you're jumping borders, I can still see and it'll actually show me what you filled. It'll show me who filled it or who wrote it up rather what provider wrote it, who filled it, what pharmacy, and it'll give you, it's funny that I don't know how they, you know, I'm sure somebody's got an algorithm, but it actually gives a score to say whether this person is.

Considered high risk for opioid Oh, that is interesting. So ever since that, I would say, like I say, in the last five years, ever since that's come out, amenities for people to

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well, that's good. glad to know they came up with something like that. I wonder if that came out of all these settlements where they, where the opiate company, were paying billions of dollars

Tim Sims: in penalties.

This 2 has been hurting this 1st time. And then I can pull it up and say, well, you just saw a doctor. Right. Right.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's great. I mean, that's great. That's great. Well, that's good. I think I've seen, and we do some criminal law here, mainly family law. think we've seen. Less of the opioids being a problem in the oxys that we were seeing five to seven years ago and leading to divorces and stuff.

So maybe they really have curb what's out there and maybe some of these lawsuits have actually worked and now these pills are being limited to people who actually need them.

Tim Sims: Yeah, they've, done a really good job with that. And they actually about the same timeframe, about five or six years ago, they're requiring now to keep my dental license.

You know, you have to have a certain amount of continuing education credit to keep your license, to get it renewed. One of those hours has to be. There's an opioid course that we have to take every single year. Well, that's

We try to get them to places that, that can help them. And, but ultimately they have to decide they want the help. So I guess as we wrap this thing up here and I know you're from Garner and all that, but you've had a business here in Johnston County for 22 years. What do you love most about Johnston County?

Jonathan Breeden: no, it's coming. 540 is going to be finished anytime now. and the new intersection at 40, 42 is going to be open.

Jonathan Breeden: All right. Well, cool. Thank you. Well, we'd like to thank dr. Sims for coming in and talking to us today about his practice dentistry and the AI coming to dentistry.

I found that fascinating. I hope that y'all, everybody listening found this fascinating as well. We do ask that if this is your first time of listening to this podcast, that you like subscribe or follow this podcast, wherever you're seeing it, whether it be on apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or any of the, cuts that we have on TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, stuff like that, so that you'll be aware of future episodes of the Best of Johnston County podcast.

We also had Donna White on, previous episodes. And, if you're into sports, we also had, Scott Raleigh, the Cleveland football coach on a previous episode. So go back, listen to some of those. If you love Johnson County, as much as I do love Johnson County, I think you're going to love this podcast.

We love bringing this to you. And until next time, this is your host, Jonathan Breeden.

That's the end of today's episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.