I went to Dr. Sims after moving to Washington. Prior to the move, I had excruciating pain in one molar, and the tooth was even pushing down a bit out of my gum on occasion! I couldn’t bite down. ... More

I went to Dr. Sims after moving to Washington. Prior to the move, I had excruciating pain in one molar, and the tooth was even pushing down a bit out of my gum on occasion! I couldn’t bite down. I was so busy and in the midst of such turmoil, I had no time to get to the dentist before my move. I was in this condition for weeks. Dr. Sims was my fiancé’s dentist and he said he was a little bit of a fumbler (having nearly choked him by dropping part of a crown into his mouth and yelling at him, “DON’T SWALLOW!”, etc) but he liked the guy – so I went. By the time I got in to see him, the pain had actually abated quite a bit to the point of being manageable. Dr. Sims said he didn’t see anything on the x-ray, or by visual inspection, to indicate a problem with my tooth. He suggested maybe the pain was radiating from some other tooth. He went on to deal with other issues that the x-rays brought forward and began a mission to replace all of my metal fillings. Many months passed; I continued to ask him about this tooth that still bothered me, to varying degrees, but he insisted it was OK. The pain in this particular tooth got so bad that I started getting dizzy, having blinding headaches and felt sick. I made an emergency appointment to get in to his office. Dr. Sims then said that “maybe” he could see a crack in the tooth and that he’d have to fix it with a root canal. He could not get me numb (not for lack of Novocain injections—Dr. Sims is notorious for emptying several vials into your gums, mangling your face beyond belief--both by man-handling and by the shot’s results). On the umpteenth shot, and after waiting about ten minutes after each round of shots, he began pushing the needle through something so horrifically painful that I thought I would die! (And at that moment, I would have preferred to.) Instead of stopping with the needle, he physically held me down in the chair while doing this as I was rising up out of it in reflex to the intense pain. I had a “cry” come from my absolute toes; it was a horrific, visceral experience I never wish to repeat. I shook and was so embarrassed because I was crying uncontrollably (I NEVER cry in public.) I have a high threshold for pain (otherwise I would have made time for the dentist before the move!), but this pain was so raw and severe that it completely disabled me from “keeping a grip”. Dr. Sims chose this moment, rather than at the beginning of the appointment, to take an x-ray of my tooth. He came back into the room to tell me, “Well now I see why you suffered so much pain, you have an abscess.” My tooth had an abscess (no "crack") that I had been suffering with for more than a year and this Neanderthal of a “dentist” not only didn’t identify that, didn’t treat it, but physically held me down in the chair while he jammed a needle THROUGH THE ABSCESS! They made light of it as I stood at the office counter waaaaaaaiting to PAY for my visit, feeling like I was going to be sick as I now had all this poison released into my system! I had to drive to the drugstore afterward for Percoset. I turned in the prescription and lay in my car crying for the 30 minutes it took to fill it. They wanted me to get in to see a specialist that day for a root canal, but I had to wait. Not only did I have to deal with insurance, but I couldn’t have gotten myself anywhere but HOME after that ordeal, and even that was just about beyond my ability. Unfortunately, I have had absolutely horrible experiences with doctors, but this beats anything I’ve *ever* encountered. Dr. Sims’ dental “expertise” is akin to something out of the stone age. My experience was so traumatic that I’m feeling physically and emotionally sick just recounting it now.
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