Welcome to Our Practice

Tar Heel Smiles
James H. Eaker, DDS
Alisha F. Humble, DMD

We appreciate the opportunity to get to know you and look forward to your visit.

What most people want is no dentistry. Utilizing preventive dentistry, technology and caring attitudes, our ultimate goals are to gain your trust by being thorough but honest and to provide comfortable care.  We want to help you preserve your natural teeth for life and help you maintain your health at an optimum level.

Conservative dentistry means preserving natural tooth structure as well as trying to make existing restorations last as long as possible.  Our patients become like family because we treat them the way they would expect a family member to treat them—with honesty, selflessly, but striving to figure out the best options for treatment. We don’t just offer the most ideal or expensive restorative option but consider pros and cons of no treatment or more simple repair.  We aren’t selling anything and are a no pressure place. We take our charge to care for you seriously but we like to enjoy our days, laugh a lot, bird watch and enjoy our patients and each other. 

Most people don’t understand dental issues any more than they know how their car motor works. When you find a car mechanic that you know is not trying to sell you things you don’t need, you cling to them. But, you want them to be thorough and be able to tell if a belt is almost worn through or some kind of preventive treatment would be helpful. That analogy probably describes us best. 

However, we are thorough with low radiation digital x-rays, in the mouth cameras in all rooms and were the first in the triangle with digital impressions for crown and bridge fabrication.  If we provide treatment, simple or complex, we do want it to be done well but as comfortably as we can.  We offer bose noise canceling headphones with iTouches, temperpedic pads in all chairs, bird feeders at every window, lots of pillows and blankets and aromatherapy.  

We’re not perfect but we try hard to please you. Our office hours reflect our family value to work hard while we are here but try to be home for our families. We can’t be everything to everyone but we want to care for those we have the privilege of serving.

Our services include:

• General Dentistry
• Teeth Whitening
• Crowns
• Preventive Care
• Periodontal Exams
• View a Complete List of our Dental Services

We always welcome new patients of every age. Whether you are new to Durham or seeking an improved dental experience, we invite you to call our office for additional information.

November 2019 Office update from Dr Eaker:
Since I’ve been practicing for many years and now have another dentist in the practice, I am often asked if we are in practice transition time. I still own the practice, live a mile away from the office and have a fourth grader, so I plan to keep practicing for many years, Lord willing. I am, however, trying to create some better life balance. I tend to work long but enjoyable days and am choosing not to do that full time. We are so fortunate that Dr Humble joined us in August 2018. She has been out of school for over 14 years, is an excellent dentist and is now working Monday, Tuesday and Thursday most weeks. I am primarily working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and expect to utilize some Mondays for emergencies and cases that need special attention and timeliness. I’ve always tried to balance work, family, faith and fun and continue to try to do so. Feel free to ask for either one of us do your exam as you are in. Patients are not assigned by the office to either of us rigidly. You can definitely choose to just see one or either of us. We have very similar philosophies, but feel free to stay with one of us all the time if you wish. One of my pet peeves about group practices and seeing multiple dentists is that we all have different opinions and that often leads to doing treatment, and we like minimizing treatment needs. We are trying to calibrate and be as consistent as we can, while still maintaining our autonomy and best judgement.

Sandra and Teresa have been with us about a year up front and our clinical staff is unchanged for many years. I’m so fortunate to spend my work days with such wonderful people. We have updated our digital panoramic machine and can now take decay detecting images (bitewings!) with the panoramic for patients with severe gag reflex, so that’s great news for that 5% of folks. Dr Humble has significant experience in dentures and children’s dentistry, so we have some added options in those areas. We’ve added so many touches from new bird feeders to clinical materials improvements, better digital patient communication (hopefully), iPad health history updates, an almost fully digital work environment, apple music to go with bose noise cancelling headphones and constant striving to improve. We continue to focus on what is best for your needs and not our needs. We hope it leads to a wonderful experience in the practice. Thanks for being a part of it—or we welcome you to join us.