Dental Work and Increased Tinnitus

I had 3 teeth extracted at the front and a partial denture put in straight away, The denture looks great, but one week after the procedure I had the most horrendous tinnitus, I have been a t sufferer for over 20 years, Anyone have any ideas, someone said it may have displaced my jaw and this has caused it TMJ? or could it be the partial metal plate that is changing the shape of my mouth. I am going mental with this after being okay for so long and now I feel as if I should have known this may happen. Anyone think it may die down,

 

Hi @rylands
try not to worry. There are a lot of reasons this could happen, and some of them might just clear up on their own. For one thing, when you have dental work, you have to have your mouth jacked open which puts a lot of pressure on various joints and muscles, which can ramp up your ringing.

It could be that your bite has shifted in a way that's putting pressure on the auditory nerve, that would fall into the general category of being TMJ problems, yes.

If you start googling this enough you'll probably find references to scarier things, but a lot of them end up being pretty kooky - some people think that dental implants make your nerves pick up radio waves and things like that. If any of that is true, there isn't any evidence.

If this is really bothering you, you should think about seeing an orthopaedic surgeon and try to get some imaging done to see if anything is being compressed.

Has your hearing changed at all, aside from the tinnitus? If so, you might want to see an ENT, as well.

 

I've actually wondered about this with more extensive orthognathic surgery (jaw surgery). I wonder how 'loud' the conductive hearing is when they are sawing away at your jawbone.