Dentist Polishing Tinnitus Spike

Hi,

I had a manual tooth cleaning yesterday and the only thing that was a bit noisy was the dentist polishing brush which had is a rotating brush head, I had the earmuffs on whole time not sure if that was a good idea but the noise was OK.

Is the bone conduction from this tool enough to cause hearing issues? The polishing was only a minute or two but unfortunately my tinnitus seems to have spiked, the high pitch is more intense and is stinging.

I also have a cavity that I have been putting off treating because it will require a drill and laser won't work according to one laser dentist, I will have to confirm with a few others.

 

It is a good idea to do that.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I will now know to turn down the offer to polish my teeth after dental cleaning.

Most likely your spike is going to be temporary.

 

when i went a few months ago i had them lightly scaled and polished. All seemed quiet as a mouse to me

 

The polishing should be way more quiet then scraping

Was the cleaning painful?

 

Something doesn't seem right about this story =\

 

No not really, the polishing machine was like this

Polishing

 

I get my teeth cleaned twice a year and never had issues. The polishing is not that loud though? The radio in my car is louder than this. Is it possible that something else created your spike?

 

@Eric N Do you also have hyperacusis? I don’t think the polishing could have caused further hearing loss but maybe the frequency of the sound irritated your ears? Unfortunately, tinnitus can be quite unpredictable at times, what doesn’t cause a spike for some or even most people can cause a spike for others. Hoping your spike will subside soon!

 

@coffee_girl if I learned anything in the 6 years I had this horrible thing is that is really does not take much to make it worse, at least in my case, lets hope it's just stress this time

@Autumnly no I don't think so, loud sounds don't hurt my ear but can easily give me permanent spikes.

 

So sorry to hear! Had a couple of permanent spikes myself, really hoping your spike will settle back down to baseline!

 

Hi Eric, of course everyone is a bit different, but I suspect it was not the noise, even bone conduction noise. It may have been the physical stress of having your jaw opened, perhaps in combination with the emotional stress or worrying about the spike which caused muscle tension and trigger point creation, that resulted in the spike.
If that so, working on your jaw muscles (trigger point therapy) would be the best approach now. If it helps, you will know within a couple days and may continue to have increasing benefits for much longer.
Here is a video I made to help determine if this is likely the cause in your case.

KNOW if YOUR TMJ Tinnitus Can be Improved --...

 

Why is best doctor not part of the Doctor's Corner?

 

Hello Dr. Jay Hobbs,

Thanks for your message,

I tried some of the tests in the video, and clenching jaw hard does in fact increase my high pitch tinnitus significantly so does opening my jaw wide. I guess it possible that I have two causes of T? However there is definitely a noise induced component to my T as the MRI I had last year massively increased my T which remains to this day, this is probably why I am having all these issues now as it must be much easier to make things worse now with a more compromised ear.

 

It is certainly possible to have 2 causes, but having more than one somatic trigger does not indicate more than one cause.
The testing procedure as a whole tells if you have the one cause, TMJ-causes tinnitus.
The exciting part is the IMPLIUCATION of the positive test: you are very likely to improve with appropriate TMJ care/treatment.
Note: As we make clear in the video, the tests and results are very specific. Any jaw movement and any resulting change in tinnitus does not necessarily indicate this same implication. Without the correct combination of test and result, it would only mean that one has “somatic tinnitus,” not necessarily “somatic-CAUSED tinnitus,” and more importantly, not necessarily a tinnitus that can IMPROVE with appropriate somatic treatment.

 

I am not doing well spike is still very strong
Any chance dental x-ray could cause issues

 

No. Dental x-rays provide similar radiation to the radiation one gets when one takes a 10-hour flight (I don't remember the exact number of hours/flights, but I remember that it truly was comparable to flying).

 

it's unlikely that laser will work in my case the cavity is quite large and nearly half my tooth has chipped off, it's probably an old filling that fell out while I was chewing gum.

it's very obvious now that the drill won't be an option for me even using the 5/10 second thing.
I am also not willing to do an extraction and endure the weeks of pain afterwards.

I see no other option then simply put a filling with the cavity already there, if the tooth survives another a year or so that's good, mission accomplished.

 

What makes you think you will be in pain for weeks?? Last winter I had an extraction which had a bit of drilling and I was fine. No pain after. With that said, I know everyone is different. I hope the spike calms down for you.

 

I had both my wisdom teeth extracted and it was painful took a while before I could eat properly again.

 

I didn't know that that was an option. Did your dentist agree to do this for you?

 

I have not pressed the issue yet, any reason why this would be refused? Is it against some medical practice?

 

Unless all of the rotten tissue is removed, the bacteria will continue breaking up the tooth, and eventually one will need to either have a root canal procedure, or have the tooth extracted.

One option is to extract the tooth and then to attach the extracted tooth to the teeth around the resulting gap. It is a temporary solution, and one will need to avoid hard foods, but if it falls out, it can always be glued back in.

 

There is no point in filling unless you clean out the rot and have a clean surface to bond too. Its like painting over rust. It seems fine for a little while and then its back, unless you grind it back to bare metal.

 

I agree with the consensus, you need to drill all the rot out so that you can have the filling. I also don't think any dentist who knows what he is doing is going to just fill over the tooth without drilling first. It would seem very irresponsible of him. If I were you I would just do it and get it over with, the alternative is much worse.

 

I am not sure about that. If drilling causes a life-changing change in T, the option of drilling would be a lot worse than the alternative...

 

Bummer. But a tooth is different. Maybe you have no pain! Think positive.

 

I know this is not a long term solution but hopefully is slows down the progress?, the goal right now is simply to buy time, I am about to take a year off work to try and relax I don't want anything messing up this plan more than it already is.

If I can't get it filled I will just leave it as is.

Sadly this is the reality of a sever chronic tinnitus sufferer, a lot of hard life decisions have to be made.

 

Tinnitus sure does dictate ones life.

 

alright some good news for a change.

I was able to get the filling done with laser treatment, he was able to remove all the cavity, it was not noisy as far as i can tell but I had double hearing protection so all I could hear was some clicks and maybe a tone. I did not use any anesthetics either. It just stung sometimes but very minor pain.

I did however refuse the filling polishing with the drill, but he said it was OK as the filling was not too high and I don't have any pain when I bite.

So it was a complete drill free operation and no spike. So it looks like the online info about laser is not very accurate, it was an option in my case despite haviing a medium cavity and a chipped tooth.

Also on a side note my original spike did eventually go down.

 

Hey Eric, I'm in same boat as you. I know drilling will cause me to kill myself, as I'm damaged easily and have bad Ears and genetics in noise tolerance.

Was your cavity very bad like you thought? Not small? And they were still able to use laser?