New Here, Miss Listening to Music, and Terrified of Dental Cleaning

Hi all,

I have been reading this forum since I got T and intermittent H late March 2016. Thought I'd sign up, introduce myself, and ask a couple of questions all at the same time.

My T is a combination of hiss, a million crickets that sound far away, a very very very high pitched (probably 14kHz) tone, or a lower intermittent tone (probably 8kHz) that shows up once in a while for a second or 3 minutes and goes away. Most times I hear one of the sounds, sometimes I hear more than one of the sounds at the same time. My H is intermittent, and don't know what triggers it. When H is flairing up, I have to wear earplugs the entire time except when sleeping. I am very grateful for all those who post on this forum, as I learned a LOT, and helped me deal with my T and H. I have been coping well, and I believe that I am partially habituated to the point that I rarely use my table top wnsg at night. I have already seen my PCP, but not scheduled to see an ENT until this Wed simply because that is the earliest an ENT is available. Not sure what caused my T and H. I am a bit of an audiophile, but made sure my music is at 75dBC. But my T and H could be noise induced that is an accumulation of many years of exposure to moderate noise.

I have 9-month old twin babies, both of whom can shriek, cry and shout rather loudly (as loud as 115 dBC) inside our carpet-less home, so every room in the house has at least one pair of ear muffs with 23 or 30 dB of protection. In addition, I have musician's earplugs (3 pairs of Etymotic ER20xs with 20dB of protection, and 2 sets of LiveMusic earplugs with each set having 23dB and 29dB of protection) at home, in my car, key chain, and in the office for when I am in noisy situations, or when my hyperacusis flairs up. I AM careful about not overprotecting my ears, though.

I have been avoiding listening to music through headphones or speakers since I had my T and H. I am a bit of an audiophile, with high end music gear, speakers, headphones and high quality studio grade music files. I haven't listened to music since March 2016, and I miss that very much. I wonder if listening to very soft music while wearing my musician's earplugs is okay? Also, are speakers better than headphones for someone with T? I have open backed headphones (Sennheiser HD650), as well as in-ear monitors (Westone W30), and wonder what type of headphones are better?

Finally, I have a dental cleaning appointment at the end of this month. I find that my ears are sensitive to the low frequencies of road noise, as well as the high frequencies such as laptop fan, harddrive, or office printer fan, refrigerator hum. I am terrified that the hypersonic dental cleaning tool will permanently aggravate my T, and that my ears will be in so much pain because of the high frequency noise generated by the cleaning tool. Any tips/suggestions on how I can survive the dental cleaning appointment would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great day, everyone.

 

A warm welcome to Tinnitus Talk.
I am a twin....lol.
Playing music at a safe level wearing ear protection is fine.
Some people find wearing earphones aggravates their tinnitus but I get on fine with them.
Regarding the dentist just make him aware you have tinnitus and use his still minimal .
I don't find ear plugs help .
Try flicking your tooth and you will see what I mean as the sound is in your mouth and can be heard but try plugs of you think they will help.
If you get a spike from the drill sound or with having your mouth wide and presure on your jaw joint it should soon settle over a day or two.
Keep posting on the main forums for support round the clock support....lots of love glynis

 

Thanks for the warm welcome, and good advice. Really appreciate it. Listening to music now as I type this...via speakers, though, and low volume (less than 60dB) as I am still terrified of making my tinnitus worse.

 

Dont worry about that, i have played music since my onset since 3 months ago
and it hasnt dont anything bad to my tinnitus.
its a good way to mask it