Should I Wear Earplugs at the Dentist?

I've got dental work coming up... some fillings and a root canal (yikes.)

It's been a lot of years since I needed dental work and I just thought about this now...

Should I wear earplugs during the work?

 

I think you'll be ok. I brought them for a filling last year and thought it sounded worse!

It's better to tell your dentist your predicament. I found my dentist to be extremely patient, drilled in short bursts, plenty of breaks etc

 

That sounds good. I'll be sure to mention it to him.

 

I wouldn't wear plugs. The sound will be amplified inside your head. If you plug your ears and then scrape your toothe with your fingernail, you'll know what I mean by the sound being amplified inside your head.. Greg is right, ask for short bursts of drilling.

 

Yeah it's terrible like it "seems" louder x1000


Wear earmuffs instead

 

Agreed, it would cause the occlusion effect since it's in your mouth. I don't know if this works quite the same if you are wearing earmuffs, but I don't think it would help anything since the sound is generated in your mouth.

 

no do not wear earplugs.....believe me, from experience it is much better without

 

Yep, no earplugs. I find earmuffs dangerous too with the drilling. But I wore them (Peltor X5A) for a cleaning and it helped.

 

I have had plenty of dental work and 2 route canals with heavy drilling in the years I have had T. Effect of Tinnitus = ZERO

 

You don't have T anymore ? Did you have H ?

 

Do take earplugs. If you are frequently using earplugs in you day-to-day life you're going to feel a lot more secure. You can always take them out of your ears if they are not working out for you.

Like the other commenters have mentioned the dentist drill won't have an effect on the tinnitus, while it is high pitch it's going to be an octave lower in pitch to most tinnitus sufferers.

Make sure to advise your dentist just before the procedure of your condition and set about to have a hand signal should the noise of the drill get uncomfortable and you require a pause.

 

@Rhea Did your dental spikes eventually go down? Are you down to a quieter tinnitus now again? Are you wearing plugs again a little more to be safe with clapping and loud areas?

 

Do you guys recommend wearing earmuffs? I have a dentist appointment tomorrow.. Not sure if I should wear my passive isolation headphones or nothing at all. Thank you

 

Julien, what will the dentist be doing?

 

If he's drilling, then yes wear protection. Ask them for a pillow and do not bend your neck forward during drilling. Close your mouth to rest your jaw if /when possible. Have your dentist drill for a few seconds and stop for a few seconds. With a bend neck, sounds can thru your mouth by the way of nerves to your ears.

 

Any reason you can't try different configurations? Start with one, and if you feel it's not right, try another one, etc... work with your dentist to find the right combo.

 

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/dental-work-ruined-my-progress.21355/

I'm really not sure what the best approach to dental work is. It sounds like, for protection, muffs which have a lot of space between your ear and the casing of the muff may reduce the occlusion effect? I have not had any dental work besides extractions (those were not noisy at all, no drills or suction or anything just a little crack when the root gets pulled up).

I guess a strictly extraction dental policy is something one could adapt... who cares about image right?

 

As a dentist i always recommend ear protection, i came into this community early in my life and my work only to find out that dentists are exposed in sounds that in the long term cause heavy damage in their ears, we are just very tolerant in the beggning and senseless in the years to come... its been three months now after my acoustic trauma that i always wear plugs no matter what i do BUT especially for routine dental scaling with ultrasonics and the use of drills i say protect your ears, not every dentist has late modern well serviced state of the art handpieces, most of them do sound loud and most of the dentist wont even understand what you are going through cause simply cant get it (the chrinic damage i was talking about)
I always have and provide protection to my patients after my incident

Live and learn guys

 

Thank you guys.


@TuneOut
I'm not sure what he'll do but he might drill (one of my back teeth broke - and i'm not sure if it's an already devitalized tooth or not)

@SilverSpiral
Do you think these will do the trick: http://www.harmonycentral.com/images/uploads/sennheiserhd280-9fa3aa5d.jpg ? They are isolating earphones that actually provide quite low isolation and I think they don't create occlusion effect

 

Earplugs will make it worse. The majority of the noise you'll be exposed to will be going to your cochlea through your bones. The vibrations will make it loud, and by wearing earplugs you will give yourself the occlusion effect. Basically, you'll be trapping the sound in, where some of it could escape.

 

I wouldn't wear anything for dental work. The loudness will be inside your head, not via air conduction. By blocking your ears (in anyway) you'll be keeping the sound inside your head. It's best to allow some of the noise to escape through your ear canals.

Make sure you tell your dentist to drill in bursts. Five seconds on, ten seconds off, or something along those lines.

 

Thank you Ed

 

Image would be the main problem then ? Well, no, it's bad, bad, bad advice.

You need your teeth to be HEALTHY, and to overcome your T or H you need to be as healthy as you can.

People have to stop thinking they can ruin their whole body because only their ears matter. That's just not true and will worsen your ears at one point, I can tell you that.

Eat healthy, exercice, meditate, socialize, go to the doctor when something needs to be done and then, you'll give your ears the best chances to improve in the long run.

Now, about dental work, here what I do :
- find a good, skilled and understanding dentist. If he tells you "it's gonna be ok" without looking you in the eyes and listening to you, find another one
- for the drilling part, ask him to use the less noisy tools he has (slow rotating tools) and to make pauses, don't protect your ears
- for ultrasonic scaling, I wear earmuffs as I feel that the sound is mostly conducted by air, not through bones, but it's personal and still hard to handle, you just have to try with and without to see what's best for you

 

Hi all, I just got back from the dentist about an hour ago. I got two fillings: one on the bottom left molar, and one on my top front tooth, followed by a full cleaning and polishing. Last year I got one filling on the top left molar.

A little background on my T and H. T developed almost 10 years ago after concerts. Loudness wise, the T went from mildly annoying to hell on earth. I have been through TRT, successfully treated H that way, for the most part. My T is very loud. I hear it above most things, except the shower. But I am somewhat habituated.

Back to the dentist. I brought my Bose over-ear noise cancelling headphones, for the sounds of the drill. My dentist uses one high speed drill, which is a high pitched whine, then a low speed drill, which is more fuller sound, like a vibration / humming sound. The low speed is quieter - but that also depends on what kind of tone your T reacts to. The bottom left molar was no problem. The top tooth was much louder, even though it was further away from my ears, but that is because the top teeth are connected to the skull.

At one point, while rinsing, I took my headphones off and forgot to put them back on and found that the sound of the drilling in your head is MUCH quieter without the headphones. So next time, I won't use them at all.

My dentist is a saint and blocks out 2 hours at a time for me, since I ask her to drill for 3 seconds, and rest for 10.

My suggestion: DO NOT WEAR EARPLUGS for drilling. And as I said before, I would say don't even use headphones - the occlusion effect will get ya worse than the sound of the drill.

For the cleaning, I asked my dentist to just scrape the tartar off with a pick, rather than using the ultra sonic thingy. The polish was quiet, because again, I learned that having the headphones on makes it all louder.

Overall I feel pretty good. My ears are a little full, but that is okay. I was really panic stricken before they started, so for anyone reading this - IT WILL BE OK!

Lots of love to everyone,
V

 

Woah woah woah, we have a dentist on board!! What hearing protection do you provide to your patients and are you aware of the occlusion effect? Have you had work done on yourself while wearing protection? What form of protection helps.

@Julien87 I'm not sure what protection would work, I don't know if the hd280s would help or not. If they do, something like Peltor X5As may be even more effective, but again I can not confirm what hearing protection if any is effective for dentistry, I come to this forum with no answers myself, simply seeking hope and answers. I am not a professional, just a severe sufferer. The HD280s while they are quite isolating for a "headphone" but don't provide that much protection as far as I know, so perhaps you are right, maybe that would help cut down on the noise without creating the occlusion effect. Wouldn't hurt to try them on while you're at the dentist and it would be great if you had some X5As or something to compare them with (or maybe that is a bad idea, I'm still unsure if the x5as would create occlussion). But to my knowledge, the X5As are the biggest, bulkiest earmuffs that block out the most sound. I don't actually own a pair yet, so I"m not sure how far the casing sits from the ear.

I suppose you could test the occlussion effect to some extent by wearing whatever protection and seeing if it makes your voice louder, but that still may not be an accurate indication of how it will sound with drilling...

@Foncky you can be healthy without teeth. I believe you could get sufficient nutrients and diet without teeth nowadays, even without dentures, but I appreciate you taking my joke so literally. In reality some people may have to take their hearing into account when choosing a procedure versus an extraction. Extractions are less expensive too. You can meditate without teeth too, seen many Zen/Daoist masters? I know of a Taiji practitioner who has no teeth, and is the epitome of health.

 

I went to my appointment this morning. Finally I did not take any protection but he did not do any work at all anyway, just had a look at my broken tooth (and he did not even see what was broken.. even though I am sure I lost a bit of that tooth and I feel its shape has been altered) and scheduled an appointment for a further session.
But I think I will cancel and go to another dentist, because 1) I find it really strange that he could not notice that my tooth was broken and 2) while being in the waiting room, I heard him work on the previous patient and it was noisy as hell (I don't remember hearing so much noise in a dentist practice), and 3) it's a real plain to find a parking spot in his area haha

 

You may just need that bit of tooth "polished down" you likely did have a bit of a chip or whatever, and your tongue can certainly feel the difference, but it may not be substantial to a dentist, just tell them where the area is and ask them to polish it down a bit. That will probably be loud and vibratory though. Again, just a guess. Best of luck to you.

 

This is not 100% true. Teeth issues are linked with various conditions such as cardiovascular disorders. And regarding the extractions I'm super scared. I read the story of a member here who went really bad.

 

Yes, oral health is linked to cardiovascular health, but this is because of the plaque, gingivitus, etc, that accumulates on the teeth as they degrade. Extractions circumvent this do they not? Tooth decay and gum disease are associated with cardiovascular problems. But having decaying/gingivitis/gum disease is not the same as having no teeth at all.

How can you have cavities/plaque/gingivitis, the things that accumulate on the teeth that are toxic to the system, if you have no teeth?

 

You don't need ear protection at the dentist @SilverSpiral! It only makes matter worse. Secondly, you can't say oral health doesn't matter; that's awful advice as well.

We should look after our teeth (and bodies); everything works in synergy, so don't neglect your oral health, or anything else for that matter. I recently had sepsis and had to go on various antibiotics, so it was very much a situation of my ears vs my life (body). I researched the drugs for ototoxicity, but I later questioned myself and thought: would I have refused ototoxic drugs if it meant saving my life?