Long-term tooth abscess and tinnitus

[chris dant]

I just had an excellent endodontist treat a molar that had a previous root canal done in the late 1960s--the tooth had been sore and when he opened it to do the first antibiotic treatment, he said it was pretty infected but that with 6 weeks of placed antibiotics would be ready to be sealed.

Since about 1980, I have had tinnitus in one ear (on my left side...the abscess is on my right). I have had an MRI to rule out a neuroma. All other ear tests are normal but the audiology report shows a substantial loss of hearing above 4000-8000 Hertz (in both ears but particularly the one with the ringing).

The day after the endodontist cleaned out my root, my ringing was significantly decreased!! I wonder if this infection could have been causing the tinnitus?

Id appreciate any experts out there to respond.

 

[Busybee]

You must be relieved!

I don't know what happened just before your tinnitus but I had some slight tinnitus last year after having some dental work which affected my bite. Since I had this fixed I hardly ever have any noise. I have a clicky jaw on the side that was noisy and the work I had done has made it less clicky. So maybe when the dentist drilled into your tooth the bite was changed for the better. It's a really complex area though and at no point was any dentist I saw interested in the tinnitus. Luckily mine was only at night and was not too bad (although at one point it sounded like a whining drill). I too would be interested in an expert opinion on this, although I think it's a specialised area. I think it's a bit like allergies, lots of experts with opinions but no concrete understanding because there are too many confounding variables.

 

[MattKW]

Has nothing to do with your endo treatment, just coincidental. There is no physiological connection between a tooth and tinnitus. Commonly, pain in a lower tooth is referred to the ear by the brain interpretation of the source of the pain, but not tinnitus. The most common cause of tinnitus is damage and loss of the tiny sensory hair cells in the cochlea of the inner ear. A you say, the tinnitus appears to have reduced, not gone away.

 

[Busybee]

Mine has gone away and I have always had perfect hearing. It only happened when I wore the nightguard.

I found it really fascinating how the jaw could cause so many issues elsewhere. At one point I even had back ache and pain down the arm of the jaw problem. My posture even changed. It makes me wonder how many older people look decrepit purely because of a poor bite or missing teeth. But it's not an area most dentists are interested in.

 

[MattKW]

It's not that we're not interested in such matters; many people are studying a wide range of relationships related to occlusion. It was big fad 40 years ago when I was a student and the Dean had a particular interest in occlusion. Unfortunately, a lot of unnecessarily destructive "adjustments" done too. The problem is separating out coincidence and placebo effect from real relationships. Need some good studies that are double blinded and randomly controlled combined with sham treatment for comparison, not anecdotes. Lots of anecdotes do make make meaningful data.

 

[MattKW]

Whoops! Lots of anecdotes do NOT make meaningful data.

 

[Busybee]

Unfortunately I've come across some dentists who still make destructive adjustments because that's how they were trained years ago in the UK. It's in fact impossible to guess how an adjustment will pan out in an individual. So now many dentists here are favouring the "do nothing" approach with the view that teeth self adjust over time. The interesting thing is that there is no such thing as an occlusion specialism in British dentistry.

There is a study on NCBI "Tinnitus with temporomandibular joint disorders: a specific entity of tinnitus patients?"
Vielsmeier V1, Kleinjung T, Strutz J, Bürgers R, Kreuzer PM, Langguth B. One of many over the years. The findings are that patients with tinnitus and tmj had better hearing, a lower onset age, lower tinnitus noise levels and more could change the tinnitus by movements of the neck and jaw. It's just a small study of 30 patients but an example of many studies that find tinnitus in tmd patients differs from classic tinnitus.

Some people seem to benefit from tmd treatment but I would say it's like a stab in the dark to try to treat this through dental adjustments. It seems that some report a happy coincidence when they do have incidental treatment that may slightly change bite such as the OP.

 

[MattKW]

So, possible placebo effect if it's a "...happy coincidence when they do have incidental treatment...". Why not try other treatments, like acupuncture, chiropractic, aromatherapy, ... which all lighten the patient's pocket without long term beneficial effects? How does this relate to Chris Dants experience? Has he had a followup audiology testing of his high frequency hearing loss? I don't get your point in relation to this post.

 

[Busybee]

The link is that Chris may have had undiagnosed TMD. I was saying that although there may be studies showing causal links between TMD and some types of tinnitus, dentists shouldn't try to treat this with bite adjustments because that's invasive and hit and miss and causes long term problems. If by lucky coincidence some necessary dental work improves the matter that's great. I'm very happy for Chris that he went to the dentist and now his separate chronic condition has improved. I hope it's a lasting improvement.

 

[apl789]

The whole area is very closely connected and one area is mostly likely to affect another area. However, this can vary from person to person.

 

[MattKW]

The whole area is very closely connected and one area is mostly likely to affect another area. However, this can vary from person to person.

Vague tosh. What has this to do with endo treatment affecting tinnitus? Provide link to any article.

 

[apl789]

Vague tosh. What has this to do with endo treatment affecting tinnitus? Provide link to any article.

It's common sense.
Infection penetrates the germ barrier and gets into the blood stream, and then it can affect any part of the body.
In this case, it just happened to be the ear.

 

[MattKW]

It's common sense.
Infection penetrates the germ barrier and gets into the blood stream, and then it can affect any part of the body.
In this case, it just happened to be the ear.

And just how does the minute bacteraemia from a right tooth cause tinnitus (loss of cilia) in the left ear? Maybe he had an ingrown toenail or a pimple on his bottom that was the cause? “The problem with common sense is, it isn't.” - Benjamin Franklin.