Possible to become a dentist with Tinnitus?

[Icantcomeupwithone]

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Just when I finally got accepted to my dream school with a full scholarship to pursue my dream career, everything came crashing down a couple weeks ago when my ears started ringing very loud and hasn’t stopped since. I do hope it is temporary but I am really depressed right now after reading about tinnitus. I started to wonder about my career…here I am 3 months before school starts.

Is it possible to work as a dentist with tinnitus? Since the work environment is so loud and may worsen the condition. Would it be realistic to wear earplug for every single moment on every single workday? I just wanted to see if any current dentists or residents who have experienced this monster and provide some advice. Unsure if I have to make a very difficult choice of changing career. Please if anyone can give me some advice, that will be very much appreciated. Thank you!

 

[ysrebob]

Very sorry that you are going though this... life can be terribly unfair. Needing earplugs would present some difficulties for practicing dentistry but not an absolute obstacle by any means.

Main challenge would seem to be working out a way to get through the D school curriculum (lecture-based the first two years). I would reach out to the school you’ll attend right away for advice on that.

In some ways, bearing (and working through) a personal challenge like this will endear you to your future patients, if they know of it: help them see you less as the scary white-coated dentist and more as a fellow human being. We all have our frailties, some more evident than others.

 

[OhioDMD]

I practiced the last 10 years of my career with tinnitus. Most likely a side effect of one of the medications I take, hobbies (competitive high power rifle & Harley Davidsons) or 40 years of high speed handpiece whine. Everyone is different and treatment is nebulous at best. I have learned to ignore the bilateral high pitched sound much like you adapt to background noise. It’s there all the time I just choose to ignore it. So in answer to your question it is possible to practice dentistry with tinnitus.

 

[Vicviper]

I've had Tinnitus for a while, and I can tell you that being a practicing dentist is totally doable. The main thing is that you have to NOT FOCUS ON THE NOISE. If you focus on the noise, it gets louder, and starts to become the only thing you can think about sometime. The best thing to do is to just continue on as normal, and eventually you'll realize you're not hearing it as much. During the day at work I rarely ever notice it.

The hardest times are when it's really quite - the silence can literally deafening, because the only thing your ears have to focus on is the noise. I sleep with a rain noise app called Rain Rain, it's amazing.

Sometimes the sound can get really intense, and you need a way out - do this method, it looks silly but actually works amazingly: https://lifehacker.com/this-weird-trick-might-give-you-brief-relief-from-your-1794093023

It stops the noise briefly, so it lets you focus back on other things.

Good luck!