I got an email from my audiologist. Ive also discussed CIs further with him. I am posting it below here instead of starting a new thread.
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70% is extremely good, better then expected, especially in such a short time. CI's might be beneficial, but keep some things in mind.
1. if it does not work, the hearing in that ear is completely gone forever.
2. you would not hear the way everyone else hears.
3. once you try, you can never go back.
4. CI's are generally resevered for people who even with hearing aids can not hear loud enough.
With regards to the increase to 0dB, that is impossible for anyone with a hearing loss as profound as yours.
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He only had enough time to answer 5 of my questions. My audiologist is also worried about the possibility ill hear worse with CIs, this is why he doesn't recommend them for me. I made this poll to see what your thoughts were and some of you shared the same worries as me, but still took the risk.
Like me, my audiologist is also worried about CI destroying residual hearing and that you can never go back to a HA in that ear. Save for a rare few exceptions, almost everyone loses hearing in the implanted ear. He also says I would not hear the way everyone hears, that I know as CI is not a cure nor does it give perfect hearing.
The 4th answer was interesting and made me wonder why a few people get CIs if they hear loud enough with HAs or have enough hearing to do so. He knows ill be able to hear much louder/more with HAs than CIs. I might experience a modest improvement in speech clarity(im already at 70%) but id hear sounds more faintly like having the volume on my HAs turned down.
He's right that generally people get CIs to hear louder/more sounds and speech, not to trade off one aspect of hearing for another. Before you say im against CIs, that's your choice and for most of you on alldeaf who got CIs, you had much, much, much deeper losses than I do and ive seen some of your unaided/aided scores and you did hear more/louder with CIs.
By the way regarding 0db, some have said I am obsessed with it. But I was just curious to know if those with more residual hearing than me could get to 0db. Those with only a mild to severe loss, were you able to hear at 0db aided?
I said that I expected to hear much better than the HAs because I lost even more hearing (had 100, and then it became 110+), so HA for that ear was kinda useless. The battery would die on that ear, and I wouldn't even know (I still use HA for my good ear).
Getting a CI in one ear makes you realize how much MORE (more, not louder) you hear compared to the HA. I actually hear "louder" with the HA (on the good ear) for environmental sounds, but.... there is really no point to it. It's just a lot of white noise.
If you can't even tell if your HA is on/off there is NO question that you could not possibly hear worse with CI. It was the same story for LuciaDisturbed with her very profound loss. Your good ear may still be worse than either of my ears(both of which are about the same) as for you hearing louder, are you talking about recruitment or do you actually have better aided scores in your HA ear than CI ear? My HAs aren't being reprogrammed to hear louder but to improve the thresholds so I hear faint sounds better while loud sounds don't get louder.
I wear both my HA and CI, my CI is totally better for sounds and everything etc but wearing both HA and CI makes things louder and clearer
We have discussed this and it's likley your loss is profound to very profound. Mine is severe to very profound. You are missing alot of low frequency hearing that gives loudness to sounds. We also have discussed that CI was likley to be better in your case(even though you were still a borderline candidate, I would not qualify if you barely did and your hearing was much worse)
Most people will say that they get greater clarity of sound with a CI vs an HA. This is because HAs merely amplify the sounds a person can already hear, whereas the CI gives them access to sound they wouldn't be able to hear even with an HA.
It's possible I may experience a small increase in the clarity of speech and maybe even environmental sounds. I would never know unless I tried CI and got a good result from that. But the scary thing is there's probably no going back to HAs in the implanted ear. I know it's an individual choice. It would be an easy choice for those with very profound loss, I personally would make the same choice if my loss was as profound as some of you guys, in that case, the odds would be quite high of expecting an improvement. But a few of you were benefitting from HAs, yet decided to try CI anyway and hope for the best. I do wonder how they got insurance to approve or did they have to pay out of pocket?
