CI Evaluation Update

J

Jay Sea

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Great news! My daughter, deaf at birth, has completed a CT scan and MRI and according to the ENT we can do the CI. My wife and I are both excited and nervous. She is now 15 months old.

The ENT wants my daughter to go without any ear infections for a couple months before scheduling the surgery. She has had constant ear infections, so we may have to install tubes. He stated that there has not been much reasearch regarding CI surgery on patients that have tubes. Anyone have any experience with this situation?

Thanks
 
Like Lissa, I do not have any experience with tubes although I've had a history of ear infections since infancy before getting my CIs. None of my ENTs have ever felt the need for me to have tubes; thus my inexperience with them. Here's wishing you and your daughter all the best! :)
 
Excellent....so she's pretty much deep profound? No response with HAs at ALL?
Are you doing one or two? You also doing Sign and speech therapy as well?
Good luck!
 
deafdyke said:
Excellent....so she's pretty much deep profound? No response with HAs at ALL?
Are you doing one or two? You also doing Sign and speech therapy as well?
Good luck!
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Several hearing tests with HAs have shown no response. The entire family has become very frustrated with the HAs. My daughter hates them and constantly pulls them out. The Audis and ENT are persistent that she continue to wear them. We will start with one CI. We have been signing for many months now and she has a vocabulary of about 50 words. She put together her first sentence 2 weeks ago. My wife and I will meet with the ENT on 1/7 to discuss tubes and/or scheduling the CI surgery. Tubes may delay the CI surgery.
 
First of all good luck to you and your daughter.

I don't know if this will be all that helpful but I had tubes when I was a kid and just got my first CI last month. So I've been through both but my tubes where a long long time ago. So I doubt in my case the two had anything to do with each other. But I don't know anything about having them and the CI at the same time.

I do remember that when I got the tubes I got them at the same time I had my tonsils removed.

Ron
 
My daughter has a weekly visit from a teacher from the North Carolina School for the Deaf. The teacher told me that another kid that she works with recently had CI surgery. At the time of surgery the kid had an ear infection. The incision is now infected. Does anyone think the ear infection had any bearing on the incision?
 
Jay Sea said:
.............. The teacher told me that another kid that she works with recently had CI surgery. At the time of surgery the kid had an ear infection. The incision is now infected. Does anyone think the ear infection had any bearing on the incision?
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You should ask a doctor. Not a bunch of strangers that you don't know on an internet forum site. You should also understand that a CI will not mimic natural hearing and there is a long hard road ahead if you want to increase the chances of success. Also it is worth mentioning that CI's are not always successful. My son had two and neither worked. Regardless of your direction you need to start signing with your child now if you are not already doing so.
 
rockdrummer said:
You should ask a doctor. Not a bunch of strangers that you don't know on an internet forum site. You should also understand that a CI will not mimic natural hearing and there is a long hard road ahead if you want to increase the chances of success. Also it is worth mentioning that CI's are not always successful. My son had two and neither worked. Regardless of your direction you need to start signing with your child now if you are not already doing so.
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My intent was to hopefully gather information from forum members with a like situation, not to get medical advice. And if you had read my previous post you would have read that she is signing.
 
Jay Sea said:
My intent was to hopefully gather information from forum members with a like situation, not to get medical advice. And if you had read my previous post you would have read that she is signing.
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Sorry I missed the post about signing. Good for you.
Your question
"The incision is now infected. Does anyone think the ear infection had any bearing on the incision?"
Click to expand...
is one I would pose to a doctor.
 
You should also understand that a CI will not mimic natural hearing and there is a long hard road ahead if you want to increase the chances of success.
Click to expand...
Good point for the parent of a new kid, especially a kid who had no response to hearing. The loosened qualifications to get implanted may cause parents to think that all kids will be able to acheive hoh listening levels. It does seem that the increased sucess may be due to the fact that kids who had some hearing with aids, got the volume turned up. There's also a lot of progressive and perilingal (lost hearing while learning speech) kids who were implanted
I'm not saying she will not have any access to speech. She proboly will have some access to speech. From what I understand it's pretty rare for a kid NOT to have ANY access to speech. But b/c the deep profounders and the deep profounders from birth are kind of small in number, they may be outranked by kids who have a better chance of being VERY GOOD CI users.
Oh, and actually, a lot of the oral only CI kids still have significent speech and language delays.

That's good that you're hooked up with North Carolina School for the Deaf already! YAY!!!!
 
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