Thanks for the info, I joined the group and hope I get approved.
In 1976 I was born deaf in both ears, doctors did surgery on my ears to remove fluid and managed to get my left ear working at 50% normal hearing. I heard with a hearing aid until I lost it all within a week in 1994 (no one knows why). In 1995 I was fitted with a cochlear implant (nucleus 22). I was able to get a lot from it, I could talk over the phone, understand what people were saying in quiet situations etc. My processor was upgraded all the way up to the freedom processor. I did complain to my audiologist about having 'good days and bad days' with hearing. For the first 15 years I had all my electrodes firing. But whenever I heard an abundance of high pitched sounds my hearing would go out of tune causing me to have a 'bad hearing day'. The solution to the problem I found was to turn off or turn down the sensitivity setting on my implant for a while. Everything would be fine again the next week. After 15 years I agreed to have the highest pitched electrode turned off. It didn't compromise my hearing much and it did wonders to keep my hearing consistent. As time passed by I had fewer 'bad hearing days' the last bad day I had was probably over 2 years ago. I also had 3 settings on my implant one setting was my every day map, the other was my previous map, and the third one was a setting used to listen to music, the map allowed all sounds in without discrimination. I had been using the music map more and more as time went by. I used it to listen to music, and watch tv at night when everyone was sleeping, it was like turning on the volume of the tv without actually turning on the volume. Last week my hearing stopped working. I was riding my bike with my kid and noticed a change in volume and a sensation of hearing under water. It lasted for a minute then went back to normal. I just thought it was another 'bad hearing episode'. That evening my wife and I settled down on the couch to watch tv and my hearing started to disappear. I turned off my implant for the rest of the night. Before going to bed I turned it on again and it went on for 10 seconds, then faded out. I tried again next morning with the same results. It was Sunday and I couldn't do anything but wait till Monday to get a reply from my emails to cochlear and my audiologist. On Monday I went to see my audiologist to try on a loaner processor because I thought the processor was the problem. The symptoms I had were the same as before. My audiologist ran some tests and tried a new map without any success. On Friday I went to see my audiologist again for further tests. I haven't turned on my implant since the last attempt. I turned it on and hearing came but rather uneven with crackling that went on for 10 seconds, faded out to silence, came back on after 5 seconds for 3 seconds of hearing then faded out again. I have an appointment with a specialist from Cochlear coming up Wednsday to find out what is wrong with my internal implant.
All I can do now is wait and hopefully gather information about other people's experiences with hard/soft implant failures.
