The Dog Ate my Implant

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LTHFAdvocate

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Got a call today from a family that I did an cochlear implant appeal for a few months ago. They said a few days after their son was re-mapped to the highest stimulation levels possible (required because he has pretty severe cochlear ossification) that the dog was acting strangely around the child and actually pulled the coil from the boys head and ate it. This is a dog the child is quite familiar with, the implant was not new (he'd had it for 3 months at that point) the child was not antagonizing the dog, etc., so there isn't an obvious external reason for this having happened.

Of course, it could just be a coincidence, and goodness knows I don't want this to spawn into yet another CI urban legend like "Dogs attack people with CIs, this is another reason not to get one", but I'm just wondering if anyone else has ever heard of anything like this occurring? Is it possible that incredibly high stimulation rates create some type of ultrasonic noise that dogs can hear that people can't?

Sheri
 
That's new to me..

In my years of working with some deaf children who have CIs, I have never heard of a situation like that. Very interesting.

Most of the time, it is the children who end up breaking the external part of the CIs from playing too hard or losing them. That's the most common thing I have witnessed.
 
Well, I've never had any pet eat my implant but I sure do remember the time I caught my sister's cat carrying my HA. I sure was glad I caught her before she went outside.

I dunno about the sonic sounds. I'll have to ask my audi about it.

I am glad it's only the coil the dog ate. I'd hope that the coil is replaceable.
 
dogs are senstive to noises no matter what it is

but this one is SO new to me
 
moonflower said:
dogs are senstive to noises no matter what it is

but this one is SO new to me
Click to expand...

Yeah, its possible that the frequency of the sound was annoying the dog, but to respond by eaating the CI? That's a strange one!
 
LTHF,

speech processor/coil doesn't emit sounds at all but radio frequency.. don't become like DeafDyke... (http://www.alldeaf.com/hearing-aids-cochlear-implants/4778-myths-lies-about-cis-2.html )

I think it is because the dog see strange thing on his head..

although my eyeglasses has been attacked by a cat for no reason and it left a fang marks on it. (eventually I had the lens replaced later on)

sure dog do chew hearing aids and earmolds. (when they are powered OFF) and if you see dog barking at HA then that is because dog accidently tripped the switch to on thus making sounds. but speech processor can't if it is powered on.

I have heard reports of dogs chewing bluetooth earpiece or such like that.

Anyway, my belief is that dog act strangely because he hasn't seen a device that is on his head. so every dog's instinct is to check it out.
 
We had a dachshound and this dog was so dumb.She got ahold of my grandmothers hearing aids and ate them.When we went to get them replased the guy said its common dogs are attracted to ear wax ewww. But a CI wow i dont know what to think about that?
 
Boult said:
LTHF,
speech processor/coil doesn't emit sounds at all but radio frequency..
Click to expand...

I'm kind of embarassed, this is the kind of stuff that I don't know. I know a LOT of implanted people (on the order of literally hundreds), but I'm not an audiologist or a medical provider, I'm a lawyer. Though my daughter and I are both HI, we both wear hearing aids. Neither of us is in implant territory, though she's heading there faster than I am.

With a little research, I've found that dogs can hear to 20 KHz, and radio frequencies start at 10 KHz. Humans only hear to 8 KHz (typically) so there is some overlap where dogs could hear radio frequencies that humans couldn't. The question is, does anyone know the frequency level at which the coil emits radio frequencies? I suspect it is a lot higher than 10 KHz which would provide evidence that the dog wasn't keying off noise in his behavior but it would be nice to know.

Sheri
 
I'll check around on what frequency that speech processor transmit RF to internal implant.

(But if Radio Frequency is the reason for dog attacking the coil, then why didn't the dog attack those devices except CI that use RF? :) )
 
Thanks Boult. Dunno why the dog didn't eat anything else. Of course, a four year old's head is going to be relatively close to a large dogs mouth, maybe other stuff with equally offensive radio frequency emissions was harder to reach? I don't think I want to test this theory using my Continuous Glucose Monitoring System (which also uses RF) though.

Sheri

Boult said:
I'll check around on what frequency that speech processor transmit RF to internal implant.

(But if Radio Frequency is the reason for dog attacking the coil, then why didn't the dog attack those devices except CI that use RF? :) )
Click to expand...
 
well i agree with boult on this
about animals seeing weird stuff attached to people heads and try to get them off their heads they don't see stuff attach to the head everyday since technology and things make for the head have advanced and they begin to hearing weird noises along seeing weird stuffs
it might be very new to them and seeing them attach to the head

once i caught my cat try to eat my hearing aid ear mold before lucky i grab it before it was too late so see what animals not use to see anything like that
 
:afro: well,my dog eat my old cochlear implant and i ask my audiologist and audiologist said your dog think your cochlear implant is toy.
 
LTHFAdvocate said:
With a little research, I've found that dogs can hear to 20 KHz, and radio frequencies start at 10 KHz. Humans only hear to 8 KHz (typically) so there is some overlap where dogs could hear radio frequencies that humans couldn't. The question is, does anyone know the frequency level at which the coil emits radio frequencies? I suspect it is a lot higher than 10 KHz which would provide evidence that the dog wasn't keying off noise in his behavior but it would be nice to know.
Click to expand...

I'm going to geek out here for a moment - my apologies. You're noticing that the word "frequency" is used in both situations, but they're different. Frequency refers to the number of times per second something happens. 1 Hz, or 1 Hertz, is once per second; 2 Hz would be twice a second.

When we talk about sound, we're talking about vibrations in the air; so a dog can hear sounds that vibrate at 20 kilohertz, or 20,000 times per second, while a normally hearing human can hear sounds that vibrate at 8 kilohertz, or 8,000 times per second (faster vibrations equate to higher pitches).

Radio waves, on the other hand, are electromagnetic radiation; they're an oscillation back and forth of electric and magnetic fields. When we talk about the EM spectrum, we're talking about EM radiation at different frequencies; so radio waves are EM radiation whose frequency is below about 10^8, or 100 billion times per second (10 KHz is a different definition of "radio wave" that is a bit more specific). Light is the same stuff, just at a higher frequency. X-rays, ultraviolet light, infrared, and microwaves are all the same EM radiation, just at different frequencies.

Now, some animals are believed to be more sensitive to these EM waves than others (so while most animals, including humans, are sensitive to EM waves in the 'visible light' frequencies, others are sensitive to infrared or whatever). It's speculated that some animals may be able to detect radio waves and magnetic fields and so on, but that's by no means certain, and I'm pretty sure dogs aren't sensitive to these fields, at least at the level that a CI would produce. (We can use very strong magnetic fields to change humans' brain waves temporarily, and could probably do the same with dogs, but those are *really* strong fields.)
 
I think it is possible the dog was reacting to the noise and thought it was a toy. It is also possible the dog might have thought the coil was bothering the child and the dog tried to help by removing it.
 
ismi,

so in other word, it was not the RF that provoked the dog to eat it? I think it is just that he found it delicious to chew as if it is a toy LOL
 
Boult said:
so in other word, it was not the RF that provoked the dog to eat it? I think it is just that he found it delicious to chew as if it is a toy LOL
Click to expand...

I don't know enough about CIs or dogs to be sure, but I'd bet good money it wasn't the RF. Induction fields aren't *that* strong, and you have an induction field surrounding pretty much every electronic device in your house; that's why a hearing aid or CI in t-coil mode buzzes when you're near a TV. (TVs have particularly strong fields.)
 
set2 said:
It is also possible the dog might have thought the coil was bothering the child and the dog tried to help by removing it.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's probably what it was. Some dogs are good at taking matters into their own paws. Like my last guide dog Bruce. If I got upset he would try to stop anyone going near me. He was very overprotective that way.
 
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