everlastingstorm
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- Feb 24, 2014
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...is a really big question right now.
Long story short, I've used hearing aids all my life and I had some sudden hearing losses that have put me more in the profound category than the severe, as well as compromise my ability to understand speech and discern sounds. My ability to understand speech and discern environmental sounds is radically different than it was, and I'm not exaggerating. I was a very successful "oral success", to the point where I could play in several school bands as well as or better than many of my hearing peers.
I have one dead ear and one ear that a hearing aid helped greatly for about 30 years (I'm 32). Could my deafness be going through a Saturn return of its own?! LOL.
I had 40% speech discrimination at 100db, at my last hearing evaluation. 100db has historically been my MCL. However it no longer is my MCL. This time I found 100db under headphones to be excruciatingly painful during the words, to the point of where every time a word was said I would feel a very sharp, shooting pain in my ear. I had no choice but to stop with the 100db. There was no evidence of infection. 95db wasn't as comfortably audible and with that I got a 20% on speech discrimination. So now I don't really have a MCL to work with.
1:1 conversations in perfectly quiet environments with the speaker facing me, from a short distance, with most people who I know so far, are not a big deal. This is really deceptive. However 1:1 conversations in those same environments with some people I've found are impossible, and these are people I've spoken with easily before. Though this is mostly doable, it's not consistent. Following a conversation among 2+ people not including me, without background noise, forget it. Speech does not sound like speech if I'm not looking at the speaker. I can no longer understand speech on Netflix or Youtube. Music sounds distorted, out of tune, or disorganized. Trying to hear in a restaurant setting that's not busy, with no noise, feels like hearing in noise. Traffic and noisy bars used to sound amplified, they do not anymore to the degree that they did, just only barely audible. I have the Phonak Naida Q SP and before this year, I was very, very happy with it. However it isn't the HA that is malfunctioning, the audiogram is the proof in the pudding.
I know that a CI will not be like normal hearing, or if I'll be able to hear all of like I did with the HA before these recent losses. I'm well aware it will take a few months or more to adjust to. However I am considering it- leaning towards it but fence sitting still. I don't know if it'll be any better, but I don't like how I'm hearing through my HA and it's not doing much for me except in 1:1 face to face.
situations. I used my residual hearing to the max for many, many years, now what I can do with it is limited to 1:1 face to face quiet environments. I don't know what to think of my audi's view on it at this point. He seems very, very textbookish and not optimistic that I'll "like", the implant, plus having a dead ear on the other side that wouldn't do well with an implant & not being fluent in ASL doesn't help things. But I have an excellent reference for what the world sounds like given my success in past years with my HA. Audi was really vague with me at my last appt and I don't know what to make of it. However I have a close friend I'm bringing to my next appointment. With residual hearing, it's not 100% useless when aided, however with the HA it is definitely very limited by the same token.
Could a CI possibly help me to hear better vs my HA? With my HA, it's odd- to be able to comprehend a face to face 1:1 conversation in very controlled settings fairly normally, albeit sounding somewhat quieter- but not be able to hear a car driving down the street or follow a small group interaction, among several other things.
___________________________
Audiogram, right ear only:
250hz---105db
500hz---100db
1000hz--95db
2000hz--85db
4000hz-75db
6000hz--110 or 115db (audiogram goes up to 100db so this was off its chart)
8000hz-100db
SDT: 90db
SD: 40% 100db/20% 95db; avg. 30%
Long story short, I've used hearing aids all my life and I had some sudden hearing losses that have put me more in the profound category than the severe, as well as compromise my ability to understand speech and discern sounds. My ability to understand speech and discern environmental sounds is radically different than it was, and I'm not exaggerating. I was a very successful "oral success", to the point where I could play in several school bands as well as or better than many of my hearing peers.
I have one dead ear and one ear that a hearing aid helped greatly for about 30 years (I'm 32). Could my deafness be going through a Saturn return of its own?! LOL.
I had 40% speech discrimination at 100db, at my last hearing evaluation. 100db has historically been my MCL. However it no longer is my MCL. This time I found 100db under headphones to be excruciatingly painful during the words, to the point of where every time a word was said I would feel a very sharp, shooting pain in my ear. I had no choice but to stop with the 100db. There was no evidence of infection. 95db wasn't as comfortably audible and with that I got a 20% on speech discrimination. So now I don't really have a MCL to work with.
1:1 conversations in perfectly quiet environments with the speaker facing me, from a short distance, with most people who I know so far, are not a big deal. This is really deceptive. However 1:1 conversations in those same environments with some people I've found are impossible, and these are people I've spoken with easily before. Though this is mostly doable, it's not consistent. Following a conversation among 2+ people not including me, without background noise, forget it. Speech does not sound like speech if I'm not looking at the speaker. I can no longer understand speech on Netflix or Youtube. Music sounds distorted, out of tune, or disorganized. Trying to hear in a restaurant setting that's not busy, with no noise, feels like hearing in noise. Traffic and noisy bars used to sound amplified, they do not anymore to the degree that they did, just only barely audible. I have the Phonak Naida Q SP and before this year, I was very, very happy with it. However it isn't the HA that is malfunctioning, the audiogram is the proof in the pudding.
I know that a CI will not be like normal hearing, or if I'll be able to hear all of like I did with the HA before these recent losses. I'm well aware it will take a few months or more to adjust to. However I am considering it- leaning towards it but fence sitting still. I don't know if it'll be any better, but I don't like how I'm hearing through my HA and it's not doing much for me except in 1:1 face to face.
situations. I used my residual hearing to the max for many, many years, now what I can do with it is limited to 1:1 face to face quiet environments. I don't know what to think of my audi's view on it at this point. He seems very, very textbookish and not optimistic that I'll "like", the implant, plus having a dead ear on the other side that wouldn't do well with an implant & not being fluent in ASL doesn't help things. But I have an excellent reference for what the world sounds like given my success in past years with my HA. Audi was really vague with me at my last appt and I don't know what to make of it. However I have a close friend I'm bringing to my next appointment. With residual hearing, it's not 100% useless when aided, however with the HA it is definitely very limited by the same token.
Could a CI possibly help me to hear better vs my HA? With my HA, it's odd- to be able to comprehend a face to face 1:1 conversation in very controlled settings fairly normally, albeit sounding somewhat quieter- but not be able to hear a car driving down the street or follow a small group interaction, among several other things.
___________________________
Audiogram, right ear only:
250hz---105db
500hz---100db
1000hz--95db
2000hz--85db
4000hz-75db
6000hz--110 or 115db (audiogram goes up to 100db so this was off its chart)
8000hz-100db
SDT: 90db
SD: 40% 100db/20% 95db; avg. 30%