Aug 5th Implant Date

aweet_princess198925

aweet_princess198925

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I'm getting my first implant from Med El cochlear implant on August 5th and I have some questions. I don't know anyone with an CI so I don't want to ask a doctor who has no experience using a CI.

1. Will I lose the rest of the sound that I have?

2. Will I hear after surgery or only when they activate the CI?

3 since I loss my hearing only 7 years ago how long should mapping and understanding speech take?
 
1 - It's quite possible, yes. Some people do retain some of their hearing, but many lose what they have.
2 - Assuming you lose your residual hearing (see #1), you will only start getting sensation of sounds after they activate
3 - No one can answer that. Some people understand speech right from the start. Others take time.
 
Thanks for the reply. I have asked my ENT all of this but since he doesn't have one there is only so much he can tell me on this. I'm trying understand what to expect.
 
aweet_princess198925 said:
Thanks for the reply. I have asked my ENT all of this but since he doesn't have one there is only so much he can tell me on this. I'm trying understand what to expect.
Click to expand...

It's actually not easy to tell you what to expect, as everyone is different. My ENT told me to expect to lose residual hearing (in the ear that I had hearing to lose). The one thing that is really all over the map is what your activation and rehabilitation will be like. Some of the factors that make it more likely to understand speech earlier are:

  • Time since hearing loss and how much residual hearing you have had since then
  • Age (younger people in general tend to adapt faster)
  • What your hearing/speech history was
  • How focused you are on doing your rehabilitation exercises
It's by no means an exact science. I'm 49 years old, lost my hearing at age 3. One ear was aidable, and I wore HA from age 3 until last year. The other ear was unaidable. I got a CI last year in my "good" ear, and was able, with concentration, to understand speech right away, although it was terrible in quality (the well-known "Mickey Mouse" effect). Within a few days, the Mickey Mouse effect was gone, and things were pretty normal. After my first re-map 2 weeks later, I was hearing like a champ (within a month, I was at 97% speech comprehension in that ear). I just was activated on my second CI 2 weeks ago. That ear was deaf for 46 years. The first week, I was mainly "feeling" sensations, not really much sound. After the first re-map, I am now getting sound, but unless it's multiple choice, no chance of understanding speech yet. I am doing rehab every day and seeing improvements, but I don't expect my "bad" ear ever to be as good as my "good" ear, but that remains to be seen. Certainly, it's going to take months or year/years for my second ear to reach its full potential.

Best of luck to you.
 
aweet_princess198925 said:
I'm getting my first implant from Med El cochlear implant on August 5th and I have some questions. I don't know anyone with an CI so I don't want to ask a doctor who has no experience using a CI.

1. Will I lose the rest of the sound that I have?
-It's very possible as John mentioned. I recently had a CI and they were able to preserve my hearing for the most part, but it is a little quieter compared to before. Do not be worried if you do lose your hearing because you will be better off with the CI anyhow.

2. Will I hear after surgery or only when they activate the CI?
-After surgery you'll more likely have what sounds like fluid in your ear, so hearing will be difficult. After a few weeks it'll drain and then you can start hearing again (assuming your hearing is preserved).

3. Since I loss my hearing only 7 years ago how long should mapping and understanding speech take?
Click to expand...
-If you had full hearing up until 7 years ago, I'd expect you to bounce back rather quickly. I have had a 90-95% loss in both ears for nearly 28 years and within 2 months after activation, I had surpassed my speech understand-ability with hearing aids but a lot.

What you can expect when you get activated is high pitched/metallic sounds and you will not be able to really understand much of anything (at least that's how it was for me). My advice is that you need to wear it as much as possible because your brain will need to get used to processing the new sounds. For me, it was about 2 weeks after activation before I could start understanding speech. After 7 months now, it's pretty awesome!!!

I'm doing a terrible job keeping this thread updated, but you can skim through here to see how my experience was: http://www.alldeaf.com/threads/my-journey-to-hearing-with-a-cochlear-implant.126014/#post-2449739
 
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