The hearing and cochlear implant debate! Share your opinion!

Yea in my experience, the only person who "pushed" a CI on me is my old speech therapist but we've known each other for 20+ years. It became just a fun riff raff between us, but she was the only one who really wanted me to get it. Ive had several audiologists since I've moved three times. 2 said "No CI? Okay then." and did their job. One actually tried to push it on me because she didn't realize that I was born deaf, she thought I was late deafened. She was new. I had to show her my old audiograms to "prove" that I didn't lose much hearing. That was a funny day for me.
 
dreama said:
There have been a few others. Pacman, Animal lover and PuyoPiyo all have CI's that they don't wear. I think there are a few others but I can't remember what their user names are.
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Thanks Dreama....

So thats 5 so far and they haven't said a thing... there must be more also would be interested to read their stories on why they aren't wearing CI anymore (apart from Travis as we know already)
 
No one pushed me into having CI, I asked and was refused few times until i moved (for job) to new county... I was refered to new ENT, I didn't ask, ENT asked straight out... have you heard of Cochlear Implant, gave me information to take home for me to read, he said It MAY work for me but there is no guaratee.... I took the risk and went for it.
 
My dh have never thought of it but did think about it. He has been seeing some doctors about his bad tinnitus. One of doctors referred him to see the audiologist and suggested him to mention about the cochlear implants to the audiologist that doctor thinks the CI would reduce his tinnius. That's how He ended up got a CI. well, he still got tinnius anyway.
 
overthepond said:
Thanks Dreama....

So thats 5 so far and they haven't said a thing... there must be more also would be interested to read their stories on why they aren't wearing CI anymore (apart from Travis as we know already)
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If you want to know their stories you have to dig into the older threads. Pacman and Animal lover don't seem to post any more and PuyoPiyo has stopped talking about his failed implant. He doesn't post in the CI section any more so you would have to do a bit of digging for all of them.
 
I have to say.....I think that many decisions to implant are done for the right reasons. Matter of fact, if someone posted here and stated clearly that they had a long history of not responding well to being aided,(or had a dead ear) I would tell them to LOOK into CI!
I am very pro CI..........It's a great tool to use when someone's maxed out the power of hearing aids.
However, I do think there is some "selling" of the CI going on in the cases where canidacy is somewhat ambigious.
It's gotten more blatent in recent years, as canidacy requirements have been loosened.
I'm not one of those "anti-CI" folks at ALL.
I just think that in SOME cases there is "selling" or "offlabel" use of it.
It has changed a bit. A few years ago CIs were equated with " YAY normal hearing!" Now it's more " So and so can hear some with CI."
However as I said before with the loosening of canidacy requirments, the " Miricle hearing instruement language has come back into play a bit.
 
It's another one of many options available to folks with hearing impariments. Not all options work for all people. The un-deniable facts are that there will be successs and failures regardless of the option chosen.
 
I don't think the fact that people with severe-profound hearing loss qualify for CIs (provided they have 40% or less speech discrimination in their poorer ear and 60% or less in their better ear) means that implants are being pushed or forced on anyone. I had severe-profound hearing loss for 10 years prior to receiving my CIs and not once did my audis (3 in 20 years) discuss CIs with me.
 
I don't think the fact that people with severe-profound hearing loss qualify for CIs (provided they have 40% or less speech discrimination in their poorer ear and 60% or less in their better ear) means that implants are being pushed or forced on anyone. I had severe-profound hearing loss for 10 years prior to receiving my CIs and not once did my audis (3 in 20 years) discuss CIs with me.
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Hear Again, I think you're missing my point. I know that there are severe-profounders who don't have a great response with traditional HAs.
I'm not against them being implanted at all.
However, I think you're missing the point that there do seem to be a significent percentage of canidates with somewhat significent residual hearing since the FDA reccomendations were loosened. It's no longer JUST "no or very poor response (ie enviromental sounds or 40% and below speech threshold with hearing aids)
Heck, if that were indeed the case, I wouldn't even be debating this issue at all. I think that CIs are a perfect option for people who've maxed out the power of a hearing aid.
However there does seem to be a bit of "Big Pharma" style influence with audis trying to push CIs. Especially in the past few years since the candidacy requirements were loosened. That is probaly why you didn't get a lot of pressure from your audis to be implanted........b/c back then they reserved CIs for only the absolute worst cases.
 
deafdyke said:
However, I think you're missing the point that there do seem to be a significent percentage of canidates with somewhat significent residual hearing since the FDA reccomendations were loosened. It's no longer JUST "no or very poor response (ie enviromental sounds or 40% and below speech threshold with hearing aids)
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DD,

You and I never see eye to eye on this subject, so let's agree to disagree please. :ty:

By the way, I've had severe-profound hearing loss since 1995 and the FDA criteria for CI candidacy were relaxed in the late 90s or early Y2K. With that being the case, my audis had plenty of time
to discuss CIs with me, but never did.

Now that I think about it, I do remember one conversation
I had with an audi who fitted me with my first pair of hearing aids in 1985. When I asked her whether or not she thought I would be accepted as a CI candidate (this was back in 2001), she said
"I don't know. With a 90+ dB loss, they might implant you."

That just goes to show that not all audis are aggressively pushing CIs. Many of them probably are, but a majority of them are not.
 
That just goes to show that not all audis are aggressively pushing CIs. Many of them probably are, but a majority of them are not.
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Hear Again, actually we DO agree on this :) I don't think most audis aggressively push the CI.......but it does seem like since the implantation criteria was relaxed, the CI has turned into the "digital" hearing aid, that is pushed. Remember in the 90's when audis were pushing digital aids up the wazoo? It's hard to really acuratly say, since there's really nothing you can really cite on this. Especially since some of the implants are done "off label".
It would be really interesting to do some research in this area. ...
 
deafdyke said:
Hear Again, actually we DO agree on this :) I don't think most audis aggressively push the CI.......but it does seem like since the implantation criteria was relaxed, the CI has turned into the "digital" hearing aid, that is pushed. Remember in the 90's when audis were pushing digital aids up the wazoo? It's hard to really acuratly say, since there's really nothing you can really cite on this. Especially since some of the implants are done "off label".
It would be really interesting to do some research in this area. ...
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There is research written about CIs for people with severe-profound hearing loss, but I don't know if that would be what you'd consider to be a borderline candidate. This has always been my understanding, but I'm really not sure. When I was deemed a CI candidate, I had severe-profound loss (profound left ear; severe-profound right ear), but was told I had "very, very little residual hearing" and was considered an excellent candidate. I wonder if you could find the information you're looking for by doing a Google search for "borderline candidates + cochlear implant" or
"severe-profound + cochlear implant?"
 
Hear Again said:
CIs do eliminate alot of the barriers of being HoH. If someone can go from having moderately-severe to profound, severe-profound or profound hearing loss to mild-moderate hearing loss, I would consider that to be one way barries are removed from being HoH. Instead of a person struggling as much as they did prior to receiving a CI, communication is made so much easier thereby eliminating alot of barriers. CIs don't eliminate all barriers, but they eliminate a majority of them.
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The barriers were placed there by the hearing people who refused to sign. It is them that should remove those barriers, not us.
 
Hear Again said:
Yes. I've had 3 hearing aid audis since 1985 and all of them have required me to have hearing tests every 3 months.
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What is their reason for doing the test every 3 months?? I got the test every blue moon - like in years. Your hearing was declining and they want to measure that, maybe???
 
Buffalo said:
What is their reason for doing the test every 3 months?? I got the test every blue moon - like in years. Your hearing was declining and they want to measure that, maybe???
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The reason my hearing was tested every 3 months is because I'm totally blind and had progressive hearing loss.

Since I cannot rely on lipreading to facilitate communication, my audis wanted to keep a close eye on my hearing so they could quickly address any noticeable change.

I had frequent ear infections as well, so they wanted to check my ears regularly and make sure that any decrease in hearing I had (due to ear infections) could be immediately treated with antibiotics.
 
Buffalo said:
The barriers were placed there by the hearing people who refused to sign. It is them that should remove those barriers, not us.
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I think it's the responsibility of hearing and Deaf people alike to remove barriers. It is unfair for the Deaf to expect hearing people (meaning society as a whole -- not just friends and family) to accommodate them by learning ASL. That's unrealistic and will never happen.

At the same time, it is equally important for hearing people to do what is requested by a Deaf person to help facilitate communication (i.e. face them when communicating, use paper and pen, do not cover their mouths when talking, provide terps when requested, etc.)

In order to ensure that communication is as effective as can be, it is the responsibility of both parties (Deaf and hearing) to meet each other halfway.

JMO. :)
 
Hear Again said:
I think it's the responsibility of hearing and Deaf people alike to remove barriers. It is unfair for the Deaf to expect hearing people (meaning society as a whole -- not just friends and family) to accommodate them by learning ASL. That's unrealistic and will never happen.

At the same time, it is equally important for hearing people to do what is requested by a Deaf person to help facilitate communication (i.e. face them when communicating, use paper and pen, do not cover their mouths when talking, provide terps when requested, etc.)

In order to ensure that communication is as effective as can be, it is the responsibility of both parties (Deaf and hearing) to meet each other halfway.

JMO. :)
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:gpost: I totally agree with this and I have said before that it is unrealistic for the deaf popluation to expect the hearing popluation to learn sign language. This is a two way street and from my standpoint, education and awareness about deafness will go a long way. Also I have seen within the past 10 years a focus on deaf education regarding new studies etc, which will hopefully result in an equitable educational environment for deaf kids. Regarding the CI debate, that will rage on for a long time with positions from the far right to the far left. I have recently became aware that some actually believe CI's are being forced on deaf people.
 
rockdrummer said:
:gpost: I totally agree with this and I have said before that it is unrealistic for the deaf popluation to expect the hearing popluation to learn sign language. This is a two way street and from my standpoint, education and awareness about deafness will go a long way. Also I have seen within the past 10 years a focus on deaf education regarding new studies etc, which will hopefully result in an equitable educational environment for deaf kids. Regarding the CI debate, that will rage on for a long time with positions from the far right to the far left. I have recently became aware that some actually believe CI's are being forced on deaf people.
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:ty: rockdrummer. I'm glad someone agrees with me. :)
 
Since I'm deaf and blind, I expect sighted people to put all business signs in Braille and to have all restaurant menus in accessible format.

I also expect all of my grocery items labeled in Braille so I can read the ingredient content and know what I'm taking out of the cupboard or refrigerator.

If that's not possible, please give me my own Anne Sullivan who can help me run errands since I can't drive and the cost of taking public transportation is expensive. <sarcastic mode off>
 
Hear Again said:
I think it's the responsibility of hearing and Deaf people alike to remove barriers. It is unfair for the Deaf to expect hearing people (meaning society as a whole -- not just friends and family) to accommodate them by learning ASL. That's unrealistic and will never happen.

At the same time, it is equally important for hearing people to do what is requested by a Deaf person to help facilitate communication (i.e. face them when communicating, use paper and pen, do not cover their mouths when talking, provide terps when requested, etc.)

In order to ensure that communication is as effective as can be, it is the responsibility of both parties (Deaf and hearing) to meet each other halfway.

JMO. :)
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It is unfair for the hearing people to expect Deaf people to accommodate them by learing to speak.. That is unrealistic -especially in the pre-hearing-aid era. That is totally unrealistic - keep in mind that there are some deaf people that CI won't help.

I have meet them halfway by learning to speak but they (especially my own family) don't learn to sign. What two way street? Everyday I see it is one way street - hearing's way!
 
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