Lifetime HoH, now CI candidate - first post

Kaitin said:
Hi, Steve:

I'm glad you get good advice and support at AD. I know CI is a tough decision. This year my hearing is worse too. I understand about "garbled" - just low sound and no real words with speech with HA and nothing really without HA. Even with lipreading, HA, and clear slow speech recently I can't understand conversation. Now I try to decide about CI without family pressure. Probably I am stupid about this but I need to decide about CI without family opinion. (Everyone in the world has opinion about CI I think :roll:) I'm glad your wife helps you. Good luck with the decision. :)
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In the end it is really you that has to make the decision, you are the one that will be having the surgery and working towards hearing again. It would be great that you had your family standing behind what ever decision that you make. I wish you the best of luck!
 
Ruminator said:
Good ear used to have nearly 50% comprehension. Now its 4%. I know, this would seem to make getting a CI a no-brainer, and for the most part, it is. The loss is still a pretty recent event for me, and I'm going about this cautiously, educating myself as much as I can. As everyone else says, no need to rush. March 2008 is looking likely at this point, tho, and I am going to have to talk to my doctor soon to reserve that time frame.
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That is right! There is no need to rush! I lost my hearing completely in Feb, got an appointment in April, finished my evaluation in July, had surgery in August, activated in September, and been hearing every since. You might think I sped right through but I was attached to my one eyed monster (laptop) just about every waking moment researching CI's. It has been real fun :)
 
contradica said:
In the end it is really you that has to make the decision, you are the one that will be having the surgery and working towards hearing again. It would be great that you had your family standing behind what ever decision that you make. I wish you the best of luck!
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:ty: and so agree. Maybe my family stands behind my decision when I decide. But my dad is a surgeon (not CI, orthopedics) and has so many opinions about medicine. He is a great dad, but his opinions are too strong sometimes and I don't know if he understands my CI concern. My mom is the English professor and so concerned about writing etc. and has strong opinions also. Both are hearing. I haven't told my parents that now HAs are useless. 100% agree that I am the one with surgery and work with hearing. Probably I am unfair for my parents, but I need to decide without their opinions.

But :ty: for all ADers support and experience. Now without my parents and other support sometimes I am lost a bit I think. I know - I am 21 and adult. But my parents are so important to me and usually part of all my life.

Sorry to off-topic the thread, Steve! :)
 
Kaitin said:
:ty: and so agree. Maybe my family stands behind my decision when I decide. But my dad is a surgeon (not CI, orthopedics) and has so many opinions about medicine. He is a great dad, but his opinions are too strong sometimes and I don't know if he understands my CI concern. My mom is the English professor and so concerned about writing etc. and has strong opinions also. Both are hearing. I haven't told my parents that now HAs are useless. 100% agree that I am the one with surgery and work with hearing. Probably I am unfair for my parents, but I need to decide without their opinions.

But :ty: for all ADers support and experience. Now without my parents and other support sometimes I am lost a bit I think. I know - I am 21 and adult. But my parents are so important to me and usually part of all my life.

Sorry to off-topic the thread, Steve! :)
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I can see why you might get a little overwhelmed with their opinions, and it is a widespread epidemic, all parents have one :)
 
R2D2 said:
Ruminator,

I had a discussion with my surgeon about implanting ears that haven't been as well stimulated as the dominant ear. He is a very well thought of surgeon here in Australia and his opinion was that if the auditory system has been stimulated well with the dominant ear, it will not make any difference if you have the less dominant ear implanted.

I asked him this question because the second ear I had implanted did not have a hearing aid in it until I was 10 and it didn't do very well with the hearing aid. I told him that I was not expecting the results to be as good as my first ear. He said that as long as the hearing nerve was workable that you should get similar results, since we only have one auditory processing system....
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Because I've been hesitant to implant the good left ear, I asked my Dr. what he thought about implanting the ear that had been deaf for years. His response:

"This is true. We initially thought that the better ear should be implanted if the other had been deaf for many years. More recent data indicates that it doesn't seem to matter. In the majority of cases people do well when the poorer ear is implanted. If you still think you are getting benefit from the hearing aid in your better ear, it is very reasonable to go with the implant in the worse ear."

Anyway I'm finally out of school for a couple weeks and plan to research around online to try to learn much more on this topic. In the meantime, I've set a tentative surgery date for Feb. 29, with pre-op appt. Feb. 8. I will most likely have them implant my worse ear.

Essentially, I've never used my right. I've done relatively well with the left until my hearing dropped in August. I am guessing, therefore, that if I have the well-practiced left implanted, it probably wouldn't take me long to start comprehending sounds and understanding speech; however, if I implant the unused right, it may take weeks or even months before I begin to start comprehending sounds. If so, that's OK, as long as I get there eventually.

Another thing -- I have severe tinnitus in my better left, so I also need to find out whether implanting the right will have any effect on it.
 
I had both implanted at the same time, but my "bad" ear has been deaf for around 15 or more years. I only had 1% comprehension on that ear, so it had no benefit. I did have audio memory on that ear. Now at my 3 month post test - it is up to 84% comprehension. I am seeing that my "bad" ear is much clearer than my good ear. It handles the sound better. I can talk on the phone with that ear as well.

Good luck and keep us informed on your upcoming surgery.
 
Your situation sounds a lot like mine. I lost my hearing overnight and made the difficult decision to go through with the CI after waiting for four months. I had those cortisone shots through my eardrum too. they were horrible. But the CI turned out to be the best things I ever did.
It tough. Good luck!!!
 
I have been wanting to get an implant in my left ear, but my CI audiologist was concerned, when I did the hearing test September, I had gotten NO responses with the left ear at all, both aided and unaided. But there is a concern of ossification in my left ear, because I had meningitis when I was 2. She said that if there is no ossification in my left, then there must be another reason why my left ear had absolutely 0 responses on the tests and such, or something like that. So basically right now I'm only stuck with the option of implanting my right ear. I'm sure there's ossificiation in my right ear too, but it's not as bad as my left (I'm assuming) as I have been able to do pretty well with a hearing aid in the right ear for years. But I still need to get the CT scan of the cochleas done.

And like you, if I were to get an implant, Advanced Bionics would also be my choice. :)
 
Ruminator said:
Because I've been hesitant to implant the good left ear, I asked my Dr. what he thought about implanting the ear that had been deaf for years. His response:

"This is true. We initially thought that the better ear should be implanted if the other had been deaf for many years. More recent data indicates that it doesn't seem to matter. In the majority of cases people do well when the poorer ear is implanted. If you still think you are getting benefit from the hearing aid in your better ear, it is very reasonable to go with the implant in the worse ear."

Anyway I'm finally out of school for a couple weeks and plan to research around online to try to learn much more on this topic. In the meantime, I've set a tentative surgery date for Feb. 29, with pre-op appt. Feb. 8. I will most likely have them implant my worse ear.

Essentially, I've never used my right. I've done relatively well with the left until my hearing dropped in August. I am guessing, therefore, that if I have the well-practiced left implanted, it probably wouldn't take me long to start comprehending sounds and understanding speech; however, if I implant the unused right, it may take weeks or even months before I begin to start comprehending sounds. If so, that's OK, as long as I get there eventually.

Another thing -- I have severe tinnitus in my better left, so I also need to find out whether implanting the right will have any effect on it.
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I guess that response from your doctor encourages your own thinking about getting the worse ear implanted first. Good luck with the process, it will be a big new year for you!

I think you are right to be cautious and conservative about expectations from your right ear. I shared the same. Funnily enough, the ear that I was expecting to be slower picked up speech right away whereas the better ear took a couple of hours.
 
Ruminator said:
Essentially, I've never used my right. I've done relatively well with the left until my hearing dropped in August. I am guessing, therefore, that if I have the well-practiced left implanted, it probably wouldn't take me long to start comprehending sounds and understanding speech; however, if I implant the unused right, it may take weeks or even months before I begin to start comprehending sounds. If so, that's OK, as long as I get there eventually.
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I had my left ear done which was an ear that I had not used in 15 years and it took a month or so before I started really understanding some speech. Apparently from what I've seen on activation videos that when people get their better ear done, they can understand at activation!

Another thing -- I have severe tinnitus in my better left, so I also need to find out whether implanting the right will have any effect on it.
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I suffered from Tinnitus horribly to the point where I couldn't hear anything. When I had my surgery, my left ear has been completely quiet since. I get slight tinnitus in my right ear that acts up from time to time. When I take my hearing aid out it starts right up. It doesn't like to play nice unless it is stimulated. I have heard people having the opposite happening though.
 
Hm. I am hopeful that I'll start understanding speech within a couple weeks of activation, but that may be too much to hope for so soon. It's going to be very weird, however, suddenly using the implanted right every day after a lifetime of not using it -- especially as I sit in each of my three university classes listening to the professor lecture. (Actually, that should be excellent practice for my auditory cortex.) If it takes a long time before the implanted ear begins to comprehend speech, a small fear I have is that during the interim, sounds I hear prove discouraging, disconcerting, and/or distracting (while I continue using the hearing-aided so-so left ear.) But they do say it doesn't matter whether you get the left or right implanted as long as at least one of the two had been actively used.

As for tinnitus, I have the feeling that it will calm down quite a bit once the CI starts feeding my brain a much greater dose of auditory stimulation.
 
Ruminator said:
Hm. I am hopeful that I'll start understanding speech within a couple weeks of activation, but that may be too much to hope for so soon. It's going to be very weird, however, suddenly using the implanted right every day after a lifetime of not using it -- especially as I sit in each of my three university classes listening to the professor lecture. (Actually, that should be excellent practice for my auditory cortex.) If it takes a long time before the implanted ear begins to comprehend speech, a small fear I have is that during the interim, sounds I hear prove discouraging, disconcerting, and/or distracting (while I continue using the hearing-aided so-so left ear.) But they do say it doesn't matter whether you get the left or right implanted as long as at least one of the two had been actively used.

As for tinnitus, I have the feeling that it will calm down quite a bit once the CI starts feeding my brain a much greater dose of auditory stimulation.
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My tinnitus was terrible before activation, but stopped after activation. A strange thing happen last night - I woke up with tinnuitus in my left ear 6 months after activation. It went away after I put my CIs on. I hope it stays away.

Everyone is different with understanding speech. I was able to understand the majority the same day of activation.(the robot sound went away within a week). I have to say I have been practicing alot. I hope it comes quickly for you.

Oh read your blog - it is very interesting.
 
oh my auditory stimulation was music - right now it is Tears for Fears - "Everyone wants to rule the world" It is hard to understand, so I am up to about 60 times today to get use to the words. It may sound crazy, but it works for me.
 
Play it, again...

When i was younger, i had to increase my typing speed and accuracy, and soo, i'd load up the word processor on the computer, turn on the radio and try to keep up with the lyrics as the song was playing...
Theres certain songs i play over and over again, i absolutely love them, and most of my friends think im nuts. I also transcribe lyrics when i get bored.
Its like anything in life, practice makes perfect...

-Paulie

vallee said:
oh my auditory stimulation was music - right now it is Tears for Fears - "Everyone wants to rule the world" It is hard to understand, so I am up to about 60 times today to get use to the words. It may sound crazy, but it works for me.
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