2nd implant

samantha kennel said:
my son has 1 implant and we are debating on the 2nd Dr. likes to wait 6months to a year apart. any parents out there going through this??? he has ha in other ear now, basically for sound location.he is doing great in av theropy and picking up so much.. insurance will pay for second .
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WHOA!!
You are still ashamed of your son being deaf..... Poor Kid!! you should wait until he is old enough to make his own decision....

Thanks!!
SxyPorkie
 
Good luck and let us know how it's going whether he will get a second one :)
 
SxyPorkie said:
WHOA!!
You are still ashamed of your son being deaf..... Poor Kid!! you should wait until he is old enough to make his own decision....

Thanks!!
SxyPorkie
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Um...I don't see her saying anywhere that she is ashamed of her son being deaf....
 
Sending good thoughts your way for him and looking forward to hearing about how he is doing with his implant and if you get the second!
 
deafdyke said:
The benifit from a second implant can be really ambigious....like the only clear cut benifits from a second implant are: abilty to localize sound (I can't do this, and I have two hearing aids.....while it's annoying I've survived) and being able to function in noisy situtions (again, many dhh folks are lost in noisy situtions)
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I've seen this statement before, and now I'm really curious - what is it that makes this so? I mean this in the sense that (I believe) it's generally agreed that two hearing aids are far better than one if you have a bilateral loss. Certainly, I have a harder time hearing with just one aid, and I feel very "unbalanced". Is a CI that much better, that having two doesn't help significantly, or is it somehow less fundamentally associated with a given side (don't know if I'm explaining that well)?
 
deafdyke
The benifit from a second implant can be really ambigious....like the only clear cut benifits from a second implant are: abilty to localize sound (I can't do this, and I have two hearing aids.....while it's annoying I've survived) and being able to function in noisy situtions (again, many dhh folks are lost in noisy situtions)
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Really helps localising with my daughter (4. years old)
Really helps with hearing in noisy environment,
Having a spare when one fails...
(This from experience with my daughter)
 
my son

i am not ashamed of my son. I want him to have all taht life has to offer him!!! any parent knows that
 
samantha kennel said:
i am not ashamed of my son. I want him to have all taht life has to offer him!!! any parent knows that
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We know you aren't, Samantha. The "you are just ashamed of their deafness" card is tossed out whever some individuals see well educated, knowledgeable people talking about CI's in a positive manner, and realize they are fighting a losing battle, and in an attept to get attention they show ignorance or try to belittle the choices made (which are the PARENT'S choices and nobody else's, regardless how some people wish they had a right to decide what happened to children that aren't theirs.) Ignore it.
 
samantha kennel said:
i am not ashamed of my son. I want him to have all taht life has to offer him!!! any parent knows that
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As with 'any' big bag of apples, there's bound to be a few 'rotten' ones we'll just do without. ;)

I'm sure you and your family is doing every 'good' thing to make the life of your child a blessing in every which way possible. Keep up with what 'you' do feel is best for your child and sure wishes you all the very best with the decisions you do make as well as the decisions your child will make later on in lfe. :)
 
samantha kennel said:
i am not ashamed of my son. I want him to have all taht life has to offer him!!! any parent knows that
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Absolutely. Believe me, most people know it.
Just some people use it because they cannot find real arguments. I think that a statement like that would be a reasone to be banned. It's a deplorable attack on a parent to say that they do not love their child.

Choosing a CI for your child is done out of love.

Choosing CI has nothing to do with "not accepting deafness". It is about giving sound to your child that you love. A child that you want to have all the possibilities life can offer.
 
ismi said:
I've seen this statement before, and now I'm really curious - what is it that makes this so? I mean this in the sense that (I believe) it's generally agreed that two hearing aids are far better than one if you have a bilateral loss. Certainly, I have a harder time hearing with just one aid, and I feel very "unbalanced". Is a CI that much better, that having two doesn't help significantly, or is it somehow less fundamentally associated with a given side (don't know if I'm explaining that well)?
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Good question...deserves a good answer.

Cloggy basically stated the two most common reasons...1) sound localization and 2) better hearing in a noisy environment. They are reasonable on the face of it. I'm like DD in raising skeptism the necessity of having two CIs. As you are aware, I have a CI and you might not be aware that I have no interest in getting a second one...just you know where I'm coming from.

Anyway, sound localization is nice but with two CIs it is still not in the class of normal hearing. The other thing is that if you're like me always have heard out of one ear only, you get used to having no sound directionality and start using your brain to make educated guesses where sound is coming from. Most of the time that is sufficient.

The other benefit is hearing better in a noisy environment. That is a better excuse IMO for getting two CIs. Yet, there are ways to get around that. I position myself and/or make the other person aware that I have a "better side" for listening or get away from the noise altogether if possible. Even hearing people opt for a quieter place when they can...

Getting to the root of the matter, getting one CI gives you the most "bang for your buck" in terms of improvement in hearing when a HA just doesn't do it anymore. Adding the second doesn't give you the same amount of improvement...sort of an inversely proportional law if you get my drift. You already hearing at a higher level and the second CI simply gives you hearing on the other side and less worry about which side to listen. In other words, you aren't going to hear twice as loud as you heard with one...it doesn't work that way.
 
samantha kennel said:
i am not ashamed of my son. I want him to have all taht life has to offer him!!! any parent knows that
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samantha, i know it's hard not to let people like this get to you but just let them be. It's like we have to constantly defend our love for our children. We do the best we can and all that matters is what's in our hearts. I think when people who say stuff like it's because of their own up bringing and not feeling loved from their own families.
 
sr171soars said:
Anyway, sound localization is nice but with two CIs it is still not in the class of normal hearing. The other thing is that if you're like me always have heard out of one ear only, you get used to having no sound directionality and start using your brain to make educated guesses where sound is coming from. Most of the time that is sufficient.

The other benefit is hearing better in a noisy environment.
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Right. Despite having two hearing aids, I have little or no directionality, and even leaving aside the whole "orienting yourself towards the source" issue, wearing only one aid (which I have to do now and then because of infections) makes me feel very weird. I really don't know how to describe it - I feel unbalanced. Things sound weird. It's just ... more effort to hear, even if the speaker is on my aided side.

Getting to the root of the matter, getting one CI gives you the most "bang for your buck" in terms of improvement in hearing when a HA just doesn't do it anymore.
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Right, that makes sense - but the same could be said of hearing aids, to a degree (maybe a lesser degree?).

I don't want to come off as argumentative here, I'm just trying to understand. Is it that a CI isn't as "side-specific", or that if you're a candidate, you're probably coming from a position where *any* improvement would be great (so the extra expense maybe is a bit of a turn off)?
 
ismi said:
...
I don't want to come off as argumentative here, I'm just trying to understand. Is it that a CI isn't as "side-specific", or that if you're a candidate, you're probably coming from a position where *any* improvement would be great (so the extra expense maybe is a bit of a turn off)?
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You bring up a good point. I think the biggest difference is that having two HAs is no big deal in the scheme of things. You can twiddle with one or two to get the desired results (hopefully). The overall "expense" isn't two bad (i.e, no surgery issues, minimal supply requirements and etc.)

With a CI, there needs to be much more careful consideration if this is something one would want to do. I can attest just having one was an enormous improvement over my HA. Meaning it was worth all the hoops (especially surgery and recovery) I had to go through to get it. It was so much so (the improvement), that looking at a second one just wasn't so appealing for me. This was especially knowing the second would not be anyway be in the same class of eye-opener WOW factor. The medical circles are currently in an ongoing discussions about this very thing and they cannot at this point see real concrete justification for a second CI. They probably would agree with me that for seriously visually impaired folks it could be justified.

So in the bottomline, yeah for me going through it all again doesn't thrill me and the extra expense of equipment and batteries isn't appealing either. It is expensive enough with one which fortunately I haven't had to incur much cost since I was in a trial and they gave me a boatload of stuff. I even have three years worth of batteries! After that, on my own...not that I'm complaining as "what price for decent hearing?"
 
ismi said:
I've seen this statement before, and now I'm really curious - what is it that makes this so? I mean this in the sense that (I believe) it's generally agreed that two hearing aids are far better than one if you have a bilateral loss. Certainly, I have a harder time hearing with just one aid, and I feel very "unbalanced". Is a CI that much better, that having two doesn't help significantly, or is it somehow less fundamentally associated with a given side (don't know if I'm explaining that well)?
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Maybe one CI is much clearer then 2 HA's, the CI does directly stimulate the nerve which sends a good signal to the brain, where as the HA's amplify the sound possibly causing distortion espeically if the sound is amplifyed alot and the brain has problems figuring understanding the blaring noise?? :dunno: . (plus CI doesn't seem to have alot of feedback, :) )
 
jag said:
Maybe one CI is much clearer then 2 HA's, the CI does directly stimulate the nerve which sends a good signal to the brain, where as the HA's amplify the sound possibly causing distortion espeically if the sound is amplifyed alot and the brain has problems figuring understanding the blaring noise?? :dunno: . (plus CI doesn't seem to have alot of feedback, :) )
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Yeah, that is really the case that a CI provides clarity on a scale totally unmatched by HAs. Even two HAs can't compare to one CI.

There is never any feedback with CIs no matter what you do. It is a self contained loop. It is not sounds one is transmitting but electrical impulses to the cochlear nerve.
 
thank you

my children are my world...a nd what a oprunittiy!!cant spell!! hearing aides just amplifie ,ci has no feed back. and what a diffrence in sound.. thank you for defending me.. i am and will never be ashamed of my children or my babies deafness.
 
Well.. my audiologist said that if I want 2nd implant on my left ear if the right one isnt working well.. so they offered me to do it for free. That's nice of them but I have a feeling I will do fine on the right ear anyways. :angel:
 
Oh I know how you feel.. my husband said he is not ashamed of me being deaf and if our kids are deaf and the HA doesn't work then CI would benefit them. For me, I would rather wait until they get a little older to know what they want.. my 2 kids are hearing though. I love them no matter if they are deaf or hearing. :D

samantha kennel said:
my children are my world...a nd what a oprunittiy!!cant spell!! hearing aides just amplifie ,ci has no feed back. and what a diffrence in sound.. thank you for defending me.. i am and will never be ashamed of my children or my babies deafness.
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