Audiologist Just Told Me I'm A Possible Candidate

Deafskeptic,

I hope everything goes ok for you and you feel better tomorrow. Have you ever had a photo taken of retinas? The last time I had my eyes checked I had that done. I think it is a good idea for anyone because problems can be caught sooner if you have them done regularly.
 
reading the bilateral thread, maybe I should get both ears implanted. It's very draining to have to depend on a single ear.
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Did something happen with the residual hearing in your hearing ear?
I think if you still get somewhat significent speech discrimination from your aided ear, like you can hear around 40%, or above of speech when aided, it might be better to just stick with a hearing aid in that ear. Nothing wrong with bilaterals.........but maybe a better idea would be to get a CI in your worse ear first, and then see how you like the CI vs hearing with a hearing aid.
 
According to my audie, I have no speech discrimination at all when I was given the HINT test. I got so fed up with it that I started going blah blah when told to repeat the words. I got ZERO on that test. She told me I did so badly with my left ear that she didn't even bother to test me with my right ear. I hadn't expected to do so badly. I got 71% on the same test when I was allowed to lipread.

The audie says that I'm more likely to have success with my better ear so I'm going with her advice. BTW my left ear is the better ear. I have not worn a HA over my right ear for many years as as it doesn't help me. I can hear a lot of environmental sounds with my HA over my left ear but I am very dependant on lipreading. Sound is distorted in both ears. I'm certain the CI will bypass that and sound won't be so distorted.

DD, I don't think you know much about what I can or can not hear with my HA and judging from the HA thread, I think I would have preferred analogs to digitals. I always have the volume cranked all the way up so that I can hear speech and stuff and I think the sound would have been too soft with digitals. Your comments seem a bit out of the left field. I'm annoyed with you as you seem to have a bee in your bonnet regarding CIs.

I do hope to get bilaterals one day.
 
set2 said:
Deafskeptic,

I hope everything goes ok for you and you feel better tomorrow. Have you ever had a photo taken of retinas? The last time I had my eyes checked I had that done. I think it is a good idea for anyone because problems can be caught sooner if you have them done regularly.
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Thanks. I hadn't known that.
 
deafdyke said:
.....but maybe a better idea would be to get a CI in your worse ear first, and then see how you like the CI vs hearing with a hearing aid.
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This is what I did, but over time, I found that the HA in my nonimplanted ear negatively interferred with my speech discrimination when I wore my HA and CI together. Eventually my hearing in the nonimplanted ear reached the point where I could no longer hear sounds on my right side or tell when my HA battery died.

If someone has the opportunity to receive simultanous bilaterals, I encouage them to go for it! Those who receive simultanous bilaterals have a major advantage over those who receive sequential bilaterals. People who receive simultaneous bilaterals are able to learn how to process the bilateral signal right from the start and can therefore interpret/understand what they hear at a much faster rate than those who receive sequential bilaterals. Those who receive sequential bilaterals must make the psychological adjustment from unilateral hearing to bilateral hearing and sometimes this can take awhile depending upon how long a person has had unilateral hearing.

Despite the fact that I've always had bilateral hearing (even though one ear was worse than the other), it still took approximately 6 months before I noticed the benefits of having bilateral CIs. In the beginning, my second CI sounded much quieter than the first and I didn't have the same level of speech clarity with my second CI as I did with my first. Over time, this improved and I'm now able to understand speech equally well when either CI is used alone. I'm also able to notice a clear difference when one CI is used as opposed to two.
 
First the good news: No eye disease and it was just a migraine aura.

Now the bad news: I'm still headachey and those eye drops didn't help any.
 
deafskeptic,

Glad to hear there aren't any worries as far as your eyes are concerned. :) As for the migraines, have you thought about taking medication (such as Imitrex) to help relieve your migraines?
 
DD, I don't think you know much about what I can or can not hear with my HA and judging from the HA thread, I think I would have preferred analogs to digitals. I always have the volume cranked all the way up so that I can hear speech and stuff and I think the sound would have been too soft with digitals. Your comments seem a bit out of the left field. I'm annoyed with you as you seem to have a bee in your bonnet regarding CIs.
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No, not at all...........You really didn't fully explain your hearing sitution, that's all......if you got zero on both ears during the HINT test, then definitly go for it. I just think that b/c response to hearing instruments is so varied, experimenting with different options is definitly worth it. I mean I think if someone has auditory nereopathy or totally cannot benifit from HA, or has VERY little speech perception with hearing aids that bilateral implants SHOULD be done. I'm not anti CI........more pro-experimenting with other technologies that's all. You never know what can work for you. But if your HINT test indicated no real speech perception with both ears aided.............GO for bilaterals!
 
deafskeptic said:
I was afraid I'd do too well on speech comprehension part. Boy was I wrong. This speech comprehension test involves me being able to understand spoken sentences without lipreading. I did well on the individual words part but I really bombed the sentence part. I hadn't expected to get ZERO comprehension on this test.
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DD, I guess you missed this post. :) I guess i shouldn't expect everyone to read all of or even most of my posts.

I think I should have expected a low score considering the fact that I never could make out words on the intercom or the radio.
 
deafdyke said:
No, not at all...........You really didn't fully explain your hearing sitution, that's all......if you got zero on both ears during the HINT test, then definitly go for it. I just think that b/c response to hearing instruments is so varied, experimenting with different options is definitly worth it. I mean I think if someone has auditory nereopathy or totally cannot benifit from HA, or has VERY little speech perception with hearing aids that bilateral implants SHOULD be done. I'm not anti CI........more pro-experimenting with other technologies that's all. You never know what can work for you. But if your HINT test indicated no real speech perception with both ears aided.............GO for bilaterals!
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It might be an idea to ask people what their situation is before recommending a course of action. I remember when I did IVF treatment a few years ago how annoying it felt when people would say "have you tried?....natural herbs/naturopath/relaxing" Of course I had tried a lot of things before that which hadn't worked. It felt horrible for people to assume that you had rushed into doing something that they felt to be too drastic when this wasn't the case. Just giving you a heads up.
 
LOL.....*feels dumb* Hard to decide......but what percentage did you get right on the single words test? If its very high, maybe get your worse ear implanted, and then see how well you do with a CI/hearing aid combonation.
I mean you can always get the aided ear implanted later right?
I think that bilaterals are gonna be the new " digital" aid.....remember how back a couple of years ago, people were raving about the digitals? But the end result was that there were still a lot of people who still liked analogs. It's probaly gonna be like that for the bilaterals. Some people will LOVE bilateral CI, others will significently benifit from CI/HA combos and so on. I'm not anti-CI, at ALL. I just think that bilaterals should be used in cases where there's absolutly positively no benifit whatsoever from alternative sources.
If both your ears were dead/ no real benifit from aids my advice would be bilateral implant ALL the WAY. But since there's speech perception (even thou not sentence perception) it's a tricky decision. I mean single words can help you a lot in perceiving what someone's talking about.Especially with the additional input you'll get from the CI. But I mean if you're getting your better ear implanted,(is this your decision? I'm thinking it is, juding from your statement that you'd only have one ear) and not your "deaf" ear, I'd say go for it.
Is there any way you could talk to someone who has a simalir audiogram or hearing sitution? I think that might help your decision on bilateral CI vs CI and a powerful hearing aid. It really is a hard decision.
 
I have no idea what percentage I got right. My guess is that it was around 30% or less. Audie was more interested in my HINT results.

Second, the reason why I want bilaterals is that it will help me deal with noisy situations.

I told my audie that I wanted my right ear implanted but my audie told me that I'd have a better chance of success with my left ear because my left nerve has been simulated all these years. My right ear nerve hasn't been simulated since I was in my teens; thus my success is less assured if I get my right ear implanted. CIs aren't experimental any more. She has seen many more CI cases than I have so she's in a better position than I am to judge what will and will not work.

I get really bad ringing when I try to wear my HA. Even a conversation in a quiet room will set off ringing in my ear. I'm told that a CI may change that. Just think of what it's like for me in a room full of hearing people at parties and family reunions.

I don't think any HA will help with my ears regarding speech understanding. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain with an implant. You may not agree with my decision but I do not wish to be told to try new HAs especially when insurance will not pay for it and I can not afford to buy new HAs. According to my most recent (UNC one) audiogram, my loss begins at 85 dbs at 250 and most of my loss is in the 115s across most frequencies. My Charlotte audiogram showed losses in the 100s. Athough I give the appearance of being functionally HOH, I am in fact very deaf. I have never been able to speak on the phone and I haven't even tried since the time a pizza man hung up on me 20 years ago.

Being able to make out a word here and there isn't good enough for me. That's why I'm getting a CI instead of a HA. I'm told that losses are very similar in both ears; the only diffy is that sound is less distorted in my left ear.
 
I don't know of *any* CI user who scored high on the single word test during their CI evaluation and was deemed a CI candidate. If a person has a high percentage on the single word test, chances are very likely that they will be turned down for a CI.

In my case, I scored 0% on the single word test and sentence in noise test and 22% on the sentence in quiet test. My audiogram indicated loss starting at 90 dB at 250 Hz, 95 dB at 500 Hz, 110 dB at 750 Hz and no measurable hearing aided or unaided at 1000 Hz and above. Like deafskeptic, I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by getting an implant.

Going bilateral was one of the best decisions I could have ever made! :) I no longer have difficulty hearing in noise and am able to localize sound. Speech has a fuller, richer "normal" sounding quality to it and environmental sounds are much easier to hear with two CIs compared to one.

Although I'm totally blind, I probably would have opted for a second CI even if I were sighted and the HA in my nonimplanted ear no longer provided any benefit.
 
I don't know of *any* CI user who scored high on the single word test during their CI evaluation and was deemed a CI candidate.
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Very true, but I do know that you're eligable to be implanted if you can hear 60% with aids......that's the sitution that I kinda thought was going on here.
deafskeptic, it does sound like you'd definitly benifit from upgrading to bilaterals. Especially with the tinititas (sp?) Even though I don't have SN loss, your current hearing sitution sounds like me with ITE aids (back in jr high) I COULD hear with them, but was mostly just lipreading.
 
deafdyke said:
Very true, but I do know that you're eligable to be implanted if you can hear 60% with aids......that's the sitution that I kinda thought was going on here.
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Yes, but in your post, you were referring to CI candidates who score well on single word tests. (If I misunderstood you, please let me know. :)) The ability to understand 60% of speech is quite different from understanding single words (since one can use the context of a sentence to aid discrimination). Also, understanding 60% of speech isn't alot -- that means a person is missing more than half of what is said with HAs. When you compare a HA user who understands 60% of speech (in quiet) to a CI user who understands 90% or more (in quiet and noise), you can see why CI candidacy guidelines have been expanded over the past several years.
 
deafskeptic said:
...

I told my audie that I wanted my right ear implanted but my audie told me that I'd have a better chance of success with my left ear because my left nerve has been simulated all these years. My right ear nerve hasn't been simulated since I was in my teens; thus my success is less assured if I get my right ear implanted. CIs aren't experimental any more. She has seen many more CI cases than I have so she's in a better position than I am to judge what will and will not work.
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She is a great Audi and she knows what she is talking about. She really wants people to be successful with their CI. We had a similar discussion and she point blank told me that I really need to do my good ear. I agreed with her as it totally made sense. She was right on the money and it has been a great trip so far. I have a friend who got one back in June in his non-dominate ear and he is not doing as well everybody thought he might do. Our Audi is his Audi too and she is working with him to get him going with a second CI in his dominate ear. I think it will really help him.

deafskeptic said:
I get really bad ringing when I try to wear my HA. Even a conversation in a quiet room will set off ringing in my ear. I'm told that a CI may change that. Just think of what it's like for me in a room full of hearing people at parties and family reunions.

...
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That my friend is recruitment you are experiencing. There isn't much you can do about it but just limp along until your surgery which is coming up fast. As for dealing with it afterwards, you won't as recruitment cannot occur with a CI. You might still experience tinnitus but hopefully either mildly or none at all (which was my case and blissfully so!).
 
sr171soars said:
That my friend is recruitment you are experiencing. There isn't much you can do about it but just limp along until your surgery which is coming up fast. As for dealing with it afterwards, you won't as recruitment cannot occur with a CI. You might still experience tinnitus but hopefully either mildly or none at all (which was my case and blissfully so!).
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As someone who used to experience recruitment with hearing aids I concur with Sr171soars. It's not a problem with CIs any more although I still get tinnitus. However my tinnitus has improved I reckon by 50-60%.

The only thing is with having been a recruitment sufferer make sure that you don't try and over do it when you get mapped for the first time. It's important to build up your tolerance to sounds gradually because your brain may have adopted a flight response to loud sound due to the recruitment. It can of course be retrained but give it time.
 
Yes, but in your post, you were referring to CI candidates who score well on single word tests. (If I misunderstood you, please let me know. ) The ability to understand 60% of speech is quite different from understanding single words (since one can use the context of a sentence to aid discrimination). Also
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Very true, but the input from the hearing aid, coupled with the input from the CI, might turn out to be quite a bit of information as a whole. See what I'm saying? I mean there are a significent number of people who wear both CI and a hearing aid. I'm not really sure what I'm talking about.....LOL....all I know is that I've read and heard that people who hear up to 60% with HA, are eligable for CI.
However, in cases of recruitment and severe tinititus I think that the CI is a good option. I gotta say bilateral CI vs. hearing aid in one ear for those eligable is probaly going to always be an indivdual thing. Sort of like the analog vs. digital debate.
 
deafdyke said:
Very true, but the input from the hearing aid, coupled with the input from the CI, might turn out to be quite a bit of information as a whole. See what I'm saying? I mean there are a significent number of people who wear both CI and a hearing aid. I'm not really sure what I'm talking about.....LOL....all I know is that I've read and heard that people who hear up to 60% with HA, are eligable for CI.
However, in cases of recruitment and severe tinititus I think that the CI is a good option. I gotta say bilateral CI vs. hearing aid in one ear for those eligable is probaly going to always be an indivdual thing. Sort of like the analog vs. digital debate.
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Agreed! :)
 
I'm kinda embrassed to say this but I want to let my doctor know what implant I want and my parents are like let the experts decide. They aren't being of much help on this.

Well what do the experts know of what sort of situations I have to deal with on a daily basis? I have no idea how to contact my doctor or my audie. I tried to email a member of my doctor staff but my mail bounced.

I want to let them know that I want the Nucleus Freedom and that the HiRes is my second choice.
 
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