CIers: How well do you hear now?

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Franz K

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Hello once again,
Now I'm trying to get some idea of how well I might potentially "hear" with a cochlear implant. I'm profoundly deaf in both ears, but I've always done well with a hearing aid in my left. Even though my right ear has the same amount of hearing as my left, a hearing aid doesn't work with it. Without my hearing aids, I can't even hear someone shouting in my ears.
Music sounds wonderful to me-- I play guitar and can hear all the notes with my aid, and don't have any problems tuning it up. As far as speech goes, I can talk on the phone reasonably well with people I know and even some strangers. I rely heavily on lip-reading, and it's something I've always been good at. If there is no background noise, I can sometimes understand what someone is saying without lipreading if they are right next to me and I know them well.
Anybody out there with similar experiences to me? For all of you, in what ways has your hearing improved or deteriorated since having an implant? Do things eventually sound "natural" again, or do they always sound strange? What new sounds can you hear now? How high and how low? How much better is your overall comprehension of speech with a CI? And how does music sound to you?
 
i can hear you from here...

JK

i got mine little over a year ago. and i hear pretty much.. but i don't understand the speech much liike hearing does. i've been deaf for 22 years before i got surgery. so that makes sense i don't have much memory in my head. will be starting going to audio therpy and learn how to hear speech better. however i can understand few speech when i expect they'll say that for example i ask question far away in dark.. i expect an answer yes or no.. i can understand that and lipreading is much easier than before

the phone.. i havn't try and am scared to try.
some music sounds good some sounds horrible.. guess it depends. the high pitch permentally music sounds odd to me. i like the music like country, jazz, yet singing without music instrument is better. since hearing flute, guters, drums, and voice.. is hard.
 
Ah....the real down to earth nitty gritty question of CIs...for anybody considering getting one.

I was in a similar boat you were in with a HA (in right ear...left ear was useless) except my hearing was definitely deteriorating gradually.

Since having my CI, my hearing has improved across the board significantly. I can carry on conversations without lipreading nor looking at the person (even around corners is pretty good). The phone is mostly an easy affair for me (assumes that it is not too noisy around me) and even conference calls are pretty good. I catch a whole lot more quips and side remarks and it is much easier to participate in the give and take of verbal communication. While the CI really gives you a whole lot more, it isn't quite on the hearing person's level. You will not always hear what they can hear. I noticed that I can't really hear the highest pitches like high whistles. I do catch all music (excepting those highest pitches which doesn't happen often in music) and it sounds pretty good. I can tell it isn't totally like when it was before (close enough) but what the heck...I hear it better now.

It does sound strange at first but your brain is a phenomenal thing and things start pretty much sounding like as before. If you ask me now, I say is the same as before but better. My CI allowed me to hear the higher pitches that I wasn't getting with my HA like water rushing out of a faucet. I heard it before but not those really higher pitches and I can hear it all over the house now.

For me it was almost all pros with one or two cons. I have no complaints at all. Remember YMMV with CIs. No two people are exactly the same. I was up and going from hookup on very quickly and able to talk with other the same day (heck I was using the phone a couple of days later with my brother). I know that not true for everybody.

Hope that helps...
 
Hi Franz,

Before my residual hearing was suddenly zapped for no apparent reason I had a similar hearing situation to you. I was borderline profoundly deaf but did well with hearing aids, particularly in my left ear but less so in my right ear (I got a hearing aid late in that ear). My use of the telephone was limited but in other respects I did fine. Like you I was a good lipreader and could converse easily with people. I could listen to music although I'm not particularly musical. Until my hearing went I had no desire for a CI because I didn't want to take the risk of losing what I had.

Anyway 12 weeks since the CI I can make the following observations. Music sounds um not very good. But I've been told that this won't fall into place until at least 6 months so the jury is still out on that. Speech perception however is already better for me than with hearing aids. I've just started using the phone with my husband and he is easier to understand than before. I notice that I am not lipreading quite so much anymore and I feel I have more energy as well.

With a CI I hear more sounds - no doubt about that. I can hear bird song from inside my house - something that I could not do with hearing aids. but like Sr171soars said some sounds are a bit off from what I can remember but it's hard to know if I heard it wrong with HAs. There is one bird over here in Australia that I am sure I never heard before but now I can hear it very clearly (sorry there are a lot of birds around where I live so it's my point of comparison!)

So in other words I think if I was to go back to what I had with hearing aids I would miss some things that I'm enjoying with the CI. Particularly the richness of some sounds such as waves. I am still early days so for me to be saying that I would miss my CI is a big thing I think.

None of us here can say how it will go for you since there are pre and post implantation issues that can make your outcome different to ours. But on the face of it you sound like you would be a good candidate. You may find that a surgeon evaluating you will opt to implant the right ear so as to retain your residual hearing in the left ear.

However you would have to go through an evaluation first. It sounds like you currently do well with hearing aids (your phone use comes to mind) and may not qualify for a CI.

Meanwhile, make sure you look after your residual hearing and avoid situations that place excessive stress on it. People with hearing losses are at more risk for losing the rest of their hearing at some stage in their lives compared to normally hearing people.
 
Here's a related question, for those of you who had been using HAs before implantation: what was your rehab like? I've been looking for information online, but it's not clear to me how much of what I'm finding is in the context of rehab for a prelingually deaf person - learning to understand speech, compensating for a lack of "sound memory" and so on - and how much applies to any new CI user.
 
ismi said:
Here's a related question, for those of you who had been using HAs before implantation: what was your rehab like? I've been looking for information online, but it's not clear to me how much of what I'm finding is in the context of rehab for a prelingually deaf person - learning to understand speech, compensating for a lack of "sound memory" and so on - and how much applies to any new CI user.
Click to expand...

My rehab was a lot of work (I'm prelingually deaf, by the way, and I used HAs before the operation) and it took about three months just to adjust to the sounds. I was learning new sounds like crazy, as I recall, and I do remember my speech improving during the rehab.

I think though, that the "sound learning" was made easier by the fact I was only seven...
But adults have been successful with CIs.

Anyone who got them as adults?
 
ismi said:
Here's a related question, for those of you who had been using HAs before implantation: what was your rehab like? I've been looking for information online, but it's not clear to me how much of what I'm finding is in the context of rehab for a prelingually deaf person - learning to understand speech, compensating for a lack of "sound memory" and so on - and how much applies to any new CI user.
Click to expand...

For me as a prelingually deaf adult with HAs speech perception actually came pretty quickly - once I got over the initial static and beeps. The background sounds have come in more slowly. A lot of things I couldn't hear at first - not even cars passing closely to me. When I did start to hear them I wondered why I could have even missed them because they were now loud. Now I hear a lot of things but it's more of an issue of clarity than what I hear.

You do have to allow for more time as a prelingual - it all depends somewhat on how well you did with HAs. The longer without HAs the harder it is.

I think that when a lot of the literature talk about prelingually deaf adults they are assuming people who haven't heard sound before or who didn't function very well with HAs - there is in actual fact quite a range in the category of prelingually deaf people. So it's not really possible to say how well people will do for sure until they have the implant.
 
fyborg said:
...
I think though, that the "sound learning" was made easier by the fact I was only seven...
But adults have been successful with CIs.

Anyone who got them as adults?
Click to expand...

Several here have gotten them as adults as yours truly. Many adults have been successful with them and not necessarily late deafened either.
 
ismi said:
Here's a related question, for those of you who had been using HAs before implantation: what was your rehab like? I've been looking for information online, but it's not clear to me how much of what I'm finding is in the context of rehab for a prelingually deaf person - learning to understand speech, compensating for a lack of "sound memory" and so on - and how much applies to any new CI user.
Click to expand...

Er...no rehab whatsoever for me. They said I didn't need it and once I could hear myself properly my speech would correct itself. That it did as I had people tell me in my first couple of weeks they could tell already.
 
sr171soars said:
Several here have gotten them as adults as yours truly. Many adults have been successful with them and not necessarily late deafened either.
Click to expand...

:ty: I knew you got it as an adult! And you've been successful with the CI.

R2D2, you're right--the range of prelingually deaf is too wide for any specific "guesstimating".
 
On the tone tests I actually respond in the normal hearing area. With the HINT, I scored higher then previously espeically in the noisy enviroment. :) I no longer wear the HA in my right ear, just depend on the CI.

Some music sounds good, some awful but it usually improves if I can get myself to listen to it a few times. :) I can actually hear the tv from another room and understand some of it.

I'd like to stress tho that my dr. and audio team all have said that my progress is not the norm. The decision to have a CI for me was fairly quick. I hated where I was with HA's and was willing to risk one ear to hear better. I don't regret my decision. Everyone has to weigh the risks and decide if the risks seem worth it.
 
Even though my right ear has the same amount of hearing as my left, a hearing aid doesn't work with it
Click to expand...
Are they implanting that ear? Hopefully things will improve, but you really have to realize with prelings results are so scattered across the board.
 
I can hear about 100% with CI, that great benefit... :)
 
sr171soars said:
What a joker! Pulling your own leg...eh?

Psst! I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn...btw it is cheap...:whistle:
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What? I'm seriously that CI helps me alot and hear about rest of dbs compared to hear about 80-90 dbs with HA.
 
volcomskatz said:
What? I'm seriously that CI helps me alot and hear about rest of dbs compared to hear about 80-90 dbs with HA.
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Son, nobody, I repeat nobody with a CI hears 100% like the hearing. The best would be say 85% to 90% (maybe even 95% when it is just speech involved) on a good day. I know I do extremely well with mine and I know there are things that I miss (not much mind you and it is nothing compared to what I missed in my HA days). Secondly, you have led us to believe that your CI was messed up by your MRI and you wanted to either remove it or replace it. If that were the case, there be no way you be doing even 80% in that case.

Let's just say, you have shot yourself in the foot with your statements and it is really difficult for me and others to discern the truth coming from you. You remind me of the story about the boy who cried "Wolf" too many times.

Answer me this...do you really use your CI? If so, how did the MRI bit mess it up (I'm not referring to how it moved the implant around but how it effected what you hear).
 
sr171soars said:
Son, nobody, I repeat nobody with a CI hears 100% like the hearing. The best would be say 85% to 90% (maybe even 95% when it is just speech involved) on a good day. I know I do extremely well with mine and I know there are things that I miss (not much mind you and it is nothing compared to what I missed in my HA days). Secondly, you have led us to believe that your CI was messed up by your MRI and you wanted to either remove it or replace it. If that were the case, there be no way you be doing even 80% in that case.

Let's just say, you have shot yourself in the foot with your statements and it is really difficult for me and others to discern the truth coming from you. You remind me of the story about the boy who cried "Wolf" too many times.

Answer me this...do you really use your CI? If so, how did the MRI bit mess it up (I'm not referring to how it moved the implant around but how it effected what you hear).
Click to expand...

Only in pre-2002, I used hear about around rest of dbs from sound booth test but now not in post-2002 and none of them are working. I'm looking for re-implant but insurance companies rejected to cover it then forget it about them.
 
volcomskatz said:
Only in pre-2002, I used hear about around rest of dbs from sound booth test but now not in post-2002 and none of them are working. I'm looking for re-implant but insurance companies rejected to cover it then forget it about them.
Click to expand...

Thank you for clarifying your remarks. From your original statement "I can hear about 100% with CI, that great benefit... ", most people would pick up on the tense of "I can" as present tense which would confuse the heck out of me and others in trying to establish an understanding from what you said in previous times. Just be careful with your tenses...

Again, I'm sure you did well in the sound booth (pre-2002) but remember it did not mean you could hear 100% like the hearing. The technology isn't there yet even now and that may take another decade or two before they could even get that close to normal hearing (all around not just speech). If you meant a range of sounds that one can be expected to hear with a CI, then that was very good. It is a shame that the MRI messed your implant and you have to go through this rigmorole to get it fixed somehow.
 
sr171soars said:
Thank you for clarifying your remarks. From your original statement "I can hear about 100% with CI, that great benefit... ", most people would pick up on the tense of "I can" as present tense which would confuse the heck out of me and others in trying to establish an understanding from what you said in previous times. Just be careful with your tenses...

Again, I'm sure you did well in the sound booth (pre-2002) but remember it did not mean you could hear 100% like the hearing. The technology isn't there yet even now and that may take another decade or two before they could even get that close to normal hearing (all around not just speech). If you meant a range of sounds that one can be expected to hear with a CI, then that was very good. It is a shame that the MRI messed your implant and you have to go through this rigmorole to get it fixed somehow.
Click to expand...

Yea, we need offers new health insurance to cover all of them including repair the damaged CI but their magnet is little weak compared to metal related in knees that can get fucked up from MRI, also CI is just moving around small radius and not pull out like metal related on knee or cover the bone. I don't wake up until around more than 10 hours after accident is done.
 
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