My Cochlear Implant experience.

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Crazedscot

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I don't know if my story's of any interest or use to anyone these days, but here it is anyway.

I went deaf aged 7 from meningitis in 1986. I got no benefit whatsoever from any type of Hearing Aid they tried on me, so in 1990 I was selected as a candidate for a Cochlear Implant. I was 10 years old at the time so it's hard to honestly say whether I was happy about it or not and I honestly can't remember. I felt no attachment to the Deaf community i'd become part of at the time so the prospect of regaining some hearing so I could fit in with all my old friends properly again was quite appealing. My Mum was actually reluctant to let them go ahead with the procedure at the time, I think she was pressured quite heavily by an audiologist friend into giving her consent for it.

My surgeon was Dr Raj Singh at Crosshouse Hospital, I was the first child he'd performed the procedure on, and there were only two adults before me. Surgery took over 3 hours, I was kept in hospital over a week and it was at least a month before I was switched on. I remember being slightly dissapointed that I couldn't hear as much as I was hoping I would, but I adapted eventually, combining what I could hear with lipreading. Scottish accents are quite difficult to understand even if you're hearing, so it wasn't easy! Even now I still have difficulty, much to my annoyance i've never really been able to understand my Dad that well, female voices have always been much easier to understand.

I've adapted to my CI in a certain way, I can't understand people at all without it switched on, and even then I still need to combine what I can hear with lipreading. I'm not sure what it's like for other people with a CI, I've read about people using phones and enjoying music and listening to the TV and so on with their CI's, I've never really been able to do any of that but to be honest i've never really tried either. I don't think i've touched a telephone in my entire life, and I never saw any point in trying to lipread off the TV when I can just turn the captions/subtitles on! The important thing is I can hear and understand speech fine, I can even understand Norwegian now, which I've been learning off my girlfriend.

I'm not really sure what I can say to describe my experience with the CI over the years that would be of any help to anyone these days. It's been 17 years now, I have a Nucleus 22 system and i've gone through 4 revisions of speech processor, the WSP, MSP, Spectra 22 and now the Esprit 22. I think they've gone as far as they can technologically with this particular type of CI. My map apparently hasn't changed much for the last 6 years now, just a few tweaks as I get older and become increasingly intolerant of certain types of noise, which I guess means i'm still adapting.

My mind's gone blank now, sorry for rambling. If anyone's got any questions I'll be happy to answer them if i can.
 
It's great to hear these stories... Thanks.

Just add to the topic when you think of more experiences....

I also recorded experiences - of my daughter. (Just klick in my signature....)

Agian, thanks, and keep on adding
 
Welcome aboard! Interesting experience.

Crazedscot said:
...Scottish accents are quite difficult to understand even if you're hearing, so it wasn't easy!
...
Click to expand...

LOL, I can remember when I had my HA eons ago and we had two young Brits over for a week (part of a soccer visitation). One spoke with Queen's English and the other Cockney. I had very little trouble with the first but I never did really pick up the second.
 
Crazedscot,

I did not have any trouble understanding your Scottish accent in your post above. ;)

And it was nice learning your story with the CI. I wear hearing aids now, although they don't help a lot, and have no idea if a CI would work for me.

Thanks for sharing with us, Crazedscot!

Dave
 
Thanks for sharing your interesting experience! We don't often hear about the people who had them early on. I'm surprised that the operation only took 3 hours - for some reason I thought that in the early 1990s surgery was very long especially for children.

Yes not everyone with a CI can use a phone or listen to music and this may have been more the case with earlier implants? Music sounds very unlike music to me at this stage (I'm 9 weeks post switch on) but I have just started having short phone conversations with my husband. Plucking up the courage to do it is the hardest part.

I remember in the UK how difficult Scottish accents are to understand. I can recall watching that program "Rab C Nesbitt" on TV and my husband who is hearing always had the captions on for that!

Welcome here anyway!
 
Thank you for sharing the experiences with us.. Its very interesting.

As we know back then the old ci only had 2 channels.. when today nowadays is only 16 channels and ab will release the 100 channels this coming fall. I dont know about others. I only know about AB as I am going for that as i love Music. :) but know this that The technology is improving more and more. :)
 
SmileyGin said:
As we know back then the old ci only had 2 channels.. when today nowadays is only 16 channels and ab will release the 100 channels this coming fall. I dont know about others. I only know about AB as I am going for that as i love Music. :) but know this that The technology is improving more and more. :)
Click to expand...

I don't understand that statment. My implant has 22 channels, though I think they only turned on 20. Isn't the current line 24 channels? Granted, i'm thinking of the Cochlear's own Nucleus systems, which are pretty much the only ones you can get in the UK. I don't know much about what you have available to you in the USA, like the Clarion systems i've been told about.
 
Scottish accents are quite difficult to understand even if you're hearing,
Click to expand...
Try Scots and deaf...........OMG.......one of my friends has a very very thick Scots accent, and it's so fucking hard to undy her!
 
As I recall, Cochlear uses 22 electrodes, which is 22 channels. MedEl and AB are using 16. These are actual electrodes.
When talking about more that that, we are taking about virtual electrodes. This means that the area's in between the electrodes is stimulated by simultaniously activating the electrodes on the side. This way, more area's (than just 22 / 16) can be reached. This technology is new, and looks promising, but is possible with any electrode.
 
crazedscot.

Thanks for your input interesting story about you growing up with your ci.. it is very interesting to read yours.. I can believe that scot's accent is very thick and hard to recongize even when I wore my hearing aids years ago. I had hard time understanding this woman's accent turn out she was intern from other country. I can't remember where but anyhow.. So I often wonder how it did sound when I have my ci on.. It's pretty interesting to hear people's tones etc to understand them..

argh that reminds me I got to order some more Tmics I havent had tmic replacement in a long time (often you dont get it replacement unless it gets corrupts or cracked.. hehe)

anyhow.. Thanks Scot for sharing your story.. Keep input your stories here in future :) I would do the same with mine. I am not sure if i post it somewhere about my ci too. but then again almost everyone doesnt know the full story of me because im always very busybee lady and very wandering person! My son came first before myself when We found out with him havin' brain tumor so I push my CI pritory away (aka Therapy, etc...) so He can get his treatment first! now his treatment done, and Im in new state in usa.. Oi vey.. found out my NEW audie office is 2 half hours away from my home.. Geeez oh well. now i have to wait for the refferal approval from my primary first but so much things happening around here, kids returning back to school, Fall comin' soon, I probably will find my own time when I have ALL Three kids in school fulltime my baby is almost 3 this Jan.. Next year he will be in headstart school. ( have never put my kids in headstart school before only in private preschool but this time I decide to go for it. Everett does need to go and get socialised more!)

anyhow, sorry for rambling about my life too lmao.. Scot. Be sure you keep your story very interesting again :)


wendy
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I became aquainted with several students at St. Rita School for the Deaf who had the earlier CIs and their experience pretty much parallels yours. Somewhat useful in the classroom, but still needed visual cues for complete understanding. And the majority of those kids chose not to wear their CIs for anything other than classroom use. They preferred to rely on sign in social situations, since they still needed the sign even with the CI.
 
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