Phonak Naida

[faire_jour]

1. Don't you have a closer audiologist? If not, maybe you can make an extended appointment and stay for half the day so she can adjust it a dozen times till it's right to the best of her ability.

2. With transposition, it's possible she could be aided to 10db or at least 20db at every frequency, including inside the triangle. Today's HAs have less gain at higher frequencies than lower. I read somewhere that a study showed transposition can actually be better than a loss of as low as 70db at high frequencies! That's cause you are transporting to a lower frequency where the HA can give more gain!

3. Does any of her audiologists or experts think she will score high with her new HAs? Have they ever been surprisingly wrong? My own audiologist didn't think I would score any on speech, that id be at a fat 0% but he was surprised when I understood half of what my dad said without reading lips. What % of your speech can Miss Kat understand in her HA ear without reading lips?

So you say it's not possible? We shall find out once she tries the new HA. I will say that I wish Miss Kat the best of luck in a successful fit with her new HA, maybe she won't want/need a 2nd CI as bimodel will be a success and get her speech to where you want it to be. I am curious, do you and the audiologists know of anyone with as much residual hearing as Miss Kat doing so poorly with HAs? Why do they not even know why Miss Kat isn't scoring much on speech with HA? Why am I scoring better than Miss Kat despite my hearing being about 20db worse? Could it be because I have more gain on my HAs than she does? If not, what could it be? All those are things id love to learn.

Why would we go to an inferior audiologist just because they are closer? I want my daughter to see the person with the most experience and the most talent. He just is further away.

No, I won't make my 6 year old sit for hours and hours, doing test after test, to *hope* to improve her score a percent.

We'll see if the transposition helps, but no one has high hopes. We believe that whatever took her hearing, took the ability to understand speech. She can hear sounds well, but not speech.

Just because YOU can hear well, doesn't mean she can. Her hearing loss is different than yours. You were born deaf, she was born hearing and then given a medication that fried the hair cells in her ears. It is a different cause, so the results are different. That is why a CI works so well for her. Her nerve and brain pathways are fine, just the hair cells are messed up. The CI bypasses the hair cells, and she can understand speech.

No, they have never been wrong. They were the ones who helped me push to get her the CI in the first place.

 

[JennyB]

Why would we go to an inferior audiologist just because they are closer? I want my daughter to see the person with the most experience and the most talent. He just is further away.

I just moved half way across town and it takes me about 45 mins - 1 hour to get to my audiologist now depending on the time of day. I am not about to change either, even though there is an audiologists office literally a 5 minute walk from my new apartment. I am the same, I won't settle for something that isn't great because of convenience. Especially with my ears involved! Not to mention I am pretty sure I have the best audiologist in the entire world!

No, I won't make my 6 year old sit for hours and hours, doing test after test, to *hope* to improve her score a percent.

I doubt your 6 year old would do it even if you made her! I can just see the meltdowns already!!!

 

[JennyB]

I have worked with quite a few kids that are fitted with naidas. It is 50/50 I think. If she isn't doing worse with it, and she willingly leaves it in then that is normally a decent enough sign of success. Give it a try. I have MUCH experience with Naidas, and my job is all about working with Deaf kids. PM me any time

 

[deafdude1]

Deafdude--
Yes, that's my current audiogram. No hearing aid works on my 'dead ear' which is my left ear. My speech discrimination score is currently 44% w/ 100
db threshold (however, I must say looking at my old audiogram that it used to be 77% at 90 db threshold about 15 years ago.

None of my old audiograms gave me a speech discrimination score. Was that on spondee words? My 1998 audiogram, they tried spondee words but I wasn't getting most of them so they switched to numbers and I got many correct at 95db. My hearing also got worse from 1998, I used to hear at 100db at 1000-6000Hz now it's 120+ db!

I can explain this: the prevalent use of text messaging and e mails has left me with a more lax attitude of using the telephone. I NEED to get my brain wired back w/ listening skills to bring back up my speech discrimination scores).

I could never understand phones at anytime in my life. So yea im glad for emails

Speechreading scores? How do you get that? I've never gotten a speech reading score. I'd have to say my speech reading capabilities are good but I have no idea of how I'd score.

How much of the converstation can you understand when you talk to someone by lipreading? I understand about 80% of what that person says by reading lips.

I no have intentions of getting a CI on my left ear. My reason is this: my brain would not be able to discriminate speech sounds. I believe I'd only benefit from getting environmental sounds which, to me, isn't that big of a deal. I'd rather be able to hear, recognize and understand speech skills. So, for now-- I will stick to hearing aids for the one ear I can hear on.

How do you know a CI in any ear will give you acceptable speech scores? If I had a dead ear, I would have gotten a CI a few years ago in the dead ear. It would at least let me hear with two ears instead of one. Any results in the dead ear would be an improvement over 0% and if a CI in the dead ear can't even match a HA in my other ear, I will be glad I didn't risk my only good ear! Id be saving the good ear and it's residual hearing for stem cells.

Two MONTHS to adjust to your new hearing aids? That seems like eternity! I'm going to the audiologist today to pick up the Phonak Naida after it has been repaired, if you can believe it. I also have the I-com coming with it as well.

It's a big difference from my old Widex Senso HA I had for 10 years. CI or stem cells would be an even bigger difference and could take 6-12 months to adjust!

I know your take on stem cells and it's definitely an intriguing idea to me. Truthfully, I'm not quite sure it will be out in five years or less like you've said in some of your posts.

If you read my blog(click on audiogram in my sig) youll notice that stem cells are already being used on a handful of people. Those labs are now able to treat any candidate with major hearing loss today! I am just waiting for the pioneers traveling overseas(China in particular) to report back with their results, then me and Phi4sius are next. Hopefully we can get it together at the same time! However stem cells has been used on over 6000 people for other diseases/conditions, including blindness and they experienced fewer complications than those who got CI. Stem cells is natural and can be inserted by injection/IV that easily! If you wish to discuss this more, feel free to post in my blog or in a stem cell thread.

However, if it does come out in five years (give or take), I may consider it (in that case- I wouldn't even do the CI as I'd lose residual hearing). On the other hand, once I retire from work (which is about
12 years give or take), then I don't think I'd have the motivation or the desire to get either a cochlear implant or stem cells.

Ill definately be getting stem cells in less than 5 years. Phi4sius strongly believes we will get our chance in the summer of 2010 as this is enough time to see results/audiograms/testimonials from a few dozen pioneers. I admire his optimism, although I think itll take longer than a year for enough pioneers to have gone ahead and gotten their results. But hey when Phi4sius is ready, id love to make arrangements and meet him at the same stem cell clinic at the same time and we can get stem cells together and discuss our results. Would you be willing to go at the same time as we go? I won't be getting CI as im saving my residual hearing for stem cells which im getting soon enough.

 

[deafdude1]

Why would we go to an inferior audiologist just because they are closer? I want my daughter to see the person with the most experience and the most talent. He just is further away.

Makes sense.

No, I won't make my 6 year old sit for hours and hours, doing test after test, to *hope* to improve her score a percent.

The improvement should be much more. I would personally be happy to take hours for myself or a child in my family for days, weeks, months on end if it means improving speech scores big time. I consider CI a last resort only after exhausting every possible HA and possible way of programming said HAs. 25% of those who got a CI would have gotten serious benefit if they kept trying HAs.

We'll see if the transposition helps, but no one has high hopes. We believe that whatever took her hearing, took the ability to understand speech. She can hear sounds well, but not speech.

So no one knows, they just "believe" but can't prove it for a fact or offer any explaination. Is she a unique case or are there others with very similiar audiograms who lack speech understanding?

Just because YOU can hear well, doesn't mean she can. Her hearing loss is different than yours. You were born deaf, she was born hearing and then given a medication that fried the hair cells in her ears. It is a different cause, so the results are different.

Im wondering how her hearing differs from mine. This has me very curious and is something I need to research on. I have found that any gain above 500-600Hz gives me no improvement in speech. In fact even if no gain is applied above 500-600Hz, my speech scores don't go down at all! My cochlea is dead to speech above 600Hz or so, but I can still sense sounds and differnate pitch up to 1200Hz or so, above that the pitch is the same and I countinue to "respond" on an audiometer as high as 3000-4000Hz.

Maybe her cochlea is dead to speech above 500Hz just like mine? But doesn't she hear pretty much flat at 85db from 1000Hz to 8000Hz? Wouldn't this mean she has more surviving hair cells than I do? Maybe the damage done to her hair cells had more effect on clarity rather than loudness. She could have more hair cells than me but the quality of her surviving hair cells are lower than mine. I have fewer hair cells than she does but the quality of my surviving hair cells are better than hers. Therefore she hears louder with more hair cells being stimulated while I don't hear as loud with less hair cells but I hear clearer as my hair cells are less damaged. This could be a plausible theory you could discuss with your audiologists

That is why a CI works so well for her. Her nerve and brain pathways are fine, just the hair cells are messed up. The CI bypasses the hair cells, and she can understand speech.

It's understood that her hair cells are messed up. Her new Phonak Naida V UP HA will determine once for all how messed up her hair cells are. Even if you don't want her hearing at 10db, isn't it worth trying 10db aided hearing for a few minutes to see if she may say "oh wow I can understand most of what you just said" or perhaps "I am hearing so much more!" It would be interesting to compare 30db aided with her old HAs vs. 10db with her new, more powerful HAs. I showed you another thread saying that someone hearing at 30db can miss 25% of speech while someone hearing at 10db has access to all of the speech banana.

No, they have never been wrong. They were the ones who helped me push to get her the CI in the first place.

Wasn't CI all your idea?

 

[faire_jour]

Makes sense.

The improvement should be much more. I would personally be happy to take hours for myself or a child in my family for days, weeks, months on end if it means improving speech scores big time. I consider CI a last resort only after exhausting every possible HA and possible way of programming said HAs. 25% of those who got a CI would have gotten serious benefit if they kept trying HAs.

So no one knows, they just "believe" but can't prove it for a fact or offer any explaination. Is she a unique case or are there others with very similiar audiograms who lack speech understanding?

Im wondering how her hearing differs from mine. This has me very curious and is something I need to research on. I have found that any gain above 500-600Hz gives me no improvement in speech. In fact even if no gain is applied above 500-600Hz, my speech scores don't go down at all! My cochlea is dead to speech above 600Hz or so, but I can still sense sounds and differnate pitch up to 1200Hz or so, above that the pitch is the same and I countinue to "respond" on an audiometer as high as 3000-4000Hz.

Maybe her cochlea is dead to speech above 500Hz just like mine? But doesn't she hear pretty much flat at 85db from 1000Hz to 8000Hz? Wouldn't this mean she has more surviving hair cells than I do? Maybe the damage done to her hair cells had more effect on clarity rather than loudness. She could have more hair cells than me but the quality of her surviving hair cells are lower than mine. I have fewer hair cells than she does but the quality of my surviving hair cells are better than hers. Therefore she hears louder with more hair cells being stimulated while I don't hear as loud with less hair cells but I hear clearer as my hair cells are less damaged. This could be a plausible theory you could discuss with your audiologists

It's understood that her hair cells are messed up. Her new Phonak Naida V UP HA will determine once for all how messed up her hair cells are. Even if you don't want her hearing at 10db, isn't it worth trying 10db aided hearing for a few minutes to see if she may say "oh wow I can understand most of what you just said" or perhaps "I am hearing so much more!" It would be interesting to compare 30db aided with her old HAs vs. 10db with her new, more powerful HAs. I showed you another thread saying that someone hearing at 30db can miss 25% of speech while someone hearing at 10db has access to all of the speech banana.

Wasn't CI all your idea?

What am I going to do, strap her down and force her to do the same tests over and over again? Clearly you do not have children

Ok, you believe that she (and others) could get more benfit from hearing aids. How do you explain that when she had a moderate loss, she also got very little benefit? She was 15 db sloping to 65 db, and she didn't understand spoken language. Her hearing with hearing aids is NOT useful. What part do you not understand? And no, she is not unique. Miss Kat's SLP says that there are lots of kids who get CI's and it is a total transformation. That they thought they were doing "ok" with their hearing aids but then when they got a CI, the difference was staggering. She said she sees it most often with AN/AD kids.

You were born with a hearing loss. Do you know why? The cause often affects outcome. Miss Kat's hair cells were damaged, not just missing or malformed. They used to work, and then, after the meds, they didn't. And they have continued to degrade since then.

I want her aided to what a professional believes is correct. A professional, Ph D., audiology professor with 20 years experience with hundreds of children. NOT some guy who fancies hi,self knowlegable because he cranked his hearing aids up to 11 and believes he'll fly to China tommorrow and be cured through risk free magic stem cells.

 

[deafdude1]

Wendy H, see my reply to you above.

What am I going to do, strap her down and force her to do the same tests over and over again? Clearly you do not have children

Ask nicely and explain it's for her own good? Give her a reward for her patience. No, I don't have children, however I am the oldest child.

Ok, you believe that she (and others) could get more benfit from hearing aids. How do you explain that when she had a moderate loss, she also got very little benefit? She was 15 db sloping to 65 db, and she didn't understand spoken language.

When did she start losing her ability to understand speech? As for a 15db sloping down to 65db loss, this is similar to what my dad has now and my dad understands at least 90% speech unaided. So something doesn't make sense. A loss of 15db is normal hearing for that frequency. Frequencies above 2000Hz convey very little speech information, my dad hears "S" and "F" unaided. Was she much worse than 15db at anything above 250Hz as I suspect? My dad's hearing is normal(25db or better) at 2000Hz and below but has a moderate loss(40-70db) at 3000Hz to 8000Hz.

Her hearing with hearing aids is NOT useful. What part do you not understand?

OHC=outer hair cells
IHC=inner hair cells

Many parts, but that's why I am here to learn. I believe you but am still trying to learn more about this. I am surprised there's such a wide range of speech scores for given degrees of hearing loss. This even applies for those who get CI so it's not just due to damaged hair cells. We know that everything else about Miss Kat is normal except her hearing. Phi4sius has a severe hearing loss and he scores as high on speech as Miss Kat's CI. This is another thing I don't understand. Ill have to study this phenomenon. I do know there's IHC and OHC and that OHC accounts for only 5% of speech information while IHC accounts for 95% and that if you have no IHC, you have a cochlear dead region. I do know that OHC usually gets damaged first and that OHC accounts for 50-65db of your hearing(from low to high freq.) and IHC accounts for another 20-30db. It's why that guide on cochlear dead regions say that at 70db HL, the chance of a dead region somewhere is 60% and that at 90db HL, the chance is greater than 90%!

I now wonder if her ototoxic medicine(s) destroyed almost all her IHC but spared much of her OHC? Ive read that OHC act basically as an amplifier and that if you had no surviving OHC but all your IHC was intact, youd hear normally with properly programmed/amplified HAs that aid you down to 10db or better. It's unusual for the IHC to be badly damaged or destroyed first while largely sparing the OHC. Ill have to Google articles on this and post them in the speech thread. It's something very interesting I and others can learn.

And no, she is not unique. Miss Kat's SLP says that there are lots of kids who get CI's and it is a total transformation. That they thought they were doing "ok" with their hearing aids but then when they got a CI, the difference was staggering. She said she sees it most often with AN/AD kids.

How bad was their unaided hearing, did they try the best HAs and were any unusual cases like Miss Kat who had their IHC damaged before their OHC?

I want her aided to what a professional believes is correct. A professional, Ph D., audiology professor with 20 years experience with hundreds of children. NOT some guy who fancies himself knowlegable because he cranked his hearing aids up to 11 and believes he'll fly to China tommorrow and be cured through risk free magic stem cells.

I will ask for the most gain possible without overamplifying(meaning a loss of 50db for example with a gain of 60db) because I want to hear the most sounds and speech. I know about distortion and as long as my speech doesn't drop with maximum gains from distortion, I am keeping those gain levels then. No one knows how well a person will respond to more gain until it's tried. If it works, good. If it doesn't work, simply back the gain down little by little. In my case, I am able to accept maximum gains at 500Hz and below. Above 500Hz, the problem is SPL due to my degree of loss, I simply don't have enough of a dynamic range. But besides, no amount of gain/SPL above 500Hz makes a difference in my speech scores. Even no gain above 500Hz gives me the same speech score. Yet I can hear the proper pitch to a little over 1000Hz. Perhaps I have intermittant cochlear dead regions in the mid frequencies and a vast cochlear dead region in the highs. As for stem cells, my blog explains it all.

 

[Grummer]

oh boy this is complicated...

 

[MaxWho]

Out of here

Hi All, it seems this thread has moved far and away from the original posting of below, so I'll drop out as I'm unable to be of help now. I thank everyone for all the information you provided me in my ramp-up to being fitted with a set of IX. From my heart I wish all the very best in your search for the "best solution" for you. “Best” is what will work for you as an individual with all the unique challenges and problems found in the implementations and solutions available at this time. As to the IX, for me and my problems it has turned out to be the very best solution I’ve ever had the opportunity to be helped with. I’m happy to talk with anyone about the IX and my limited 2 months of use, just PM me. Warm regards to all!

Hey all!

I have noticed a lot of discussion on the new Phonak Naida lately and have decided that it deserves it's own thread!

I have a few questions for those of you using it or planning on trying it.

For starters I have heard all of these amazing stories of everything people are hearing with them. I am trying them next week *bouncing off the walls with anticipation* and I don't want to have any high hopes just incase they don't work for me. If you do use them, or are planning on trying them what are you thresholds likes? What is your speech discrim like? What aids were you using before? How much did they help? What differences in sound quality have you noticed?

My most recent audiogram (done last Tuesday) looks like this...

Air conducted, right ear: 250hz-100db, 500hz-100db, 1000hz-90db, 2000hz-100db, 3000hz-90db, 4000hz-110db, and I did not respond to 6000hz or 8000hz at all.

Air conducted, left ear: 250hz-95db, 500hz-105db, 1000hz-100db, 1500hz-115db, 2000hz-110db, and I did not respond to 3000hz, 4000hz, 6000hz, or 8000hz.

My bone conducted results are fairly similar maybe better by about 5 db.

My speech discrim was 0% on that test as well.

My audie has never worked with Naida's before so she has no idea what I can expect. I know all hearing loss is different and no two people react the same way to aids, but I want to know if anyone with similar thresholds have had success with aids, not just Naida's. I guess I am just so sick of waiting to see if things will work LOL I am very much the kind of person who likes to plan ahead and know what to expect!

Anyway feel free to post anything about high powered aids, Naida's, profound loss, or anything else!

 

[Wendy H]

None of my old audiograms gave me a speech discrimination score. Was that on spondee words? My 1998 audiogram, they tried spondee words but I wasn't getting most of them so they switched to numbers and I got many correct at 95db. My hearing also got worse from 1998, I used to hear at 100db at 1000-6000Hz now it's 120+ db!

The speech discrimination score came from a list of words that the audiologist used. I'm not sure which list it came from but I do know that the most recent test consisted of one syllable words. I know that I score higher on a list of words that consist of double syllable words or compound words (i.e. hot dog, baseball, etc.) Perhaps that's why I scored in the 70's (percentage wise) and that was around 1984 (ok, geez that was 25 years ago and I was thinking it was 15 years ago).

I could never understand phones at anytime in my life. So yea im glad for emails
Definitely glad for e mails for the most part, too! However, I think for myself and for personal reasons I need to get back into using the phone more often. I used to talk on the phone with friends all the time. Now we all use e mails (maybe because over time our lives have changed since friend's children have been born and less time is spent on the phone). I'm sure some of those things contribute to the reasons I've been on the phone less.
How do you know a CI in any ear will give you acceptable speech scores? If I had a dead ear, I would have gotten a CI a few years ago in the dead ear. It would at least let me hear with two ears instead of one. Any results in the dead ear would be an improvement over 0% and if a CI in the dead ear can't even match a HA in my other ear, I will be glad I didn't risk my only good ear! Id be saving the good ear and it's residual hearing for stem cells.
Definitely any results in a dead ear would do some good. However, from looking at friends that were born profoundly deaf and got no benefit from hearing aids-- I know at least 2 people that received cochlear implants and they only heard environmental sounds and were not able to recognize any speech sounds. That's likely to happen in my left ear and my brain would not recognize it either. The likelihood of getting much better results would be to implant my right ear. However I feel that I function well enough with hearing aids for now (if I'm repeating myself- forgive me-- I'm having enough trouble trying to figure out how to respond to your posts w/ multiple messages. I'll probably screw up and I post this message as I don't see a "preview button" to check how this will come out! Urgh . . . Sorry for possibly making this confusing to read-- forgive me!)

It's a big difference from my old Widex Senso HA I had for 10 years. CI or stem cells would be an even bigger difference and could take 6-12 months to adjust! Egads-- still that's a long time to adjust to new hearing aids. I recently got a Phonak Naida V UP and it's not taking me long to adjust at all. Just may have to go back for some tweaking. I definitely hear more environmental sounds and
a few other things but not I don't think it is dramatically different from my one year old Phonak analogs (with the exception of the accessories it comes with).

If you read my blog(click on audiogram in my sig) youll notice that stem cells are already being used on a handful of people. Those labs are now able to treat any candidate with major hearing loss today! I am just waiting for the pioneers traveling overseas(China in particular) to report back with their results, then me and Phi4sius are next. Hopefully we can get it together at the same time! However stem cells has been used on over 6000 people for other diseases/conditions, including blindness and they experienced fewer complications than those who got CI. Stem cells is natural and can be inserted by injection/IV that easily! If you wish to discuss this more, feel free to post in my blog or in a stem cell thread. Hey, if you're right and you get the stem cells in an acceptable time period for me and it's successful-- let me know cuz I'll sign myself up. I think that if I were to opt for stem cells on my dead hear, I'd have the same results (my brain still would have difficulty understanding/recognizing speech unlike my right ear connected to my brain). Possibly I'd have stem cells done on my right to get close to normal hearing. That would be incredible. I figure functioning with just one ear that responds to close to normal hearing ranges would be nice!

Would you be willing to go at the same time as we go? Call me chicken-- I'd tell you to go first and then see how you do and take things from there.

Well, let's hope I get this post up correctly because I do not see any 'preview messages' before posting this reply. If I screw up-- eh well . . . . not the end of the world!

 

[Wendy H]

Sorry!

Deafdude--
The above post was for you . . I tried color coding my answers. Obviously that didn't work!
My apologies for making the above post VERY confusing to read.
For those reading the above post-- I was responding to Deafdudes' questions and comments.

: ) Wendy

 

[deafdude1]

The speech discrimination score came from a list of words that the audiologist used. I'm not sure which list it came from but I do know that the most recent test consisted of one syllable words. I know that I score higher on a list of words that consist of double syllable words or compound words (i.e. hot dog, baseball, etc.) Perhaps that's why I scored in the 70's (percentage wise) and that was around 1984 (ok, geez that was 25 years ago and I was thinking it was 15 years ago).

Guess your hearing in your good ear is better than mine. I scored 4% unaided from a list of words(not spondee) ill need to have a speech test to see what I score aided. But I know in real life I must read lips or I don't understand enough by listening alone to carry a converstation. This was true even when I was young, although my parents said my hearing and speech understanding was better, even with old analog HAs.

Definitely glad for e mails for the most part, too! However, I think for myself and for personal reasons I need to get back into using the phone more often. I used to talk on the phone with friends all the time. Now we all use e mails (maybe because over time our lives have changed since friend's children have been born and less time is spent on the phone). I'm sure some of those things contribute to the reasons I've been on the phone less.

You could give relay service a try. For me, I just let my dad or another hearing person do the listening on phones for me. I never understood phones at anytime in my life. They aren't loud nor clear enough. So much easier to understand a live voice.

Definitely any results in a dead ear would do some good. However, from looking at friends that were born profoundly deaf and got no benefit from hearing aids-- I know at least 2 people that received cochlear implants and they only heard environmental sounds and were not able to recognize any speech sounds.

Were they deaf in both ears? What age did they get HAs and did they ever get access to sounds/speech? That makes the difference.

That's likely to happen in my left ear and my brain would not recognize it either. The likelihood of getting much better results would be to implant my right ear.

Was your dead ear ever working at any time? If yes then you have a chance of getting speech in that ear. If it was dead since birth then it's going to be more difficult but not impossible because your brain already understands speech. Youd have to train your brain to hear with both ears however. Overthepond chose to get a CI in her better ear and not her dead ear as she couldn't afford a 2nd CI if a CI in her dead ear doesn't give her enough benefit. I still would have only done my dead ear if I had a dead ear. No way am I risking a good ear and id save the good ear for the future. Id accept whatever results id get if I had a dead ear. Id also be able to hear in two ears. I don't have a dead ear so I am saving both for stem cells.

Hey, if you're right and you get the stem cells in an acceptable time period for me and it's successful-- let me know cuz I'll sign myself up. I think that if I were to opt for stem cells on my dead hear, I'd have the same results (my brain still would have difficulty understanding/recognizing speech unlike my right ear connected to my brain). Possibly I'd have stem cells done on my right to get close to normal hearing. That would be incredible. I figure functioning with just one ear that responds to close to normal hearing ranges would be nice!

Have you seen my stem cell blog yet? All your answers are there.

Call me chicken-- I'd tell you to go first and then see how you do and take things from there.

I am "chicken" too as I am waiting for the first 100 pioneers to go ahead then ill take things from there. Me and Phi4sius will be 101 and 102, you could be 103 to get stem cells.

edit: are you online? I sent you an AIM instant message but says you can't accept offline messages? Id love to share my knowlege of stem cells with you.

 

[Wendy H]

Deafdude--
I haven't been on AIM for some time. Try "looking' for me on after 9:00 (pacific standard time) tomorrow night. . .

 

[faire_jour]

When did she start losing her ability to understand speech? As for a 15db sloping down to 65db loss, this is similar to what my dad has now and my dad understands at least 90% speech unaided. So something doesn't make sense. A loss of 15db is normal hearing for that frequency. Frequencies above 2000Hz convey very little speech information, my dad hears "S" and "F" unaided. Was she much worse than 15db at anything above 250Hz as I suspect? My dad's hearing is normal(25db or better) at 2000Hz and below but has a moderate loss(40-70db) at 3000Hz to 8000Hz.

OHC=outer hair cells
IHC=inner hair cells

Many parts, but that's why I am here to learn. I believe you but am still trying to learn more about this. I am surprised there's such a wide range of speech scores for given degrees of hearing loss. This even applies for those who get CI so it's not just due to damaged hair cells. We know that everything else about Miss Kat is normal except her hearing. Phi4sius has a severe hearing loss and he scores as high on speech as Miss Kat's CI. This is another thing I don't understand. Ill have to study this phenomenon. I do know there's IHC and OHC and that OHC accounts for only 5% of speech information while IHC accounts for 95% and that if you have no IHC, you have a cochlear dead region. I do know that OHC usually gets damaged first and that OHC accounts for 50-65db of your hearing(from low to high freq.) and IHC accounts for another 20-30db. It's why that guide on cochlear dead regions say that at 70db HL, the chance of a dead region somewhere is 60% and that at 90db HL, the chance is greater than 90%!

I now wonder if her ototoxic medicine(s) destroyed almost all her IHC but spared much of her OHC? Ive read that OHC act basically as an amplifier and that if you had no surviving OHC but all your IHC was intact, youd hear normally with properly programmed/amplified HAs that aid you down to 10db or better. It's unusual for the IHC to be badly damaged or destroyed first while largely sparing the OHC. Ill have to Google articles on this and post them in the speech thread. It's something very interesting I and others can learn.

How bad was their unaided hearing, did they try the best HAs and were any unusual cases like Miss Kat who had their IHC damaged before their OHC?

I will ask for the most gain possible without overamplifying(meaning a loss of 50db for example with a gain of 60db) because I want to hear the most sounds and speech. I know about distortion and as long as my speech doesn't drop with maximum gains from distortion, I am keeping those gain levels then. No one knows how well a person will respond to more gain until it's tried. If it works, good. If it doesn't work, simply back the gain down little by little. In my case, I am able to accept maximum gains at 500Hz and below. Above 500Hz, the problem is SPL due to my degree of loss, I simply don't have enough of a dynamic range. But besides, no amount of gain/SPL above 500Hz makes a difference in my speech scores. Even no gain above 500Hz gives me the same speech score. Yet I can hear the proper pitch to a little over 1000Hz. Perhaps I have intermittant cochlear dead regions in the mid frequencies and a vast cochlear dead region in the highs. As for stem cells, my blog explains it all.

She couldn't understand speech, starting as soon as she started losing her hearing. At 12 months she had age appropriate language, she started losing her hearing after that. We discovered it at 18 months. Her spoken language had only progressed 6 months from age 18 months to age 5 years.

Her loss was 15 db at 250 hz, and then around 60 at the rest of the frequencies. She would lose about 10 db every 18 months until she became a CI candidate, April 2008.

I disagree with you about only 20% of speech being high frequency. The phenom "s" is one of the most important fetures of the English language. It conveys plurals, ownership, and sometimes it is the verb of the sentance. If you leave off just that one sound, you are unable to understand speech.

As for stem cells, we'll see. I think you'll still be say "soon, soon" ten years from now.

 

[set2]

I am getting a Naida 5 UP for my unimplanted ear to replace the Oticon SUMO I lost. (I feel like super glueing the thing to my ear, LOL). I have another mapping coming up after I get the Naida so I will be interested in seeing how I do with both the CI and HA. Does anyone know if the redesigned earhook is out? Any other tips besides removing the filters in the earhook if they are there?

 

[mbcbuild]

I am sorry, I don't think I understand you. Did you say you are wearing 8 year old Naidas? They are brand new on the market, so that would not be possible.

Or are you trialing the Naidas, and your last aids are 8 years old?

Sorry, just trying to clarify!

hello anyone there i just joined

 

[mbcbuild]

Iam new to website, i just bought naida 5 and was interested in buying fitting software. audiologist is to much trouble to visit and she cannot get my hearing aids adjusted right

 

[ljjehl]

Iam new to website, i just bought naida 5 and was interested in buying fitting software. audiologist is to much trouble to visit and she cannot get my hearing aids adjusted right

I don't think you will have to buy the software, just the hardware to connect to it. The iCube that connects the Naida to the iPFG software is hard to purchase, as Phonak restricted its sales to to authorized users. If you can find it, you can get a HiPro device and also cables that match the Niadas.

USB Hi-Pro knockoffs - Hearing Aid Forums | Hearing Loss | Hearing Aids

Unless someone has the access to Phonak's software,

https://eservices.phonakpro.com/Coo...ryZ3DUSAZ26PrivateLabelZ3D&reason=2&formdir=5

it also seems to be restricted. The link I had seems to have a login..........so good luck!!

 

[Deafguy66]

Phonak Naida IX accessories

Hi All,

I am new to the forum and I have some questions regarding the Naida IX accessories.

A little about myself: I was born deaf with profound hearing loss in both ears. I wore analog (last ones were oticons I think) up to about prolly 10 years ago (I'm 43 now). Approximately 14 years ago my left ear went out almost completely to the point where I can't hear out of it even with a hearing aid. I switched over to Phonak Supero in my right ear and noticed a dramatic improvement in my hearing. It was definitely an ear opening experience for me.

My first experience with an all digital hearing aid was a widex (not certain which one) and it was disastrous for me. I absolutely hated it and was quickly frustrated with not being able to control it. It was constantly changing and it would make these obnoxious knocking sounds when it did it. Needless to say I immediately switched back to the Supero.

So when my current audiologist wanted me to try the naida IX, as you can imagine I was quite leery and skeptical of it. I have had the naida IX for about 2 weeks now and I absolutely love it. I think the audiologist I have is awesome and she seems to understand how to make these work like I want them to. Not an easy task given my history.

So now I am trying to figure out what to do from an accessory standpoint. Currently I am using the iCOM which I mainly use with my cell phone as a bluetooth and as an audio headphone to connect through cable to the computer, iPOD, and TV. I do not have FM yet but I am asking for this capability now to try out. I was wondering if anyone out here can tell me how well the current smartlink works as compared to the zoomlink or easy link. My audiologist is telling me to go with the zoomlink and iCOM because it is so much easier to use the iCOM for bluetooth devices since it is more automatic. Also she says that the smartlink has no remote control over the naida IX aid. So if anyone has any experiences with these devices I would greatly appreciate any advice you could give me.

Thank-you in advance

 

[Hask12]

Deaf Dude, you get 80% comrehension by reading lips. That's pretty awesome. But why read lips. I thought amplification was the answer to speech comprehension.