Cochlear nucleus 8 and phonak aid

Cochlear Implants
#1

At have a servere to profound hearing loss in the left ear with nil word reconition and a moderate to severe loss in the right ear with 95% word recognition.

At present my left ear is fitted with a Phonak cros p and my right ear with a Phonak paradise 90 aid.
As I am still having great difficulty understanding speech in background noise I have been approved to have a Cochlear nucleus 8 implant fitted next Month to my left ear.

My Audiologist is recommending that I keep my Phonak aid in my right ear for 6 Months after the cochlear has been placed in my left ear as she considers that my hearing has adapted to this aid.

After this 6 Months she said I could consider having it replaced with a compatible Resound aid.

This seems like a sound idea but I was wondering what advantage I would obtain in using a Resound aid rather then continuing to use my Phonak paradise aid.

I

#2

Phone calls and music in both ears with Resound Aid.

Maybe better speech in noise as well.

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#3

@bestmg does your current audiologist do CI mappings?

I was made to wait 8 weeks before I got my Resound aid. I had a Phonak Bolero which was useless to me. But I wore it anyhow, just so I could hear something.

You need to remember everyones hearing journey is unique to them, no 2 people are the same. They don’t respond to the CI the same either. Some hear on activation, some take 2-3 months and others can take a lot longer before they can recognize speech. This is very normal as your brain has to learn to recognize the electronic signals and interpret them into words that you recognize.

When doing rehab you take your HA out and block that ear, so you work your CI ear only. Your N8 will stream directly to your ear and your Phonak won’t. IMO you will need your Resound aid at around 6 weeks or even earlier just so it will stream into your ear for you when talking on the phone.

You need to think about your work situation, do you make a lot of phone calls? If so, and your CI ear takes approx 3 months to be able to interpret speech. Your Phonak aid won’t stream to your other ear how will you manage? You Phonak aid won’t pair to your processor or phone easily.

The advantage of a Resound aid is that it will stream directly into your ear, and CI will as well. Your 2 ears will work together as one, with a Phonak aid they will not work together by streaming. I know my hearing felt very unbalanced with my ears working individually but separate. My world changed when I got my Resound aid.
Good luck to you on your new hearing journey, keep us informed of your progress.

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#4

Thank you for your comments.
My Audiologist does do mapping
I will be using the Angel Sound programme for rehabilitation and like you said I’ll have to put in a lot of work.
I am retired so I’ll have a good amount of time.
I was wondering that when I’m due to receive the Resound Aid if it will make a lot of difference if I go for a premium model or just a basic model.

I guess my Audiologist can help me to make this decision.

#5

Typically the top of the line aid has features that will not be used with the processor.
The lesser level hearing aid is cheaper and does everything needed to be bimodal.

Good luck

#6

Thank you I’ll let you know how i progress.

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#7

My Resound aid is a very old platform Enzo 3D and bottom level in technology. So you definitely don’t need top of the range model or level of technology. I

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