@Deaf_piper Thank you so much!! Any insight I can glean will be so helpful. I’m encouraged to hear so many positive things from everyone. I live in a 55+ community and I think they are all grumps. Out of the 12 people who have CIs that I have talked to, 10 have only negative things to say about them. Not one positive thing!. The other two loved them. I can see from all our discussions here that I need to explore more as to why they have them, how was their hearing before. It will help me when I get to making a decision and I will better understand the whys…
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I think you need a perspective from an actual 18 hour per day user… I love music, speech with them, speech in noise is far better then any hearing aid on the market… I got my implant at 28 and now i am almost 32.5 years old. Almost 5 years in the making. I want (but not need) to get a CI on the other ear but my audiologist said no, not medically necessarily yet and i don’t have any reason to do it medically wise… (still scoring 80% on my non implanted ear)
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@irenejd52 just don’t leave moving forward until you can’t hear.
Why? Simply because if you move on while you have some natural hearing left, the necessary hours of rehab won’t be so difficult.
If you leave it until you can’t hear your starting from the bottom of the barrel. That’s not to say you won’t get a good result eventually. But you will need to do some serious hours in rehab.
If you look at my audiogram you will see I’ve still got good lows. My AuD said it’s because of these lows I was able to understand speech when I was activated. Others might have taken several mappings before they could understand speech.
If you have a current audiogram could you chart it so the forum CI members can give you better guidance.
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@Deaf_piper Wow! This is such good info. And very interesting and helpful. I always thought my audi was good, but I’m having my doubts now. She works in an office with an ENT who does CIs so I would have expected her to address these issues. Especially when I discussed with her that I wasn’t getting much positive feedback. We’ve never talked about this and I think I was asking the right questions. This kind of info is exactly what I need. Thank you so much!
I will post an audiogram when I get my next one in two weeks. I got away without getting the last one, but it was at least a year ago, so this one will be current. I’ll be sure to do that.
I’m somewhat new to the forum. Would I post and then just ask for input?
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You’re right, @ssa. I want lots of perspectives! I’m so unknowledgeable about these. Oh, to be able to hear speech in noise!!
Do people not use them all day? I could not imaging why they wouldn’t. I’m so glad you have a solution that is working so well for you! I can see what you want to be fully ‘CI-d’! Thanks for your views.
You need the mental will power to get used to it, Sometime people don’t have the will power to get used to it and took me like a year to get used to it.
i’m pinging @Raudrive, another implant user to give his perspective on things
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Yes!!! I can do this! It’s one reason I need to be sure. Once I’m committed, I’m good. I’m just not there quite yet. And all of you are helping.
Thanks for pinging another CI user! Much appreciated.
You have received some great information.
Getting a CI evaluation is the smartest thing you can do. It will answer so many questions you have about your hearing loss and possibly CI.
Lots of us move on from the audiogram and ask about word understanding or speech understanding. This is the real test about your hearing.
To the OP.
I do not have genic hearing loss, it was from noise exposure.
My job gave physicals each year. In my late twenties my hearing in both ears had lost 5 do each year for 4-5 years. At the time tinnitus was bad and I was told hearing aids wouldn’t help. So, I lived with increasing hearing loss and increasing tinnitus for about 15 - 20 years. Buy this time my ski slope hearing loss was profound in the higher frequencies.
My hearing loss continued to get worse with age getting more and more into the mid and lower frequencies.
At 65 when Medicare would help with CI I had both ears implanted withing 3 months.
Something else to understand is when your hearing gets bad enough hearing aids and CI are a blessing. You won’t complain about the little things. You will appreciate being able to communicate with your family or keep a job.
Sorry for the ramble.
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I wonder how much rehab they were willing to put into the process? Did they expect it to just work automagically? My mom had a joint replacement but quit way too early on the rehab. Now blames the replacement. She is a nurse and knew what she was doing, but still irrationally blames someone else.
Hard to tell on your community fellows.
Best wishes!
WH
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This is an interesting and somewhat scary question. I don’t really have any data on that yet for myself, as I only properly found out about my hearing loss a bit over a year ago. But seeing that I am only in my early 30s now and my hearing loss in the high frequencies is in the severe range it is quite worrying to think about how bad it may get to.
For now I could still get by without my HA if need be as my low frequencies are good. If that changed it would be different. Time will tell, I suppose!
I think with that ski_slope loss @Mosby, I would be very much inclined to get that loss aided, you have to be struggling in noise? The longer you leave it, the more difficult it is for your brain to relearn sounds… Cheers Kev 
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Wow that is a significant drop in hearing. If it doesn’t run in your family, I’d also want to know the cause behind it. Other than LOUD music, sometimes medications, stress, or some other kind of reaction may be part of it, but if you ever find out, please share it with us.
The good news is that you’re so young, that wearing aids will be like second nature to you, and you’ll be enjoying the technical improvements that are tumbling out faster and faster too.
I probably coulda, shoulda worn aids in my teens, but my folks didn’t have the money (even tho both mom and dad had aids). So I got my first pair at 35 and had to borrow the downpayment to afford them.
What brand of aids do you wear now if I may ask?
Getting checked out by an otologist or ENT may help rule out physical issues.
Oh sorry, I wasn’t very clear in my message earlier. I actually got hearing aids in December 2021 and haven’t gone a day without them since. I was just saying that if need to I could still get by without them in most situations. But I wouldn’t really want to at this stage. They are helping quite significantly!
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Take your time , do the research. But keep in mind that if you’re a cochlear implant candidate then hearing aids will also be limited as to how much help they’ll provide you.
My original AuD was negative about the idea of me looking into a CI because my hearing was such a ski slope. My ENT thought I should wait longer. Both had clients with CIs but they were unaware that the guidelines are changing to allow people to get them sooner than later. I scheduled with an AuD who does CI evaluations and she offered to send my results to Vanderbilt for review and Vanderbilt felt I would benefit. Most AuD sell hearing aids and do not have up to date intel on CIs.
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Unfortunately the ENT here owns an audiology practice. I doubt they would recognize a CI if it hit them. That is why I traveled to Duke to get checked out by an otologist there.
Agree - i had to travel 45 minutes to find a CI AuD. None in my town.
I thought AuD were not usually medically trained. I know they will not even perform ear wax removal.
My understanding about CI is an otologist usually evaluates medically and then works with a neurotologist who actually performs the surgery. Both are ENT sub specialties requiring additional training. Some, like my professional, are trained as both. Duke University is the closest place I could find to south central Virginia that has both sub specialties available.