Hello,
This might sound like a silly question but here I am anyway. 
How well could people hear after having cochlear implants done?
I know this depends on many factors. But assuming that everything is a success, how much of their hearing loss is recovered?
Thank you!
Your natural hearing is never recovered. My natural hearing WRS was 26% in my R ear. After my CI surgery my WRS is now 94%. When I take my processor off for the night I can’t hear anything other than noise that is not able to be interpreted.
If I could reach such a recognition level in my left ear, I would be more than satisfied.
Thank you!
It’s not easy, and don’t expect it to just happen. It takes hours of rehab, training your brain to hear a different way to natural hearing.
Some understand speech on activation, others take 2-3 months and some take a lot longer before they can understand speech.
Yes, I’m totally aware of that.
The problem is that the CI cost is quite expensive in my country and I’m not sure whether it’s included in the insurance!
Thank you!
Something that might help you is to contact one of the cochlear implant companies and ask them to help you with this. They know much more about this than most people and typically want to help.
I used the Internet to contact them so I didn’t need to talk on a phone. They were super helpful.
CI cost is expensive everywhere. Without insurance it’s almost impossible for most people to get CI.
Dr. Rachel Cook of Dr. Cliff clinic said in an recent video about CI and she had a client with 8 % word score, after he got the CI implant and training, his word score went up to 88%. CI does not restore hearing. With my hearing aids, l can hear a dog barking and knows that it’s from a dog. With the CI, you will not hear the same sound from the dog that’s similar to what l hear from hearing aid. With the CI, it’s an different sound and you need lots of training to notice what these CI sounds are.
This is not entirely true.
One of the things about hearing is it is all about memory, IMO. If you remember a dogs sound from back when you could hear well and you lose your hearing, then get a CI. What will slowly happen is your brain will learn these new sounds from the CI and it will become what you remembered back when you could hear well.
This has happened to me with most sounds. I find sounds from the CI’s to be normal. The only time it is not is when it is a new sound that I need to learn or remember.
Music has been more challenging but very satisfying. I now can understand the words of songs that I never could before. Some music is better than others for CI.
What about the other ear that already knows what the sound of a dog or whatever is like? Doesn’t it help in this learning/ recovering process?
Or could the part of the brain connected to the good ear help the other part of the bad ear?
I don’t know if my questions make any sense but I’m trying to understand and learn!
Thank you!
This is my opinion only.
I believe the good ear is actually a hindrance to the CI ear learning. The newly activated CI ear needs to be stimulated with sound that goes to the brain for it to learn all these new sounds.
The brain tends to be lazy and go the easy path. If you are wanting to talk to someone for example the good ear would take over and the CI ear would not learn.
I got to thinking about this and wonder if I am wrong about CI sounding normal for those with only one CI.
I am bilateral CI so I do not have a hearing aid or a good ear. So it sure could be that I just don’t understand the difference that some have with a good ear. But for me being bilateral CI sound is very normal.
I learned this from the audiology dept at local college in the 1990s. l guess CI technologies has improved a lot and possible that you can hear similar sounds from hearing aids with training.
If l were to get a CI, l won’t do it on my good ear. I would use it on my left ear. I will have to speak with CI audiologists someday. The Phonak L90-UP aids will probably be my last pair of hearing aids.
A LOT has changed since the 90s. Check my audiogram - I got a CI for my worse ear a year ago and it’s been a great help.
Jak słyszę przez implant - dwa lata później - YouTube
EDIT:
How I hear through the cochlear implant - two years later (youtube.com)
There are link to clip from SSD person from my country (with closed captions in english) “How I hear by CI - two years after surgery”
My experiences are slightly different, e.g. I hear quite well guitar an piano, but I can’t distiguish pitches (maybe yet - it’s very difficult given I have 22 electrodes compared to 3500 inner hair cells).
It’s my opinion also. Almost year ago, in Apr 23’, @Raudrive have had given advice to hear only by CI on my left without any involvement of my better ear. I used my Phone Clip for Bluetooth streaming extensively to listen to podcasts, even if I didn’t understand them at all.
I had a break from rehab about 2,5 months due to exam in October, after which I returned to CI training.
At the end of January, in WRS test in quiet (CI only in 65 dbA) I have 80% 
I had not perform that test on CI before. In HA only and bimodal condition I have 100%.
Now it’s not ideal, becauce reception the word isn’t the same as perception (see the screens below). I can repeat much sentences from podcasts, but I have to process them for a while. Slowing down speed of playback helps a bit.
So, thank you @Raudrive for advice almost year ago
This is amazing.
Thank you so much for letting us know how you are doing.
You have learned how to learn.
Stick with it. It just gets better.
I’ll try, thanks:) However we will have to remember that gaining better hearing with CI is hardly a target in itself. Rather, it’s getting a better tool to communicate with anyone, for example.
By the way, referring to the main topic, recently I found another useful article, in that case about hearing music with CI:
Improving Cochlear Implant Recipients’ Relationship with Music | The Hearing Review
I like especially this scheme. Of course it’s a rule of thumb, but very useful to sum up knowledge about rehabilitation:
I’m going to state that your hearing isn’t going to be identical to any hearing you had before a loss. With my situation I lost my hearing in my better ear by SSHL in 12/2019. I was implanted in 7/2020 and activated in 8/2020. There wasn’t a long period of time between the loss and implantation. So I had a bit of an advantage.
I wear a hearing aid i. The other ear and hear naturally, but without my hearing instruments, I am profoundly deaf. Your brain ends up blending the natural sound from one ear with the sound through the sound processor of the implant. After time, it all seems to sound the same, at least for me. Another thing you gain by using both a HA and a CI is you regain a stereo sounding experience. I can tell the difference when I don’t wear my sound processor and then put it on. That’s been my experience.
Really? Hearing through a CI only is (at least to you) the same as hearing through a better ear? I have that on the trebles such as bips.
I agree with most of you have written.
