How well do people hear after getting cochlear implant?

Cochlear Implants
#21

What I said is that the brain adjusts to the sound and it doesn’t sound as mechanical. Nothing will be as good as your natural hearing was. How ever, if one were to have had a profound loss for a while before they had the implant, that person will hear sounds more clearly and at a level they could not hear before the implant.

An implant isn’t a replacement for natural hearing. It won’t miraculously give you super hearing better than you ever had. It enhances your ability to hear. A lot of it is practice and your brain. This is why if you have a sudden total loss of hearing in one ear, an ENT would encourage that person to be implanted sooner than later because of how your brain remembers sounds.

The sound is what concerned me, but since I had a sudden total loss, I had nothing to lose (I already lost the natural hearing) and the possibilty of hearing out of that ear again.

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#22

I’ve bee bilateral for a 2 years now. First implant 15 years ago.
Now I have 94% WRS in R ear, but only 70% in L. The L is gettin g better, thanks to advice from this forum!
I didn’t do any rehab with my first implant and everything went swimmingly. Looking back, I think that was thanks to working full-time at a highly interactive job, plus involvement in lots of social stuff outside of work. Things did not go well with WRS in my second implant but for some reason I made excuses (or whatever) and didn’t put any effort in for far too long. I had retired and gotten a bit hermit-like.

Finally woke up and started being faithful about doing rehab(whic amounted to any focused listening with only my L ear). After about 4 months, my WRS increased from 30% to the 70% it is now. Much better. I’m continuing to do an hour s day of Lonly listening and hoping for the best.
Best wishes! There’s every reason to expect good things.

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#23

Glad you are seeing results from your efforts. I thought about waiting until I retired to get my CI, but glad I didn’t. I think the immersion and forced varied environments was great “rehab” without realizing it. I did the usual rehab about an hour on most days, but that was it.

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#24

Thanks for sharing your experience! Glad to hear you achieved that high WRS.

#25

There’s this place where I get a coffee in the morning. Being going there for years. Vietnamese owners. Our communication is usually smile, nod, thankyou, the odd word. A lot of pretending to hear on my part. There’s this guy in there the other day with a CI. He pays for what he’s ordered and, while doing so, has an actual conversation with the lady. It’s obvious that there’s to and fro going on and understanding on both sides. It set me back on my heels a bit to be honest.

#26

I think you’re right.
I’m so grateful for this forum.