One week from today I am having my CI surgery. I’m being implanted with an AB CI in my right ear.
I’ve been reading everything all of you have posted about cochlear implants for months now and I’d like to thank everyone for being on this forum. I’ve learned so much. I feel that reading your posts has helped in some way to prepare me, even made it a little less scary.
I’ll let you know how it goes some time the end of next week. Wish me luck!
All the best! I hope it goes really smoothly!
WH
CI user for 5 years, it has been a wild journey and babystep is key to success. Good luck!
@db4art wishing you all the best on your new journey into the land of hearing again. I’ve just gone 4 years this week I’ve absolutely no regrets. Keep us all updated on how you are going.
Good luck 
Good Luck and speedy recovery. All the best!
Good luck with your surgery.
Keep us updated on how it’s going.
How is your hearing in your left ear?
Curious if bilateral is in the future.
I lost most of the hearing in my right ear years ago and have been using a HA in the left and a Cros in the right for about 7 years. I have ordered the Link aid for my “good” ear.
The reason I’m getting the cochlear implant now is the hearing in my good ear has been slowly getting worse and I’m struggling to understand speech. If it keeps getting worse, I wouldn’t be able to hear much at all. With the CI in the right I’ll be able to hear.
I’ll just have to see how I do being bimodal. From my reading being bimodal can deliver a more natural sound. If my left ear gets a lot worse? Maybe bilateral. AB also offers a link HA to go with the CI. I might try that first. It’s all hypothetical right now.
I think we are similar
Some background: I have asymmetrical hearing loss before surgery and I still get 80% speech understanding in my good ear.
In my world, CI sound more natural than my hearing aid because CI is able to reproduce sound that isn’t reproducible with my HA. From what i learned over the years, the naturalness is a subjective quality
This is so true.
People seem to forget we hear with our brain that is very flexible.
To the OP. You probably already know this but be patient with your new CI. It takes time for sound to normalize. Some are faster than others at this. Don’t take it personal if you are not as fast as Joe or Jane. It will come
I do understand “natural” is very subjective.
I hope I’m prepared enough to be patient. But I’m sure I’ll have times I’m very frustrated as well. Knowing how long it can take to understand words and for sound to normalize is one of the reasons I put this off for a few years after my Audi suggested it.
I will be following this very closely,. I am an approved candidate but fence sitting. I am getting by ok with my levo2400ai. I am 90 and I am trying to eval the pros and cons in my situation. I cannot get a fix on what percentage go through this with relatively no consequences. I realize the readings on Facebook and other places are from those who have problems but what are my odds???
It takes most recipients the best part of 12 months to get the best result from a CI. Everyone’s hearing journey is so very different. Some can understand speech on activation day. Some take 1-2 months and others take 3+ months to understand speech. It will happen for you when all the necessary new sound pathways have been made in the brain… You just need to hang in there until these pathways have been made…
Good luck…
I’m sure everyone wants to be one of those people who can hear speech right always and has the robotic/Mickey mouse sounds gone in a month.
But I know better! I understand it usually takes a long time to get the best results from a CI. And that it takes a lot of work to get there.
My first CI all I heard was screeches and scratches for 3-4 weeks. I got very frustrated knowing so many heard words at activation.
Then slowly the lower frequencies started making a little sense. At two months I could hold a conversation on the phone. That’s when I moved forward going bilateral.
This is my journey. We each have our own.
It sure sounds like you are going into this CI with a good head.
@db4art Congratulations! My hearing loss is worse than yours and I am still wearing Signia superpower hearing aids, trying to extract maximum sound as I can. I am fence-sitting about Cochlear implants. I am almost 35 now and unsure if I should live the rest of my life with hearing aids or move to CI. The idea of getting surgery done and how the implants will look on my head is making me reluctant to go on this path but at the same time, I feel it’s something I should do. Please share your month-to-month journey for the next 12 months. People like me will be extremely grateful and you will leave behind a great internet resource for millions of people.
Does anyone have an idea how much it costs to get CI implants for both ears if one has to pay out of pocket?
my surgery cost for one ear is $45k so upward $100k for both ears. you need to be willing to spend $10k for sound processor upgrades, about 15-20k for both ears. every 5 to 10 years…
It seems like every medical cost billed through insurance lately has exceeded the contractually allowed amounts. Meaning the gov’t and insurance won’t pay what they’d like (and what they will bill you!)
Sometimes it is only a little over. Sometimes it is a lot! No idea why they aren’t just billing what they know is the allowed amount.
If you talk to the office after the billing and explain that you aren’t covered by insurance and are paying out of pocket, and can’t afford they often trim it a significant amount. Hospitals seem a lot less likely to do that than private practices, so you may be stuck with some hospital fees that are exorbitant while the doctors bring their fees down quite a bit.
WH
Hey @ssa thanks for sharing! This seems to be an inflated hospital bill that they write so that insurance providers can pay up.
@WhiteHat you’re correct but instead of afterward, I have done such talks with some docs beforehand and if it is paid out of pocket (no insurance), the prices are much much cheaper. I was just hoping there’s someone in this forum has paid out of pocket so I can get an accurate estimate of what it will cost.
