Should I continue with Oticon Xceed or get a cochlear implant?

Recently got binaural oticon xceed hearing aids, I have a severe-profound loss and with these, I can hear somewhat!! I was going to get a cochlear implant but I feel like I’m getting a lot of benefit from these hearing aids. Should I continue with the hearing aids until they’re useless, or should I get the implants, knowing it’s almost guaranteed to be necessary later? I’m really not sure how to proceed.

Thank you for any advice

I would given the choice be inclined to go for the implants… If I were in your shoes. At best, the contextual information you receive whilst aided is going to be limited and get progressively worse, so IMO tis better for your quality of life to go for it sooner rather than later. Good luck, cheers Kev.

Why make a decision now with everyone wearing masks and virus out of control? Seems you’re better off deciding which way to go six month to a year off from now.

If you can get a cochlear implant evaluation done that is the scientific way to answer your question.
Good luck.

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I would agree with @Raudrive Get an eval. You have nothing to lose and you’ll gain a lot of information.

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keep them, I might as well try those next year #perksofhavingabdayduringtheholidays

I have same situation as you, and I preferred Xceeds. No surgery risks, no foreign objects in my head, no expensive coils, wires, batteries, no bulky installations at my head. Speech recognition is a brain feature, it’s not going from ear, hearing aids or implants.

@lostdeaf
Speech recognition indeed is a brain function.

However, it heavily depends on the signal it gets. And the more messed up signal is, brain has to work significantly more, if it even manages to decipher at all.

Keep in mind that brain interprets electrical impulses, which are coming through the nerves and are made by cochlea.

Common loss is damaged cochlea.

Hearing aids work to some extent with that, while damage is moderate. Sending louder sound, hair cells which are still alive but not in top shape, get more energy and they wiggle and produce the signal. But signal is more and more messed up because of so many missing spots.

Brain will indeed get something, but might just be utterly lost to make any sense out of it.

Cochlear implant skips damaged cochlea and transfer sound to electric impulses is done by the machine outside your head and just transferred through your middle ear to the nerve.

Then brain gets clear signal again. And can decipher the meaning.

But with long wait, problem is that brain was trained to decipher grabled signal, and when it gets clearer one, it doesn’t know what to do with it. It has to be retrained.

Success of such rehabilitation heavily depends on waiting time, because statistically, the longer you were without any excitation in some frequency area, chances are bigger that brain was shut down that part of dedicated to those frequencies or reused for something else.

With brain it’s - use it or lose it.

The reason why I started with HA for bad ear (I lost hearing overnight) is because I was warned about that brain property - use it or lose it. And if anything happens with my good ear, if brain was allowed to forget about my bad ear, I’d be deaf probably.

Why I wear two aids now? Even if my good ear is really good (normal hearing). Because it puts so much less strain to understand people speaking, not to mention any streaming, than when my brain gets two different signals from each side. It’s just much more work, and is more convenient just to shut down one side.

I decided to go with two, to make my life easier. I’m 37 years old. And I went to CI evaluation for the bad ear, just to hear what future holds (eg if damage is in cochlea or also in nerve). Conclusion is that nerve is fine and one day indeed I might be CI candidate.
Which to me means that now I don’t need to think about significant changes for my career, in case I lose hearing on that side completely and there is no help anymore in form of CI. I also decided that when they give me green light for CI, I’m doing it. Because of that brain’s use it or lose it. I want the best chances.

So, individual situation is really important. I’d say, age and occupation plays big role into deciding of waiting vs do it now.

But, knowing more is always good in order to make a decision, even if decision is ‘wait until x’.

So, @ethan.coulon791 my vote goes out to ‘do CI evaluation’. Then mull over that, share information here, discuss with us. And you’ll know the answer.

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Part of the cochlear implant evaluation is personal questions about you. Things like why do you want to hear better. Will you have the drive to learn speech with an implant. Will hearing better bring value to your life and those around you.

Implants are more than just getting surgery. It’s not about vanity but really wanting to hear better for you and your loved ones. For some it can also be the difference between having a job and not having a job.

Only you can make the decision if hearing and understanding speech is important.

Good luck.

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Do your research, find a good reputable CI assessment clinic around your area. Get your referral and do the 2+ hour assessment.
Then ask yourself all these questions-
Will being able to hear enhance your work life? Your at a work conference, at a round table discussion. Can you hear what’s being discussed?
Will better hearing improve your family life? Your social life? Are you a recluse when you go out and sit in the corner because you struggle to hear or understand what’s being said? Can you hold a conversation on the phone? Can you hear when out to dinner in a restaurant with friends? How many times a day do you have to say “I’m sorry can you repeat that please”?
Can you hear emergency response vehicles coming behind you when your driving?
Write yourself a pros and cons list, with all the things you can and can’t do because of your hearing loss.

Just because you go for the assessment doesn’t mean you HAVE to follow through with the operation. I had the assessment and sat on the fence for a further 18 months before moving forward with getting a CI. During that 18 months I did so much research into CI’s that it’s not funny.
@Blacky age doesn’t really play a big part in the decision making. I was 69 when I got mine.

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I thought more in line of - if you’re younger, it’s more likely that you’ll benefit more out of it and that the risk is more worthy than in situation where benefit would be smaller. Like, if you still have bunch of working years ahead of you vs you’re in retirement and in the woods chilling somewhere.

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Hearing aids enjoy a development path that improves them. Is that true for implants? And if that is true, would it make sense not to migrate to implants prematurely?

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Not sure “enjoy” fits this or I am misunderstanding your point.

The many discussions you read on this forum about new hearing aid users needing to take time to learn new sounds with hearing aids is also true with implants.

The rationale of the implant is to get sounds to the brain that the cochlea is not able to do because of physical reasons inside the ear. When the ear is unable to send enough sound information to the brain to make speech understanding out of it, that’s the time to get serious about an implant.

I was referring to the hardware and and software associated with CI. Think in terms of replacing a leg joint and balancing health resiliency and joint technology.

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@VinceJ yes it’s true for the CI’s as well. Cochlear have just released the new K2. I’ve heard a rumor that they are working on the N8 as well. Every time I go for a mapping I have to get a software update before the mapping takes place.
I know AB and Med el have released new hardware and software as well. But not being a recipient of these 2 I can’t tell you much more that that.

@Blacky I get what you mean now. I was forced to retire because I couldn’t take Drs phone orders anymore. Do yes the younger you are the more beneficial it would be, most definitely.

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UPDATE: I am deciding to stick with the hearing aids for now. I appreciate everyone’s input, and I’m doing pretty well with them for now. When all this COVID stuff is over I will probably get an evaluation, figure it can’t hurt.
P. S. I can’t even explain how awesome the Oticon Xceeds are!

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I couldn’t agree more with those that say trying to evaluate your hearing aids while everyone is wearing masks is a waste of time. I’ve had people with normal hearing tell me speech comprehension is greatly diminished because everyone is wearing a mask and they didn’t realize how much they depended on seeing a person’s lips. Also this is not the place to get opinions on whether or not you should have major surgery. There are experts out there who can better help you with that.

Couple things. First (as you say) if your Oticon Xceed aids are awesome - why would you be considering a CI? That makes very little sense. I don’t think I’ve read one post on HT where someone said “my HA are awesome but I might consider a CI”. A CI is a last resort when hearing aids fail. Since you’re very “high” on the Xceed and appear very satisfied with results - your inquiry into a CI seems rather out of place. Also there have been very few if any reviews on the Oticon Xceeds, and your post also seems to follow that trend with no specifics of why the Xceed is so “awesome”. Just have to wonder if your original post was an attempt to “pump” the Xceed (with no factual support) and then throw out the CI comparison to get poster feedback.

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:roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes:

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