How are you doing?
Back again trying to get some hearing out of those bad ears.
I understand.
When a persons hearing gets bad it becomes very difficult to program the aids for speech understanding. Too many piano keys are missing!
I am now bilateral CI. Doing very well with them.
Which brand are your CI and how much did they cost you? Lastly, how much difference do you feel in your hearing compared to when you used to wear hearing aids?
Thanks! This is the first time I am hearing of Sky V70 UP hearing aids. I always thought Naida UP were the only models for profound hearing loss users like me. Have you tried Naida models? What’s the difference between Naida and Sky model in terms of output or speech understanding or anything else?
They have the same amount of power etc.
It’s just the colour of them and they have a flashing light (so you know if they are powered on) which I have turned off anyway. The rest is exactly the same.
Naida is aimed at adults.
Sky is aimed at children. That is why they are in more colours and have a flashing light.
Naida V70 UP and Sky V70 UP is basically the same technology inside apart from the flashing light.
Have a look at the new Naida Paradise UP. I can’t see why the new technology wouldn’t have the semi linear option as well.
I use Cochlear brand CI. I wear the Kanso 2 processors now, also have a pair of N7 processors.
I could not afford CI before reaching age 65 here in the US. Once I reached 65 Medicare paid for my CI implants. Both implants were done within 3 months.
The difference between hearing aids and CI is night and day. I could not have any form of conversation without reading lips in a quiet environment when I wore aids. Streaming phone calls had become very hit and miss. With CI I am in the 90% word understanding area in quiet and mid 60’s speech understanding in noise. These tests were over a year ago and I am confident they will be better on my next audiologist visit.
Good luck with your hearing.
I did try the Paradise UP once but despite maxing out the MPO, the sound was just not loud enough like my Signia. I don’t know why. I will give it another go!
I am so happy to hear that. Your quality of life must have gone up! I am hesitant about getting a CI and have some questions. I would appreciate it if you can address them:
In the US I hear numbers like $50-80 thousand for each CI. I really do not have a good answer. Your country may be totally different. Maybe your country will pay for your CI? I don’t know. The US Medicare system paid for my implants.
No, once the implant surgery is done with a particular CI brand, that’s it unless you have another surgery to remove the implant. All the CI brands update processors that will be compatible with older implants.
CI surge takes about 3-4 hours. In the US it’s an out patient procedure.
The on the ear processors like the Nucleus 7 are about the same size as the Phonak Naida UP aid. The Kanso 2 is about an 1.25 inches diameter and about .5 inch tall. I find it to be light and forget it’s even on my head.
The Kanso 2 does not have any wires to hang up on anything. The Nucleus 7 does have a wire from the processor to the coil. It lays next to your head, shouldn’t hang up things.
No problem going through TSA check points. If asked, it’s a medical device. You will receive documentation to prove this after surgery.
Hopefully other CI members can chime in with more help or correct me if I am wrong.
This was so helpful. I have some follow up questions since I am in the US and your comment has made me seriously consider looking into CI.
In the US with Medicare you get a backup processor. I chose a N7 and a K2. They both work equally except the K2 has better Bluetooth reception in my opinion. If the K2 sticks to your implant they can be very comfortable.
The processors have programs like hearing aids. With Cochlear it involves different environments much like hearing aid programs. Noise reduction is another area that can be adjusted many ways, like hearing aids. I can not answer the details like I could with Phonak for example, I don’t have the programming/mapping software.
This I do not know.
The term mapping is pretty much about this question. With CI we go through a series of sound tests at different frequencies and db. We tell the audiologist what we hear. Mappings are derived from these tests.
I have found the elastic banded caps work well. You just have to be careful putting them on and taking them off. My family says I have a watermelon head so caps and hats can be a challenge with CI.
Hopefully more CI people will help with this.
I wear Phonak Naida P-90 UP. I also DIY and now have Target 8.0.1. It offers “Prescribed Compression”, Semi-Linear" and “Linear”. I use “Prescribed Compression” and as I understand things one progresses to that, but everyone is different. Seems to be the idea of progression from Linear to Prescribed. Have you tried Prescribed or is there such a thing in Connexx - maybe Xfit? I cannot address the MPO issue in Target.
Your hearing loss is similar to mine but yours is a bit better. I used to be on Linear for a decade. I switched to Prescribed with Signia and it really is excellent in a silent room. However, when I am outside in a car or a restaurant, it can be so difficult to hear because the soft sound is far greater than the loud sound. Any type of background sound suppression is not helping and if I shift to Noisy Environment mode, the hearing is just not as good. I really wish Signia had a Semilinear option but they don’t, unfortunately. It’s frustrating. This is why I am looking to try other brands that have the Semilinear option.
My theory is that with Semilinear, I will get a better ratio where soft sounds are slightly less and loud sound is slightly amplified. This will help a profound user like me more, especially if I am in a noisy environment.
I’m pretty sure if one knows what one is doing with the software, one can pretty much do whatever one wants with the compression ratios. Semi-Linear is just a shortcut.
I admire your willingness to try different solutions. I think I tend to go with the standard line. Would be interesting if you could apply different compression to a different program, but the compression is set at the Global level so applies to the hearing aids regardless of program selection. Your low frequency loss is challenging. In Phonak Naida Paradise, you would not want PR but would need to move to UP. Phonak NaÃda⢠Paradise | PhonakPro
I don’t have the Signia fitting range chart.
I have not had Signia HA’s in sometime as I moved back to Phonak and BTE, first the Naida Marvel SP and now the Naida Paradise UP. I am able to accommodate a small 0.8mm vent in custom molds. I assume you must have custom molds for the RIC aids. If not, I am sure they would be an improvement over domes
Lastly, you might find improvement using remote microphones in challenging conditions of noise. Certainly, Phonak leads the field with the Roger devices.
Have a look at the Roger On, too, if you are looking to increase your signal to noise ratio.
MDB, I agree with you on that. I am going to be tweaking it a little bit more for a noisy environment only because other than that I am happy with the configuration. I will try doing that before jumping to other brands.
pclewis, the SP model of Signia is equivalent to the UP model of Phonak when it comes to fitting range. Regarding the vent, since I max out the MPO and max out the volume, the vent causes feedback noise so I cannot get that. In fact, I am having great trouble the last few months because I am trying to get a proper mold for my ears. So far I’ve tried 15 times and every time there is feedback noise coming which is frustrating. Even the audiologist is tired of it.
Neville, I agree that Roger On will help but I am not sure if that is compatible with Signia hearing aids. But I think the issue is that the noise is more than the signal in any noisy environment, I will try to fix that first. Any ideas on what I should try?
You can connect the Roger On to a Signia hearing aid via the telecoil with a MyRoger neckloop. The signal isn’t as good as direct connection to a Phonak hearing aid.
Hearing aids alone do not do a great job reducing noise sufficiently for someone with your hearing loss. You’ve got the right idea already, but make sure you are activating the directional microphones.
However, looking into a cochlear implant, as suggested above, would probably be your most powerful intervention at this point. Cochlear implants can also be paired with Roger devices in noise.
I actually believe the speech can be better in noise. The hearing aid I had before this one was an old Siemens Nitro SP and although the setting was Linear, when I was in a Noisy situation, I used the Noisy mode and the voice became crisp and clear and noise reduced to 10-20%. I think maybe it happened because soft sound got reduced and loud ones got amplified?
In Target, you can change the values for MPO. Go to the Gain & MPO tab and you will see 5 columns, MPO, All, G80,G65, G50. Click on the top one ‘MPO’ each 3,6,10 or 20 bands, you can adjust in each band.
If you decide to go with Signia aids, none of their hearing aid models with the 13 battery is powerful enough. You need to go to two models with the 675 battery, the Intuis 3 SP or Motion SP aids. The Motion SP comes with 5 different technology models 1px, 2px, 3px,5px and 7 px. The Intuis 3 SP is larger case and simple hearing aid. Motion SP offers more technology benefits depending on px verson. Also l use either silicone or hard shell full earmolds with no vents.