Your opinion on cochlear implants

I was implanted 3 years ago. I love being to hear again and am sorry I was too scared to do it sooner. My right ear had been deaf for years, I used a CROSS on it instead of a HA. My original word discrimination score were 16% in my right ear and 28% in my left ear.

I have an Advanced Bionics CI (right) and the Phonak Link Hearing Aid (left). I could hear words at activation, though it sounded funny and was hard. I did my daily rehab and was soon hearing what I call “normally”. I find the AB CI and Link HA combo gives me great, balanced hearing. My original word discrimination test was 36%. At my 1 month mapping my word understanding with CI and HA was 100%!

Streaming from my cell phone is wonderful. I listen to music. I’ve been to performances and take advantage of whatever assistive tech they have available. I still use my TV connector. I do have problems with echoey places and loud places like restaurants but the Roger helps there. Technology is wonderful!

You can call and ask questions to the reps for Cochlear America and Advanced Bionics. Both brands also have Facebook groups where you can ask questions. I don’t know about MedEl. Another great resource to check out is https://cochlearimplanthelp.com/2

@Hearing_Potential said:

Outcomes for CI users are much better for speech recognition on average than they are for pitch discrimination

I understand this well. Where I see this is some music is better than others. New music I am not familiar with is the most difficult to figure out.

Rehab is an area that audiologist and those that guide them need to do more research about. What is taught is confined to a small window of those with one or two learning types out of five that I am thinking about. Like hearing everyone learns in different ways. The rehab needs to look into other forms of learning. I am one of them that winged it from what I was told and did very well. Being dyslexic all the rehab tools I was told to do absolutely sucked for me.

The cold hard facts about CI are not always the best way to discuss CI. There is so much more to it.

@Hearing_Potential said:

That is why alternatives such as using light-based stimulation of cochlear neurons are one of the options being explored as an alternatives to direct electrical stimulation.

Or FMS (Focused Multipolar Stimulation) researched by Cochlear and probably may be supported by newest Nexa system.

@Hearing_Potential said:

What you’ve seen is the surgeon following the recommendation of audiologists

@Raudrive said:

I don’t believe so. Education tends to call the shots. Audiologist don’t write prescriptions. Maybe you feel like you are in control where you are.

In Poland, “Audiolog” is just a medical specialty, previously subspecialty of ENT. In Poland, hearing aids are handled by “protetycy słuchu” - people who, in the U.S., would likely be called Hearing Aid Specialists.

@Raudrive said:

This post is probably AI generated and mostly nonsense. AI doesn’t understand hearing and especially CI.

I don’t think, that’s AI. It is scientifically-based. Good experiences with music in some CI users are not belittled. Simply it describes some technology limitations.

I wear two hearing aids and for this works very well, but the hearing capacity of a friend of mine decreased over years, so he finally decided to get CIs on both ears. This was just two years ago and he is already 37, but he says that it was the best decision of his life. At the beginning it was a very strange sensation to hear with the CIs and he got frustrated, but meanwhile he says that he never could follow conversations that good in his life, than now. And he hears sounds he never heard before, like the breathing of his dog. So he does recommend CIs, even if you are not a child any more. It is a fact that children get adapted to CIs much faster, but older people can too even it needs some more time.

@Hearing_Potential said:

I’m saying they do take the audiologist’s advice into account when making decisions.

My money is on a CI candacy form that is filled out by the CI audiologist. This form covers hearing tests and approval for CI by the audiologist. That form is handed to the surgeon to review and make decisions for implants based on medical reasons. The audiologist is the hearing part of CI and the surgeon is the medical part. Is this close to what you are saying?

You got me wondering if you are a CI audiologist. You are in Canada, correct?

@Neville has mentioned sending kids out for CI and never seeing them again but not programming and mapping processors. This leads me to believe there is a line in credentials when it comes to CI.

Please forgive my ignorance about all this. Just trying to understand.

No, hearing potential is Australian.

In Canada there are no special credentials for cochlear implant work, but the mapping is covered by OHIP at the cochlear implant centers so there’s not really any reason for patients to pay privately to get mapping done somewhere else. So it’s all done in those locations and not spread across the country with any provider. But I could go and get a job working in one of those centers without any other education, I just have to pull out my old textbooks and brush up on things.

But it’s also one of those things that you don’t really want to dabble in. Similarly, any audiologist can provide pediatric services, but those who aren’t serious about it and just do it now and then are less likely to be really good at it.

@Neville said:

In Canada there are no special credentials for cochlear implant work, but the mapping is covered by OHIP at the cochlear implant centers so there’s not really any reason for patients to pay privately to get mapping done somewhere else. So it’s all done in those locations and not spread across the country with any provider.

Thank you for taking the time to explain this. For some reason I believed CI audiologist have different training. Maybe the US does? I know deaf piper uses separate audiologist for her bimodal setup in Australia.

Thanks again. I will leave this alone.

@Deaf_piper said:

As Neville said audiologists don’t need any extra training why do recipients have to travel miles to get care? It’s ludicrous that I have to have 2 audiologists miles apart to get hearing care.

There are pros and cons. The pros of spreading it out is obvious for patient access, but on the other hand you don’t really want someone who only dabbles in CIs being your provider.

Hello Sergios—I have a Cochlear N8 on the right and a Resound HA on the left. The implant was placed on April 10 this year and prior to that I had worn two HA’s for over 30 years. Though they sounded strange, I could distinguish some words immediately after activation, which occurred 3 days after the operation. Now, in a clinical setting, I can understand over 90 percent of spoken sentences. However, in day-to-day living it’s not to that level, especially in noisy situations. I have my third mapping session with my audiologist next month and I look forward to some improvement after that adjustment. Regarding the robotic sound, I still hear that when I am practicing and using only my implant, but when I am using the HA and the implant it’s not as noticeable. When I hear with the implant only, I cannot distinguish between male and female sounding voices. This should improve in time… I’m told. Would I do it again? Yes, definitely, but I say that because I expect to experience continuous improvement. If there were no further improvement, I’m not so sure. So ask me in another 6 months!

I just had my Cochlear brand implant activated on July 21, 2026. after 4 days I have progressed to the third level setting. I can have a conversation with some sitting facing me pretty well but if their facing away from me my word recognition drops way off. music is starting to sound like music but not really sounding good, which I’m told is the last thing to come around.

I had only been without hearing for a little over a year in that ear.

@Hearing_Potential said:

Outcomes for CI users are much better for speech recognition on average than they are for pitch discrimination

That’s certainly been my n=1 experience. I am a musician. I used to play a string instrument and knew (like all string musicians) that a G note is not a G note if the orchestra changes from a G major chord to another chord. Differences of less than 1 Hertz in pitch make your note out of tune if you don’t move your finger when the orchestra changes. A note of G is not a fixed frequency; it changes with the orchestra.

I have a single sided cochlear implant. I did voice and music rehab for a year after implantation. I cannot reliably tell if a piano note is higher or lower than another note if they are less than about an octave apart with the cochlear side.

I can still use my other good ear to play music, but I can’t play my cello any longer because the sound of my instrument drowns out other musicians and I can’t play no longer tell if I am in or out of tune with them. Guitar and keyboards are fine because my instrument sound originates from further from my one good ear. And I prefer to play in a band with a stage setup where I have a personal band mix through an in-ear monitor.

Would I get a cochlear implant again? Definitely. It better than nothing but certainly nothing like the original sounds.

@bcarp, I have musical background with guitar, but I play individually. Here are my experiences:

Your opinion on cochlear implants

I am Bimodal (CI in left, HA on right) I have music background and I don’t feel that hearing bimodally is deteriorating for my music experience. On the contrary, I hear music as fuller, more giving a pleasant goosebumps effect. Indeed, hearing through CI only is hard, especially without proper rehabilitation, but that is no problem if hearing from it blends with hearing from HA. No regrets from getting a CI, even from music standpoint.

If you’re interested to at least try to train pitch differentiation, look here, there is also English version:

Ear training sites for speech?

I would be interested. If you’re interested in lower pitches training, see here: There is an English version. For demo trial you can use: Login: 555 Password: 555 Wow, quite a set of instruments. Flute is indeed high notes I play the guitar, so the highest guitar harmonics I’ve played is approx. 1330 Hz.

I got my cochlear implant on May 8, 2025 and it was activated on June 1. My speech recognition reached 100% in August 2026 after a year of listening training. My quality of life improved a lot. My ear surgeon said my recovery has been excellent. My friends also say I seem more and more like before. Folks on this forum have also commented that I’m doing really well these days.All in all, this was the right choice. It’s indeed a very good decision. There are outside stares here where I live. But for me personally, it was absolutely the right call.

Nice to read about the experiences everyone has had. I'm the same combo as the original poster, hearing aid on left side... and right ear doesn't do much. Was implanted on the right side Sept 8 and getting it activated in a little over an hour from now :)