Your opinion on cochlear implants

Do you have any word understanding in that right ear?

Have you had a cochlear evaluation? I ask because many surgeons would want to implant the better ear for a greater chance of success. I understand your point.

At 22 I would jump on CI. You have the rest of your life to hear much better. What are you taking in school?

I know that I’m not a CI user, but I have published research in this area. If you have congenital or early-onset hearing loss and you’re musically trained, keeping the left ear un-implanted is a good idea as you’ll get a better perception of the quality of people’s voices and music. For those who aren’t musically trained the benefits aren’t as clear and the research shows that bilateral CI can lead to better outcomes. Doing a second implant with a long delay tends to lead to poorer binaural integration of the signal with poorer localisation and speech in noise performance. At the end of the day its a personal choice and I can see the merits of going in either direction so long as you understand the benefits and risks of your choices and are fully informed. I wish you all the best with your decision.

Thank you very much for your comment, I really appreciate the time you took. I’m not musically trained, but I do listen to music, though I wouldn’t say I particularly enjoy it. I’ll definitely take everything you said into consideration.

@Sergios said:

I haven’t had a cochlear evaluation yet

This might be an eye opener as far as your thinking and plans. It might be something you want to do sooner.

Good luck with your school. ME is a good one, fine career.

@Hearing_Potential said:

keeping the left ear un-implanted is a good idea as you’ll get a better perception of the quality of people’s voices and music.

If your surgeon refuses to do that ear? It’s not always as easy to do what you say. We patients/recipients have to be guided by our surgical team. I wanted my L) ear done my surgeon said no I’ll get a better result from my R) ear. I had to go along and accept what he said.

If I said to my surgeon “you can’t do that ear” when he asked why? I said the audiologist said not to do that ear. He would show me the door!!
The surgeon will decide which is the better ear to do on the patients/recipients clinical history.

Sergios, I did exactly what you are considering. Got implanted on one side, kept the hearing aid on the other.

First, the CI: Yes, you adapt fairly quickly. For me, it took about 2-3 weeks before sounds became normal-ish, and 2-3 months to really kick in. And now, it sounds perfectly normal. I love it, and NO regrets.

I left the other side with a hearing aid for almost twenty years. Until it finally had so little hearing left, I got a CI for that side. Again, no regrets, and I only wish I had done it sooner.

One tip: For the last 4-5 years of the hearing aid, I had one that worked together with the implant (a Link from Phonak, and the AB implant). That was the best combo ever. Together, they worked to minimize noise, and enhance speech, and very effectively. Streaming was also a breeze, since they “talked” to each other. I actually don’t mind phone calls for the first time, and streaming music is great!

Please contact Richard Pocker. He has a wealth of experience and knowledge about cochlear implants and has written a book about it.

See http://cochlearimplantbasics.com/22

I could usually locate where sounds & voices were coming from. Not perfectly, but better when I wore them both. The few times I only wore the implant, I had no location ability. So the hearing aid helped!

@astrohip said:

The few times I only wore the implant, I had no location ability. So the hearing aid helped!

Interesting. I am bilateral and did not have localization for a couple years after implants. I spent a bunch of time in the yard listening to birds. It took a couple months but I learned localization that way. I am now very good at localization.

Hi Sergios,
I have an Advanced Bionics CI on my left (weaker ear) & a Phonak Naida Link M HA on the R. Since the surgery, I’ve had almost no residual hearing on the L without the implant. A few months after the implant surgery the electrode shifted, which made hearing much worse. This was fixed in a 2nd surgery. The surgeon said mine was the 2nd case of electrode shift in his 6 years of experience.

The implant does help me hear (especially higher frequencies – finch calls were even too loud until my audi. turned down the high frequencies) but I often struggle with distortion, I hear towhee1 calls quite clearly (our birds sound like #3 in the link).

I hear better via streaming such as with Zoom. Music is not as good as years ago ‘tho brass sounds reasonably decent. Higher instruments (violins, flutes, etc. sound hissy).

I find the AB app to be quite primitive, especially to indicate battery charge. It shows only 100, 75, 50% or discharged. A couple times the processor has shut down for lack of power right after telling me it had 50% charge. During charging, I get only a green light indicating 100% charge or blue indicating less than 100% charge. I’d like to charge my spare battery to 80% for storage but I don’t trust the indication.

I am also a mechanical engineer (retired from NASA in Cleveland) and about 57 years older than your 22 years. My hearing was moderately damaged by occupational noise and damaged more by chemotherapy used to treat leukemia (ML) 13 years ago.

@FredO said:

I find the AB app to be quite primitive, especially to indicate battery charge. It shows only 100, 75, 50% or discharged. A couple times the processor has shut down for lack of power right after telling me it had 50% charge. During charging, I get only a green light indicating 100% charge or blue indicating less than 100% charge. I’d like to charge my spare battery to 80% for storage but I don’t trust the indication.

You should get a soft beep-beep warning when your batteries are getting low. I get it at least an hour before on the big battery, and about an hour on the smaller battery (I use both at times). If you don’t get the beeps, your audie can turn that function on.

You don’t need to manage your batteries, and the 80% rule. AB already has this logic built in to their charging system. Let it charge fully green.