My hearing journey starts again

Sheesh! When at my annual check, my AuD set me up to do the “Remote Care”. Your AuD arranges for this to be done through the Nucleus Smart App.

Well I’ve just completed my first remote check. They ask a bunch of questions, which you answer. They do an audiogram, and another bunch of questions. Then two sets of white noise questions. First they do a trial by increasing the white noise. Once it’s worked out your correct level required for the white noise by asking questions where you respond. They then proceed onto the 2 sets of questions with the white noise set at the loudest you managed to get the trial questions correct. This is such a tough set of questions. I took out my HA to do the whole check and I really struggled with the white noise. Don’t we all…

The only drawback is I didn’t get told how I went at the end overall. Sigh…

Glad to hear someone’s description of the remote programming.

I started the program and quit after what I thought was too many questions. Guessing it was about 6 months later without finishing this program cochlear dropped me out of this remote programming. The way my audiologist pushed it I wondered if it was a way to keep me out of his office.

So what’s next for you with this remote programming?

Rick the way it was explained to me was, the only adjustments they can do through the Remote Check is volume. They can’t do mappings yet, can’t try to improve clarity or fix static. I believe mappings are coming though.

I got an email after I completed it telling me they will send me an email when my next Remote check is due to be done. But didn’t give s timeline.

Here in Oz we get charged for a Remote Checks. How they can charge Medicare when there’s no AuD involved is beyond my comprehension.

As I said to my AuD the only problems I have outside my annual mapping is tech issues, which I’m absolutely useless at trying to fix.

@Deaf_piper said:

Here in Oz we get charged for a Remote Checks. How they can charge Medicare when there’s no AuD involved is beyond my comprehension.

It appears the audiologist gets paid for the remote fitting. Maybe that is why my audiologist was pushing it.
If volume is the only thing that can be changed at this time it doesn’t seem to be worth the effort. I have an appointment later this month, can ask more about it then. I prefer face to face appointments if possible.

I’ve just had my annual mapping earlier this month. This was followed by a remote check!
I’m not really impressed by these remote checks!
When all you get is “all these results are stable”

Here in Aus it appears they want to replace our annual mapping with a remote check. These remote checks don’t do a “full” mapping. They only do an audiogram and speech in noise…
so next year I’m ignoring this remote check when it comes in.

I had my annual mapping today, I’ve been bimodal for just over 5 years now. Haven’t these 5 years flown by very quickly.

I’ve virtually had the same map for these 5 years, with just a few alterations and tweaks since the end of my 12 month assessments. The quality and clarity has slowly deteriorated over the last 6 months. I found I was asking people to repeat what they were saying a lot more.

So today my lovely Aud gave me 2 totally new maps. One with FF and one just a standard map. Holy heck it’s a total new sound, and very different. It’s going to take my old brain time to be rewired for this new sound. It’s so very different to what I’ve been used to… It will take me time to tweak the base and treble to get it right for me.

To all you Cochlear bimodal recipients who have both your CI and HA registered in the NS app, I’m so jealous we Aussies still don’t have this available to us. Bah Humbug!!

@Deaf_piper said:

So today my lovely Aud gave me 2 totally new maps. One with FF and one just a standard map. Holy heck it’s a total new sound, and very different

This is a good thing, hopefully. I remember you talking about hearing not being as good as it was.
Good luck with your new mappings.

Have you checked to see which aid your health care system will provide or is it the XF for sure?

Looking at the aids you attached there is only one that fits your hearing loss, the PBE88. Does this sound correct?

I can not find anything about it concerning the Nucleus 8 processor compatibility.

@Raudrive our health care system don’t provide aids, they refund us $400 per aid. That’s only if you are covered for them. Or it’s what Hearing Australia feel like giving us.

I looked at that PBTE88 that’s not an SP which Hearing Australia decided I need. Hence why they gave me the Enzo. My Phonak before that was an SP. From the diagram my Aud emailed me there is no SP aid listed. I’m not eligible until March 25 so I have time to sort out what I want.

Hearing Australia have been using Resound Key. Their PBTE aid wasn’t powerful enough for me. So I just don’t know.

Today I had my 6 year post op annual mapping. My AuD a lovely lady paired my multi mic for me and showed me how to connect it bilaterally.

She asked me about the remote check that I’ve done for the last 3 years. I don’t think she liked my “most useless check up and a waste of time” She asked me to explain so I showed her my results. I told her that “well done Sheryl” tells me absolutely nothing about how I actually went. I also mentioned doing it at the same time as the annual mapping, for me wasn’t ideal. IMO it would be better done around the 6 month post mapping mark. I don’t know whether I’ll be getting it sent to me this year or not time will tell I suppose.

I asked about Auracast and if there’s any news when it will be released to recipients. The reply I got was she thought it was about to be released by Cochlear America. So you American recipients keep an ear out for the release date. I also asked if it was only an Android thing or IOS as well. She told me both. But I don’t know if this is absolute correct.

Now for my mapping, she only needed to tweak a few too loud, tones. So I was happy with that. She asked me to turn and face the wall, then proceeded to read out 50 words for me to repeat. My AuD has a slight accent which I struggle with. These words consisted of a lot of F, Th, Sh and Ch sounding words, they are the ones I find difficult. The only word I got wrong was shifter! That left me with 49 correct, I’m doing a little happy dance here…She also gave me a music program, she mentioned this program turns off all the electrodes. I didn’t realize she left it going, as I was walking out to the car all I could hear was loud static. So time will tell if it’s any good.

Thanks for the update.
Well done Sheryl.

49 out of 50 is great. Is that with your aid and processor?

I am happy you and your audiologist got a long so well.

@Raudrive said:

49 out of 50 is great.

I agree. It’s fab to get 49 out of 50.

Well done @Deaf_piper

I’m hoping to get something like that after about a year of wearing my CI.

She mentioned an accent by the tester.
I can say for years an accent killed my speech understanding. After CI I can understand people with accents now. CI brings back the details to hearing we hard of hearing have lost.

You probably have people around you with CI experience but you also have us on the forum. Most of us have done very well with CI. Odds are you will too! Sheryl had word understanding from the day of activation. It took me about 6 weeks if I remember correctly. It was a very frustrating time!! Figuring out what you need to do to learn sounds with your CI is the key. We are all different when it comes to hearing.

I have a hunch you will be a super star.