Evaluation Process for CIs - Your experience?

@MDB that clear spray on sticky stuff is most likely a surgical wound spray on skin. Meant to prevent water and soap from getting into the wound. It was used a lot when I was in theatre working in the 80’s. Didn’t know it was still being used though.

@Raudrive I’m so glad your recovery have been fairly smooth for you, except for antibiotics complications. That’s great to hear. Your wound looks good to me also. The serous ooze in the ear will take several weeks to reabsorb, sadly it’s never in a hurry! Mine took around the 6 week mark before it cleared up for me.

@Raudrive said:

Still have liquid in the middle ea

Glad your making good progress and appreciate you sharing your day by day reports.

So exactly what from surgery - causes build up of fluid in your middle ear? And if the fluid last a while (previous poster mention six weeks to clear up) why can’t a ENT drain the middle ear?

Just from reading your posts I gather middle ear fluid build up (after CI surgery) is normal but on the other hand if it take a long time to clear up I would think there would be a chance for middle ear infection.

I also wonder if your on some antibiotic due to fluid in middle ear?

It’s a combination of blood, intracochlear fluids, stuff instilled for the surgery like liquid steroids and lubricants, and localized swelling from the body’s immune response. Totally normal. It’s in the middle ear because that’s where the surgery takes place. They don’t suction heavily during the surgery because it can cause further trauma to the cochlea and vestibular systems.

I coughed up bloody stuff draining from my eustachian tube for probably two weeks. It’s all clear now though, has been for a while. It can take months for some folks though.

@Deaf_piper said:

Mine took around the 6 week mark before it cleared up for me.

Thank you so much for this information. You and others on this forum are so very helpful. Here is a picture my wife took this evening. Healing up nicely.

Activation went quickly, about an hour. Once finished all I really heard was high frequency noise/gibberish, no speech understanding. The 1.5 hour ride was pretty frustrating. The thrill of a CI and activation were gone.

I received an email in the evening from my audiologist. He said he failed to do the mapping/programming correctly and that I needed to come back in so he could fix this issue.

So today I met him during his lunch break and made the needed changes. Now hear all frequencies including the high frequency gibberish. It’s very distracting but I do understand some speech now. A guess of about 15-20% word recognition with only the CI, maybe a little higher.

I asked about this gibberish and the audiologist said it’s from me not hearing high frequencies for so many years. My brain doesn’t know what to do with all these new high frequency sounds. I will have to relearn all these sounds.

And, the Cochlear Kanso2 processors I ask for did not come in. I was given the on the ear Nucleus 7 processors. I need to contact Cochlear on Monday to get them exchanged.

@Raudrive Glad you got activated, sorry it was a pain to start with. Wonder what it was that the audi didn’t do properly. My audi found me a perception level and then a most comfortable level, but we’ve never gone frequency by frequency to tune each one. MED-EL’s software seems to have some kind of algorithm to tune everything based on just some set of tones. No idea how Cochlear’s software works.

Would you describe the sounds you’re hearing as somewhat musical in nature? That’s what I had. I don’t anymore though.

What’ve they got you doing for rehab work? Audiobooks suggested? I’ve used them a fair amount; YouTube and other streaming video sources as well.

@phobos512 said:

Would you describe the sounds you’re hearing as somewhat musical in nature? That’s what I had. I don’t anymore though.

The mid frequencies sound a little like Morris code you would hear on an old movie.
The upper frequencies are like a high pitched robotic guitar or maybe a high pitched Morris code.
Both follow the rhythm of sound from whatever source.

The rehab is a list of free things and another list of type you buy.
Like you mentioned.

My Samsung S9 is not Bluetooth streaming compatible with the Cochlear Nucleus 7 or the Kanso2 processors. So I bought a Google Pixel 3 earlier this week, it should be here tomorrow or Saturday. It is Bluetooth compatible with these processors and will enable me to stream (without an extra device) TV, YouTube and music from the TV or phone. I plan to spend some time with known TV shows and music that I am familiar with the words. See how that goes.
.

@Deaf_piper said:

Good luck on your journey Rick.

Thank you Deaf-piper.

Yesterday was a frustrating day. After reading so many wonderful experiences of members being able to understand speech at activation I was let down some. All I heard was crazy gibberish. Today has been better knowing it will take time and effort. I suspect my being deaf in the mid to upper frequencies for so many years has taken its toll.

This afternoon I hooked up the Cochlear TV Streamer. Today a new to me Google Pixel 3 phone came in. It will Bluetooth stream the Cochlear Kanso2 and Nucleus 7 processors. Pairing has gone well on these devices. The TV Streamer will hopefully help me with learning speech while using closed captions.

The Nucleus phone app is pretty nice. The forward focus function really works, very nice. Adjusting processor mics while using the TV Streamer is also very nice.

@Raudrive I had only been 3yrs of not hearing high frequencies by the time activation came around. It was over 6.5 decades for my other ear of not hearing high frequencies. This was the very reason that my surgeon did my “good” ear. I would get a better result from my good ear was his reasoning. They will only do my L ear if I lose more/substantial residual.

Once you start to hear a word it will all flow quickly for you. Good luck with the rehab.

Both of my ears are pretty much the same and candidates for implants. When I met the implant surgeon he asked which ear I wanted done. I asked for both at once and he talked me out of it. Now I am glad he did.

@Deaf_piper said:

Once you start to hear a word it will all flow quickly for you. Good luck with the rehab.

I am hopeful for this too. Today at times I thought things were getting clearer but then everything is gibberish again.
Tonight the World Series closed captioning is not very good.

@Blacky said:

I forgot if you mentioned how long you’re without those frequencies, but I’d expect that the longer brain was without it, the longer will it take to make sense out of those impulses.

The upper frequencies about 30 years and the mid frequencies have gotten worse since, linear.

@Blacky said:

And remember, it was your brain that pulled you without CI for so long, so it’s definitely one adaptable and trainable beast hugs

Yes, I understand. I have lots of faith all will be fine. Too many people are having really good results from CI’s. Even now, a couple days after activation and getting the mapping corrected I can see small changes in what I hear from the implant.

Thanks

Glad you’re noticing improvement. May each day be better than the last!

30 years is really a lot.
However, you hear bunch of new sounds now, so to me it looks like it’s just a matter of time that your brain figures out what to do with it. It’s like learning new language, all gibberish at the beginning, but you know that something is spoken
Good luck and may your brain thrive

Called Cochlear yesterday to start the Nucleus 7 / Kanso2 exchange but couldn’t understand the woman on the phone. She seemed very nice but we couldn’t communicate. I ended up getting an email address to use to get this swap going. I also sent a message about the exchange on Cochlear’s MyCochlear members area. We will see how that goes.

It’s been 5-6 days since the implant was activated. Seems all I can hear are these high frequency squealing, chips and chirps. The mid frequency Morris code sound I mentioned earlier has gotten much better, more like real sounds but still not hearing speech much. So yesterday evening I really cranked the volume up on the processor. The upper frequency gibberish is still there but I also hear the mid and low frequencies much better. I can hear speech pretty good amongst all the noise!

So now I have a question. Is part of the CI implant process learning to deal with this high frequency gibberish? Or does this gibberish turn into known sound in time?

Thanks