Distorted music/ distorted loud speech

Even though I was born hard of hearing, I was born in the hearing world. I had severe hearing loss in left ear and right ear was healthy.

Growing up, I never had issue with hearing. I could understand speech very well, didn’t have to lip-read. When I was 11, I had bad inner ear infections in my healthy right ear which dropped my hearing to 50%. But still from the age of 11 to 17, I didn’t have issues.

At 17, I purchased my first cic aid for right ear. That time I found it strange why the clinic wanted me to use aid in my good ear but not in my bad ear.

Anyway, I used aid in right ear from 17 to 23. I remember October 2013, I woke up and couldn’t hear nothing in right ear. Had hearing test and was told nothing can be done as loss is profound now.

I brought aid for left ear and this is where it has gone downhill. I cannot understand speech without lip-reading, cannot stand loud speech. I then panicked in 2013 and was implanted with cochlear implant. It hasn’t worked well for me and since 2014 have been using aid if left ear

Its just with the hearing aids, the programming needs to be spot on due to my small auditory range

Off topic, but do your REM fittings show the variance between what might be comfortable and your settings? Is it just more gain or is something else helping you?

There is always a notification saying this isn’t a comfortable fitting and do you want to adjust for comfort. Well my hearing aids are extremely comfortable for me now, but it did take 2 years for me to slowly adjust to my comfortable fitting. But I would not go back, because I am feeling like I am hearing as close to normal as most people with normal hearing. I have no distortion, I am enjoying being able to carry on conversations, enjoying music, and I can even watch TV without needing the TV adapter. I can carry on a conversation in my Jeep even with the entertainment center playing my favorite music. I dread the day I have to go to a different audiologist that has no idea of what it has taken to get me this far.

REM was not done. The audi said REM increases loudness which is not ideal for people who suffer from recruitment

I was told that for years by a few audiologists that didn’t want to take the time to get my aids and me adjusted so I could hear well enough to be part of conversations. It isn’t an easy process and it is time consuming. You have to push yourself to accept what isn’t comfortable now to becoming comfortable later.

My aids are adjusting by my audiologist and I don’t mess with them. I don’t even have any extra programs just the default general program. I don’t need them. As for as compression I don’t believe so, I would notice the artifacts from the compression and I don’t. I also don’t notice any wind noise, road noise, and background noise, now they were all bad before I put myself through the adjustment stage of the new normal for me. It wasn’t just getting use to the hearing aid adjustments it was also reprogramming my brain to accept the extra sounds.

@Yahzib said:

I was implanted with Medel Synchrony 2 back in 2013. I tried a whole year to get used to the sound but it did not work well for me. Everything was high pitched and all it did was improve lip reading further. Only last year, the hospital got in touch and upgraded the sound processor to Sonnet 2. I was told I will be called in for regular programming sessions but only had 1 back in March. Not surprising as the NHS is nearly on its knees

@Yahzib said:

I then panicked in 2013 and was implanted with cochlear implant. It hasn’t worked well for me and since 2014 have been using aid if left ear

What you write is disturbing… Didn’t you have any meetings with the audi after the activation? Absolutely none, but one? Did you not report your discomfort to them? Personally, I was forced to visit myself because I had settings that were too uncomfortable though, but it’s all OK now and I don’t regret.

Medel implants have very long electrode (usually) so you should hear at least some low sounds. Have you had any control of electrodes impendances/placement or neural responses?

Having CI requires MUCH patience. I let mysef to show you my old posts but I recommend to read the whole topic:

How well do people hear after getting cochlear implant?

Jak słyszę przez implant - dwa lata później - YouTube EDIT: How I hear through the cochlear implant - two years later (youtube.com) There are link to clip from SSD person from my country (with closed captions in english) “How I hear by CI - two years after surgery” My experiences are slightly different, e.g. I hear quite well guitar an piano, but I can’t distiguish pitches (maybe yet - it’s very difficult given I have 22 electrodes compared to 3500 inner hair cells).

How well do people hear after getting cochlear implant?

It’s my opinion also. Almost year ago, in Apr 23’, @Raudrive have had given advice to hear only by CI on my left without any involvement of my better ear. I used my Phone Clip for Bluetooth streaming extensively to listen to podcasts, even if I didn’t understand them at all. I had a break from rehab about 2,5 months due to exam in October, after which I returned to CI training. At the end of January, in WRS test in quiet (CI only in 65 dbA) I have 80% I had not perform that test on …

@Bimodal_user said:

I’ll try, thanks:) However we will have to remember that gaining better hearing with CI is hardly a target in itself. Rather, it’s getting a better tool to communicate with anyone, for example.

By the way, referring to the main topic, recently I found another useful article, in that case about hearing music with CI:

Improving Cochlear Implant Recipients’ Relationship with Music | The Hearing Review

I like especially this scheme. Of course it’s a rule of thumb, but very useful to sum up knowledge about rehabilitation:

@Raudrive, @Deaf_piper do you know anyone on this forum with MedEl CI?

When I was implanted back in 2013 and when activated; I at the hospital for 1 year for programming and I still was not used to the sounds. The whole aspect of “sound” was different. A car going past me would sound “high freq” sound. There was no low frequencies at all and I couldn’t live with it

But did you tell the audiologists that you have no hearing in the low frequencies? Did they check the placement of the electrodes? Did they tell you about any electrode malfunctions or technical difficulties?

My gains are full prescription plus some. When I say I don’t hear background noise I mean it doesn’t interfere with me understanding conversations. I am sure if I tried to hear the background noise I would. It is as much a process of training the brain as it is adjustments of the aids. As I can hear road noise and even my Jeep engine sounds when I want to. The two years that was spent was an intense therapy session.

Most people and audiologist don’t understand my hearing loss. Without my aids I hear lots of sounds, including the refrigerator, the ac fan, even a pin drop but I can’t really tell what the sounds are without my aids. Without my aids I can hear people talking and know they are talking but it just sounds like garbage. Some people sound like a blender to me, other people sound like a flushing toilet. It is weird to even try to explain. But with my aids it is like I have a translator in my ears.
My hearing loss is a combination of a genetic cookie bite and the loud noises of guns and jet engines and I am sure loud motorcycles and loud exhaust of race cars. I raced as a young teen on figure eight dirt tracks and as a older teen and in my twenties on a drag strip. I hunted and shot guns from the time I was 5 years old and my military career but me in the cargo bay of jet cargo planes. I have rode motorcycles since I was 12 also. I grew up at a time no one knew about ear protection.
No I don’t regret my life experiences I would not take any of it back.
And my career after the service was in the server rooms of data centers, and factories that produced the servers and other electronic devices.
By the way I am 77 and I still travel when possible on 2 wheels, those wheels are just much quieter these days and a lot lighter. I have a Vespa scooter that I love riding.

Your audiologist might still be able to explain what the adjustments are or the settings can be exported to a PDF file and others can explain it to us.

This is what I am experiencing right now. Like I said, I was in a quiet world. The new aid has opened up a new world of sound. Like you, I can hear the loud and big fridges at the supermarket, tyre rumble and the wind noise.

I am hearing the sound distorted though. It may be dead spots in the cochlea or the nerves being stimulated once again….did the distortion go away for you?

Yes I did. I explained many times there is no low frequency sound. They checked the processors and implant for any failure and it was all good.

I was implanted at the Addenbrookes Teaching hospital in Cambridge, UK. It is seen as one of world’s best teaching hospital as its closely affiliated with Cambridge University.

Low Frequency Sounds with a Cochlear Implant1

Hearing the low frequency sounds with a cochlear implant is possible due to brain plasticity, why a recipient's hearing gets lower over time.

Maybe it would be interesting. Initially, I didn’t hear low frequencies, only higher ones through my CI. It wasn’t a problem because my better ear with a HA provided me with bass sounds. So the combination of CI and HA gave me a better and fuller sound impression.

I noticed that the CI signal is more acceptable when I wear a HA compared to when I don’t.

Perhaps this is your case - the CI signal would be more acceptable if you could get proper amplification from the HA side. Then sound would be more balanced from each ear and easier to rehabilitate.