Activation - Med El Synchrony

everlastingstorm said:
Please keep us updated, I though tinnitus was supposed to go away with CIs since the remove the hairs in the process.
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Sorry for the late update, I didn't know that my topic would be interesting)
My tinnitus is really decreasing now, by decreasing I mean, it is back to its normal loudness, not as loud as it was after the surgery and first activation.
 
Ri Sol said:
Yay! Glad to see somebody from Bay Area. Thank you for your input!

My second mapping went well, I still in a start of the way, but feel much better. I don't hear well yet, but definitely started to "hear" instead of "feel".
Still can't recognize sounds and etc, but I don't worry now, I don't mind waiting and practicing extra time to learn hear with CI.

Also, I made some adjustment to my hearing aid program, so I can use them along with CI when I need to talk to somebody.

The only issue is weak magnet (((
The strongest available magnet(for Med-El it is #4) is not holding well, drops all the time...
Any tips?
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At least you are hearing something! Hopefully what you are hearing is useful input. It should only get better from there as long as you're giving the CI time alone every day.

You can address the magnet issue at your next mapping. Sometimes swelling can contribute to how well a magnet is holding. I don't know if that is the issue for you. But it can take time for any remaining swelling to go down, some ears/heads take longer than others.
 
I really feel I start to hear much better, when I use also HA with CI, the sound becomes so crispy and cool, I really enjoy it now, but I remember to practice it without the HA.
I wear HA only when I need to do homework with kids and need to hear them.

The doctor said the same thing with swelling, but there is no swelling now(surgery was in April 30), I think the issue is because of the thick hair. Magnet is pretty strong, but doesn't hold properly on the head, it falls down with every step and move.
 
Ri Sol said:
I really feel I start to hear much better, when I use also HA with CI, the sound becomes so crispy and cool, I really enjoy it now, but I remember to practice it without the HA.
I wear HA only when I need to do homework with kids and need to hear them.

The doctor said the same thing with swelling, but there is no swelling now(surgery was in April 30), I think the issue is because of the thick hair. Magnet is pretty strong, but doesn't hold properly on the head, it falls down with every step and move.
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You need to move aside as much hair as possible for your headpiece. Also, some people with very thick hair will have their stylist shave a small spot on their head over the magnet if it's really thick. Also, it's only 2 months, it could very well still be swollen. Give it more time.
 
Sorry, I like my hair and would never cut or shave my hair on the head. Even surgeon didn't shave my hair on the CI surgery.
I'm wearing Rondo at the moment, and just pinned it to the hair with its string. Hope it is the matter of the swelling, I will wait.
 
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I started to recognize voices, and feel pretty comfortable wearing only CI, without HA.
No sensations anymore, only sounds. They are not natural and well-recognizable yet, but I like to hear them.
 
My husband noticed that I'm able to hear and talk to him without much effort using only CI. Of course I still rely on the lip reading, but before I couldn't even lip read and couldn't understand anything he said, because of the disturbing sensations.

I still struggle when talking to kids, but when I talk with them about something important(or doing homework with them), I put on HAs. The combination of CI and HAs helps a lot.

When I wear only Hearing Aids, I feel huge lack of sounds...absolutely not comfortable. So I prefer CI over HA.
 
Ri Sol.....happy to hear things are getting better. For me personally, I hear best when it's just one to one conversation. When more than one person is speaking at the same time it starts to get difficult for me to follow. Also, when your speaking with your kids make sure the tv/music is not on in the background. This time of year with the heat, I have the AC running and fans too. I get a loud hummmmm but I know why now.
 
Angel1989 said:
Ri Sol.....happy to hear things are getting better. For me personally, I hear best when it's just one to one conversation. When more than one person is speaking at the same time it starts to get difficult for me to follow. Also, when your speaking with your kids make sure the tv/music is not on in the background. This time of year with the heat, I have the AC running and fans too. I get a loud hummmmm but I know why now.
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Thank you, Angel1989!

Of course one2one is the best to communicate and that is the only way for me to follow the conversation. My WDS was 0%. I don't even remember myself being able to communicate without reading lips and scanning face expressions.

I really hope I will be able some day to discriminate speech with the help of the CI. Right now I feel like I only started to explore the world of the sounds, and these sounds are still very limited at the moment.

Hummm and other noises don't disturb me at all, maybe my program is not loud enough, but it is still loud for me, when are children yelling in their games.

Also, I go to the gym...and the sounds of clicking weights are really disturbing, too.
 
Ri Sol said:
Sorry, I like my hair and would never cut or shave my hair on the head. Even surgeon didn't shave my hair on the CI surgery.
I'm wearing Rondo at the moment, and just pinned it to the hair with its string. Hope it is the matter of the swelling, I will wait.
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We were talking about cutting a very small spot of hair, that would be covered up with the rest of your hair, maybe a spot the size of a quarter at most, to improve your magnet connection.
 
HOH-ME said:
We were talking about cutting a very small spot of hair, that would be covered up with the rest of your hair, maybe a spot the size of a quarter at most, to improve your magnet connection.
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if it is not improving while removing hair around and placing straight to the skin, why should I shave even small spot?
 
Ri Sol, I have a friend who was also pretty unhappy with her CI at first and preferred the combination of HA+CI to actually understand, but after a few months she got used to the CI sound and now she likes it very much and hears pretty well.

So I think that your situation is also pretty normal evolution, you sound very much like her :) Good luck with your hearing.
 
Ri Sol said:
if it is not improving while removing hair around and placing straight to the skin, why should I shave even small spot?
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Because you are not removing all the hair by pushing it aside. If you don't want suggestions, don't ask for help. These are things other CI users have had issues with and this was the solution that worked.
 
HOH-ME said:
Because you are not removing all the hair by pushing it aside. If you don't want suggestions, don't ask for help. These are things other CI users have had issues with and this was the solution that worked.
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Thank you :)
Shaving hair is not the one and only solution. There should be more.
If I deny the suggestion to shave that doesn't mean that I don't want to look for other suggestions.
 
zajko said:
Ri Sol, I have a friend who was also pretty unhappy with her CI at first and preferred the combination of HA+CI to actually understand, but after a few months she got used to the CI sound and now she likes it very much and hears pretty well.

So I think that your situation is also pretty normal evolution, you sound very much like her :) Good luck with your hearing.
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Thank you!
CI is really a good thing! I'm happy with it.
On July 8 I will have another mapping.
 
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This evening my husband brought a summon for me from the superior court, with the mark that failing to respond may cause fine, jail term or both.
I was so scared, trying to figure out who and why would summon me to the court.

When I opened the envelope, I understood that it is just about juror duty. I sent response that I don't qualify for it, because I'm not citizen yet, and my English is not good.

Have anyone participated in court trials as jurors?
Do they provide captions for those deafies that don't sign?
 
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On the last mapping on July 8, my audiologist said that the progress goes very well, especially to consider the fact that I'm congenital deaf, and I haven't used HA until I was 27 years old. My audio nerve and brain were not used for long period.

Today I found out, that I can actually play and hear the piano without help of the HA and only with CI, I was so much surprised!
Or course I still not used to the high pitched sounds, but up to 5th octaves it sounds good, 6th and last 7th octaves still need to wait, because the sounds are too high pitched and I don't like them.
Anyway I'm happy to be able to recognize voices, sounds. I'm not good at discriminating speech yet, however I'm able to talk to my family without much effort and no HA is needed.

My audiologist is relocating, so I will have another audiologist to map on my next visit in 2 months.
Definitely going to miss her.((
 
It is always feels so weird, you think that you don't actually hear anything and CI doesn't help at all, and then with the time you understand that you were wrong, and CI does help a lot!
 
It is around 6-7 months since my surgery and activation.
I'm totally happy with CI, wide range of sounds, clocks, birds, music, I can hear almost everything and now I love these sounds.
No more sensations instead of sounds, no more headaches and tinnitus.

I still need time to learn to discriminate the speech, but right now I can understand speech much better, than I used to before.
 
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