Cochlear Implants

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Lissa

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Who on here has had a cochlear implant the longest?

Have you ever had to have another surgery if the device failed? if so how many years did it fail at?
 
Is your question the design life of a CI and then actual expected life?

C1
 
Again, at conference few weeks ago we were told that a child that were implanted at young age would expect 2 maybe 3 reimplantation to keep up with the Techology or upgrades but otherwise a implant is made to last 75 years.

Since CI had been around about 30 years there is no proof on how long it would actually last.

I met a young man Michael Batt, he had his for over 19 years and it's still going strong.

Michael Batt - NCUIA

My old school friend Caroline had hers for 12 years.

Both use Cochlear.
 
I read that CIs last an average of 20 years, but by the time it fails, there will be something totally new
 
I heard that a implant has 10 year warranty of working
 
The real lifespan is often greater than what is reported to the regulatory bodies. This means if a company warranties and reports 10 years, it is likely to last at least 50% longer.

What is reported is generally tested life of a device.

C1
 
Oh right thanks for the information all of you
 
Kaelei is probably the longest ci users on here. She is older than me. Thanks Faire Jour
 
I know four people had their implants failed. 3 were AB, the third - I'm not too sure. Two of them were botched surgeries (it's not the IMPLANT issue, it was the actual surgery procedure). The third one was something really weird. The implant WORKED, the surgery is fine, but it was not functioning like it should...so she was reimplanted years later...now she's happy. One of the failed one had a failed implant, and had to be reimplanted the next day. She liked it for a while then started to hate it because it was not the "same" as her HA's. So she had them off. Now, she's starting to go back into using the CI again.

If my implants failed for WHATEVER reason, I will get reimplanted in a jiffy. I don't care. It worked wonderfully for me, so why deny the chance?

Yeah I've heard that implant systems are known to last 75 years...much like a titanium rods in people's legs. BUT...oddly enough...Cochlear implants has only been around for a little more than 20 years, so how can someone say it will last for 75 years? :-D
 
LadySekhmet said:
She liked it for a while then started to hate it because it was not the "same" as her HA's. So she had them off. Now, she's starting to go back into using the CI again.
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I wonder if that's the same lady who wrote on her blog that her CI was worse than her HAs. I made a thread on that and the concensus is she had unrealistic expectations and also probably too much residual hearing and was still getting benefit from HAs.

Ive read many CI blogs and talked to a few CIborgs online and those who are profoundly deaf, the majority of them don't hear the "same" as HAs, they hear much better! :D However it's a different story for the few who were just HOH who got CIs. If I had as much residual hearing as they did, id hear better than CIs with my HAs. Id also hear some sounds unaided!
 
deafdude1 said:
I wonder if that's the same lady who wrote on her blog that her CI was worse than her HAs. I made a thread on that and the concensus is she had unrealistic expectations and also probably too much residual hearing and was still getting benefit from HAs.

Ive read many CI blogs and talked to a few CIborgs online and those who are profoundly deaf, the majority of them don't hear the "same" as HAs, they hear much better! :D However it's a different story for the few who were just HOH who got CIs. If I had as much residual hearing as they did, id hear better than CIs with my HAs. Id also hear some sounds unaided!
Click to expand...

No it wasn't her.

I recently attended a conference hosted by Cochlear. I was the ONLY one that was even part culturally deaf. The rest were hearing then became deaf. ALL of them were saying that it's pretty much the same what they heard when they were hearing. I didn't go around asking so many questions, but many were new to the implant, and they couldn't believe how much better their lives were over CI.
 
LadySekhmet- You mean their lives got worse after CI or were far better with a hearing aid than with a CI? Kind of not 100% sure what "how much better their lives were over CI." meant. :Oops:
 
Phi4Sius said:
LadySekhmet- You mean their lives got worse after CI or were far better with a hearing aid than with a CI? Kind of not 100% sure what "how much better their lives were over CI." meant. :Oops:
Click to expand...

What I meant was, they became deaf, then they decided to have surgery, now their lives are much better because of the technology that was available to them. I cannot make any judgment or know anything whether they've tried HA's prior to implantation. I do know for a fact that the presenter lost his hearing when he was about 11, and he was okay with HA for a while, but it progressively gotten worse over the years. He finally decided to try the CI route, and never looked back. He can talk on the phone a LOT better than I can (mainly because he had a lot of practice... so damn me and my laziness!)
 
Most deaf people aren't interested in CIs, they don't care for sounds or speech and those that do, they are happy with whatever they get with HAs. Lucia said she's seen thousands of people with HAs but only a dozen or so with CIs. Those that are interested in CI do so because they have a progressive HL or just gradually lost the rest of their residual hearing and hear nothing with HAs so it's either CIs or complete silence. They don't buy into the CI hype, they really do consider CIs a last resort.

The postlinguals and late deafened as well as deaf babies born to hearing parents are those who are big believers of CIs. I read that up to 90% of deaf babies born to hearing parents get CIs but only 10% of deaf babies born to deaf parents get a CI. It's because the deaf parents know what it's like being deaf and generally accept it. Hearing parents think being deaf is the worst thing. Postlinguals know what sounds/speech they are missing. They also don't usually have the same ability as prelinguals on lip reading, ASL and interpreting garbled speech.

I was born severely deaf so I had a lifetime to train my brain how to lipread and understand speech with what I hear. Ive said it before but I have no idea what sounds im missing out, everything I hear with HAs sound normal(theres a period of adjustment when I get new HAs) It's like my colorblind brother, the colors he sees are normal. People tell him he's missing out and he says colors aren't that important. I sometimes wonder when I say high frequencies aren't that important. However my hearing parents and friends do agree that if their ability to understand speech was unaffected, they would not care if they lost their high frequency hearing. Im serious, they are annoyed by shrill sounds.
 
"90% of deaf babies born to hearing parents get CI's"
:bsflag:

Total number of children implanted in the world is about 75,000 and there are 1.4 million children just in the US with a hearing loss.
 
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