Confused about a ci or keeping hearing aids?

highlands

highlands

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I've been wearing bilateral hearing aids since ten years before I had wore one aid for 17 years.
I've worn two phonak naida V sp hearing aids since 2011.
My major problem is speech perception. Although the amplification seems okay my speech perception is not good enough.
I got hearing tests both aided and unaided. The audiologist suggested me a CI to get a better speech understanding but I am confused.
The hearing tests are below. The capital letter C stands for aided hearing test.
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What would your opinion? Thanks in advance.
 
Well you seem to be getting assistance from your HAs. They only give you an implant when HAs are useless.
 
Your audiogram looks a lot like mine except that mine is about 15-20 db lower than yours across the board. Not sure what your speech perception percentage is (don't know the language on there lol)...they rely on that along with the audiogram.
 
I agree with CNICE that it seems like you are still getting a good benefit from hearing aids. Also, there is no guarantee that a CI would give greater speech perception as everyone's experience is different.
 
I agree. The aids part doesn't look too bad at all. Way better than mine ! Since you scored on the 20s and 30s range on some frequencies you may not get a better result with a CI. (Those are the speech ranges).
 
Impressed at everyone's responses. You may want to ask about an upgrade to a more powerful HA to see if that could improve your speech perception.
 
It doesn't appear that your audiologist did a speech discrimination test (SD%) since it shows N/A for left and right ears.
 
It really depends on how much benefit you get from your hearing aids and what you would be expecting from a CI. You can ask your audiologist to do single word testing without lipreading (recorded voice is the standard of care) and see how much you are actually understanding through listening.
 
agree with doing speech discrimination test. But looks like you get good benefit from hearing aids. I would definitely not want CI if I had an aided audiogram like yours . if your aided looked like your unaided audiogram, then yes, go for a CI
 
Thanks for replies.
My aided speech discrimination with both ears at 70 decibels are 48 percent. My single aided tests were immeasurable . I'm much better with both ears
I am thinking as soutthpaw in a way. I get benefit from the aids.
 
highlands said:
Thanks for replies.
My aided speech discrimination with both ears at 70 decibels are 48 percent. My single aided tests were immeasurable . I'm much better with both ears
I am thinking as soutthpaw in a way. I get benefit from the aids.
Click to expand...
Maybe you just need stronger HAs. I've had my speech discrimination tested at 100 and scored 80 or more...but not anymore. Getting a CI in January.
 
The issue with a cochlear implant is that it needs the battery replaced every so often. It comes with a price too... if you currently get disability for your deafness you will lose that income, unless for some reason the rules vary from state to state for disability income. Also once it is in, the amount of noise coming in may be too great for you to handle. At least with hearing aids you can take them out or turn them off, but with an implant you are stuck. Talk to a good audiologist. Then check to see if lip reading groups/training is available for you. That can really help with the problem of understanding correctly what was said.
 
Nita Thomas said:
The issue with a cochlear implant is that it needs the battery replaced every so often. It comes with a price too... if you currently get disability for your deafness you will lose that income, unless for some reason the rules vary from state to state for disability income. Also once it is in, the amount of noise coming in may be too great for you to handle. At least with hearing aids you can take them out or turn them off, but with an implant you are stuck. Talk to a good audiologist. Then check to see if lip reading groups/training is available for you. That can really help with the problem of understanding correctly what was said.
Click to expand...

Wrong. A cochlear implant can be turned off; it is NOT on 24/7. There are 2 parts to the implant, the internal part, and the external part. External part comes off and has a battery, battery can be disposed/changed or recharged (depending on what battery set up one chooses), etc. Please check your information before you go off spouting wrong info.

Also, just because one gets an implant doesn't mean they are automatically losing disability/SSDI.
 
highlands said:
Thanks for replies.
My aided speech discrimination with both ears at 70 decibels are 48 percent. My single aided tests were immeasurable . I'm much better with both ears
I am thinking as soutthpaw in a way. I get benefit from the aids.
Click to expand...
Ask them to do speech perception testing, aided, at conversational levels. No one speaks at 70 db so it is a useless measurement. I also don't think 48% is very good. You would likely get a great deal of benefit from a cochlear implant.
 
If your speech problems occur in environments with a level of background noise you may not experience much improvement with CI. CI's are artificial hearing somewhat like HA's in that the processor amplifies mechanical sounds, processes them digitally and delivers the signal to the implant. You should ask you audiologist to test your voice recognition with noise, which is part of the test to qualify for a CI. Do the test with and without your HA's. Before and now especially after surgery I test well in voice recognition without noise. Add a little noise and I am helpless. In real life the noise of a slight breeze is enough to greatly hamper my VR. My surgeon recommended doing both ears at once because some people gain enough with one implant to not qualify for a second. However I didn't follow his advice and my second ear deteriorated enough to qualify six months after the first surgery and I am now bilateral. The qualifying has to do with insurance coverage, but I can't imagine that you would be financing the surgery on your own. Good luck and if you're uneasy get a second opinion.
 
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i don't keep my HA. i gave it away... Tired of hard to listen with the sound. so i m proud to be deaf so completed.
 
Oh crap, I definitely need assistive device so it will be Rio guide me to help with deafblind. :D
 
Nita Thomas said:
They have newer and more powerful aids coming out all the time.
Click to expand...

That's why I am loving all the options for my mom one day (she is moderate to profound btw) mine's not too bad but the P version is keeping my hearing the damn same :)
 
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