Got hearing aid to test it out

SkullChick

SkullChick

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Got hearing aid to trial it to see if its better this time less weird feeling in the head because of ci sound input somewhat equalize it? Well got it and its oticon sumo xp little different this time its analog hearing aid. The speech sound more muffled than dm but the weird feeling is a lot less this time but its still there.
Its so weird like my ci's so much clearer and louder without feeling it being louder and the hearing aid's so quiet but you can feel the sound booming and I only hear low frequency on it on normal volume but can hear only part of 1 high frequency sound not fully hear whole sound if its really loud its weird hard to describe.
But I know what it feel having 2 ears in a way and localizing sound's easier now but low frequency noise sound scary like my phone voiced "you have a voicemail" sound so scary cuz its booming male voice lol scared the crap out of me cuz I thought someone got in house (I was going thru mails and my phone was on counter behind me so)
And I notice that hearing aid sort of muffling/interfering the clarity of the speech in my ci ear. The audi forced me to use my voice and no sign this time around lol and she said I need learn few of letter sound like D, G, Z and seperate the word sound (syllable like con grat u la tion)
But otherwise its "okay" speech lol so maybe bilateral ci isn't that too far off in the future (surgeon want me to be able to speak well enough and listen well enough to get my other ear implanted so)
We'll see!
 
SkullChick said:
Got hearing aid to trial it to see if its better this time less weird feeling in the head because of ci sound input somewhat equalize it? Well got it and its oticon sumo xp little different this time its analog hearing aid. The speech sound more muffled than dm but the weird feeling is a lot less this time but its still there.
Its so weird like my ci's so much clearer and louder without feeling it being louder and the hearing aid's so quiet but you can feel the sound booming and I only hear low frequency on it on normal volume but can hear only part of 1 high frequency sound not fully hear whole sound if its really loud its weird hard to describe.
But I know what it feel having 2 ears in a way and localizing sound's easier now but low frequency noise sound scary like my phone voiced "you have a voicemail" sound so scary cuz its booming male voice lol scared the crap out of me cuz I thought someone got in house (I was going thru mails and my phone was on counter behind me so)
And I notice that hearing aid sort of muffling/interfering the clarity of the speech in my ci ear. The audi forced me to use my voice and no sign this time around lol and she said I need learn few of letter sound like D, G, Z and seperate the word sound (syllable like con grat u la tion)
But otherwise its "okay" speech lol so maybe bilateral ci isn't that too far off in the future (surgeon want me to be able to speak well enough and listen well enough to get my other ear implanted so)
We'll see!
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That's exactly what I've been trying to explain to DeafDude1 - HA does not give most of us the clarity that we need that CI has.

I still think it's stupid that your doctor will not give you another CI just because you can't speak well. WTF? A friend of mine speaks okay, she spoke better when she got the CI, but not 100%. So what? She can still get bilateral if she wants to. I just think it's a little silly. :-(

Hope over time you'll get it, then the wait is worth it!
 
that's why I've given up answering deafdude... :X


anyway, good luck with the hearing aid, and hopefully you can get that 2nd CI!
 
No offense, but I don't think deafdude understands the fact that some of us want to hear more than just environmental sounds.

SkullChick: I also don't understand why your CI surgeon refuses to give you another CI if you can't benefit from a hearing aid. Being unable to speak well shouldn't be a requirement for getting a second CI. After all, the purpose of a CI is to hear, not to speak.
 
Hear Again said:
No offense, but I don't think deafdude understands the fact that some of us want to hear more than just environmental sounds.

SkullChick: I also don't understand why your CI surgeon refuses to give you another CI if you can't benefit from a hearing aid. Being unable to speak well shouldn't be a requirement for getting a second CI. After all, the purpose of a CI is to hear, not to speak.
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You got a good point there!
 
SkullChick, I am glad you're trying out HA first before bilateral CI.
Simply b/c it's hard to tell (unless both ears are completely unaidable) how a person will do with a HA and CI combo. It's awesome that you're giving it a fair shake!
I'm not against CI at ALL...... It's just a fact that different people respond to different hearing instruments.
 
deafdyke said:
SkullChick, I am glad you're trying out HA first before bilateral CI.
Simply b/c it's hard to tell (unless both ears are completely unaidable) how a person will do with a HA and CI combo. It's awesome that you're giving it a fair shake!
I'm not against CI at ALL...... It's just a fact that different people respond to different hearing instruments.
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SkullChick has repeatedly said that her HA sounds distorted, so going bimodal approach will not help her. Another CI will. She is just having a hard time getting another one due to her surgeon's requirement to "speak well", which is pure BS.
 
I have to agree. Speaking well as a requirement to get a CI? That's asinine. Sounds a lot like my earlier ENT appointment where they were telling me all the reasons NOT to get a CI. :roll:
 
Yeah I know that its ridilicious but what can I do really he's probably only ci surgeon for adult in delaware there's I think 2 more but they're for pediatrics (spelling?) babies little kids surgeon oh well
 
Skullchick,
The SUMO is the highest power aid out there right? It does sound like you're on the right track to bilateral implant. However, have you tried a Phonak power aid? What was that aid that CDMeggers was really psyched about? Just trying to help you "talk out" some ideas.
Or do you have really significent recruitment? If you have really significent recruitment/distortion, then I think that the CI is the way to go. It's awesome that you've been openminded about bimodal vs. bilateral.
Again, as I said before it's so hard to tell how well someone will respond to a bimodal approach or to different types of aids.
 
deafdyke said:
Skullchick,
The SUMO is the highest power aid out there right? It does sound like you're on the right track to bilateral implant. However, have you tried a Phonak power aid? What was that aid that CDMeggers was really psyched about? Just trying to help you "talk out" some ideas.
Or do you have really significent recruitment? If you have really significent recruitment/distortion, then I think that the CI is the way to go. It's awesome that you've been openminded about bimodal vs. bilateral.
Again, as I said before it's so hard to tell how well someone will respond to a bimodal approach or to different types of aids.
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See Lady's post below:

"SkullChick has repeatedly said that her HA sounds distorted, so going bimodal approach will not help her. Another CI will. She is just having a hard time getting another one due to her surgeon's requirement to "speak well", which is pure BS."
 
Yea I don't get the whole speak well crap. I understand if the surgeon said "I want you to get used to this one first and be able to discriminate SOME speech before getting the other one" or something like that. Maybe the surgeon was thinking that and thought maybe having more speech discrimination = better speech?

Pfft dunno. It's bs.
 
Hear Again, I do understand that she's getting a lot of distortion with her current hearing aid, but that doesn't completely rule out bimodal. Some other hearing aids might provide less distortion. It might be worth it to try a couple of other hearing aids, just to absolutly positively make sure that she's exhausted all avenues. As you know, it's hard to tell how well different people will hear with different hearing aids. Of course if the distortion is very severe and more like recruitment, then she'd be WAY better off with a CI....I don't think that any hearing aid can help with recruitment.
 
deafdyke said:
Hear Again, I do understand that she's getting a lot of distortion with her current hearing aid, but that doesn't completely rule out bimodal. Some other hearing aids might provide less distortion. It might be worth it to try a couple of other hearing aids, just to absolutly positively make sure that she's exhausted all avenues. As you know, it's hard to tell how well different people will hear with different hearing aids. Of course if the distortion is very severe and more like recruitment, then she'd be WAY better off with a CI....I don't think that any hearing aid can help with recruitment.
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I don't mean any disrespect, but why should SkullChick have to put up with any distortion given the fact that she is unable to understand speech with her nonimplanted ear? That alone is evidence of the fact that she qualifies for a CI.
 
deafdyke said:
Hear Again, I do understand that she's getting a lot of distortion with her current hearing aid, but that doesn't completely rule out bimodal. Some other hearing aids might provide less distortion.
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Do you really think that it's possible for someone to try out so many different HA's, and have to put up with this stuff for a long time while they know CI will work much better? I do not know of an audiologist that will allow me to "test" all the different kinds...especially now there's digital ones that requires reprogramming and all that crap. I don't have time for that!

Only the people who have CI will understand what a big difference it makes. It only took me 5 minutes of wearing my crappy HA in my other ear to decide right away that I want to go bilateral. In a sense, I'm against "your wishes". Let it go. Bimodal does not work for every single CI user. I would think that it's very rare to see a CI and HA be pretty much the same. With my HA in the higher frequency range, brings me to about 60db line. With my CI, I hear the exact same frequency on the 10db and 25db in the really high frequency range. No HA on the market will ever give me the same result.

Until you get a CI, you'll never understand what it is like, you will never understand how much the clarity is. Reading stories about it is moot. You have to experience it yourself.

HA does not give the clarity that a CI have. So, no matter what HA she gets/tries, she will still get the same distortions because she's so used to being able to hear clearer.

Bimodal *may* work for those who have one profound loss in the implanted ear and mild to moderate loss in the other. I would say the majority of us bilaterals have profound loss in both ears.
 
Thought it might be interesting to some people to know that before I got the CI, I used to think that people exaggerate their stories about the CI, because after all, they did take a risk, spent $$$, and worked hard. Why would they say "Oh well, it's actually just okay, just a bit better than a HA." because that would be admitting that it was really all for nothing and they were wrong about the "TREMENDOUS benefits of CI".

I was very wrong.
 
Bimodal does not work for every single CI user. I would think that it's very rare to see a CI and HA be pretty much the same. With my HA in the higher frequency range, brings me to about 60db line. With my CI, I hear the exact same frequency on the 10db and 25db in the really high frequency range. No HA on the market will ever give me the same result.

Until you get a CI, you'll never understand what it is like, you will never understand how much the clarity is. Reading stories about it is moot. You have to experience it yourself.
Click to expand...
I know that bimodal does not work for every single CI user. However, it's pretty much a fact that indivdual response to HA, even within different brands is pretty much hit or miss.
I do kind of understand. I had a simlair experiance with ITE vs. BTEs, back in jr high-high school. I totally thought I could hear with the ITE. I could, but not as well as I could with BTEs. Then again, both of us aren't audis.
 
LadySekhmet said:
Do you really think that it's possible for someone to try out so many different HA's, and have to put up with this stuff for a long time while they know CI will work much better?
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My former CI audi told me that it wouldn't pay for me to try different hearing aids since I was already wearing the most powerful ones on the market at the time (Oticon DigiFocus II super power) and using a Comtek FM system with DAI. I'm so glad she told me this because my CIs are FAR better than any hearing aid I've ever had. If truth be told, my CI hearing is the best hearing I've ever had in my life. (except perhaps before age 3, but obviously I don't remember that far back :giggle:)
 
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