I Won't Be Going For CI At This Time.

[Phi4Sius]

Well, after a few months of debate and finally hearing those audio samples and after further research, I'm going to decline going for a CI.

I have enough good hearing in my right ear to last me until stem cells arrive. I won't be happy if I get a substandard result like I hear in those samples. My hearing is good enough in my right ear that anything less than that in my left ear will more than likely detract heavily from my right ear's hearing and make me disappointed.

I hope I haven't disappointed anyone. It was an arduous process of coming to this conclusion (especially after several setbacks and the intense emotional process of processing that I could possibly hear again out of my left ear after 25 years. With the results that CIs are giving those who have significantly worse hearing than me, I'm sure that with the hearing I still have I would end up hearing worse with a CI than without.

Over the next few months, I'm going to see if I can get the best possible digital hearing aid for my right ear and see if I can get something good enough to hold me over until stem cells arrive.

Thanks to all those for their support in the meantime.

 

[C-NICE]

Wishing you the best

Each of us has to do what is best for us. I know there is a pro & anti CI debate going on and I really think the most important facts a being ignored. 1. Does the choice you make work for you(your individual situation) & 2. That it is is you decission and only your decission! Again just wishing things work out the best for you.

 

[Lissa]

It's your choice. Nobody can tell you you made the wrong choice. It is your hearing

 

[deafdude1]

Well, after a few months of debate and finally hearing those audio samples and after further research, I'm going to decline going for a CI.

Your choice and I agree with your choice.

I have enough good hearing in my right ear to last me until stem cells arrive. I won't be happy if I get a substandard result like I hear in those samples. My hearing is good enough in my right ear that anything less than that in my left ear will more than likely detract heavily from my right ear's hearing and make me disappointed.

I understand and it was a concern of mine too. Your right ear hears better than both of my ears combined. As bad as my own hearing is, even I am worried about only 75% chance of hearing better. A 25% chance of hearing worse is too risky. The other concern is losing my residual hearing and being unable to benefit from stem cells in the implanted ear, at least anytime soon.
I did post on my blog(link in sig) that I might get CI in 3-5 years but only if we are no closer to stem cells and CI technology improves alot and I lose more hearing. Right now there's no hurry for me or anyone.

I hope I haven't disappointed anyone. It was an arduous process of coming to this conclusion (especially after several setbacks and the intense emotional process of processing that I could possibly hear again out of my left ear after 25 years. With the results that CIs are giving those who have significantly worse hearing than me, I'm sure that with the hearing I still have I would end up hearing worse with a CI than without.

Several years ago CI candidacy criteria was so strict you pretty much had to be unable to tell if your HAs were on or off before you could get CI. You were a "borderline" candidate with 110db HL! Anyone that was a candidate back then had a very good chance of hearing better. Today criteria is so loose that alot of people face a very real risk of hearing worse, including you and even me. Your concerns are perfectly valid.

Over the next few months, I'm going to see if I can get the best possible digital hearing aid for my right ear and see if I can get something good enough to hold me over until stem cells arrive.

Thanks to all those for their support in the meantime.

This is something I wish everyone had done before getting CI! I know a few who got CI say they plan to try a better HA in the other ear. Grrrr, why didn't they try it before CI? :roll:

I had a long discussion about stem cells with someone on IM. His hearing loss is almost as profound as mine and even he has little interest in CI. He still gets some benefits with HAs and understands more speech than me and he can even understand some on the phone. He also can hear like 500Hz higher than I can(1500Hz vs. 1000Hz) He agrees that we should see clinical trials for stem cells in the USA by 2020 but other countries will be delivering stem cells years before that and he may travel overseas to get it experimentally after seeing it work on others first. I plan to do the same, I figure if stem cells doesn't work, ill just get a CI in that ear.

You have my support. Hope to chat to you soon!

 

[overthepond]

I was shocked to be honest when you said you had 75% speech with your good ear, I respected that you had made your decision in going for the CI by not saying any further. I am now glad that you made the wisest decison in not going for it. Please do try the HA's and see how you get on with them If your understanding in speech had dropped then think about it then... Your good ear is too good at the moment... appericate what left of it... good luck.

 

[overthepond]

Deafdude, I did try everything possible before going for CI and I am sure ALOT of people had.

I am now VERY happy with my CI, as I am having SLT at the moment and is scoring 70's to 100's in many open and closed sets without lipreading, the therapist said I am very good at recongising the words/syablles/length of sentences but for my brain to absorb it would take 10'000's of hours to learn and i have done 2 so far and doing far better than they thought since i was born with no auditory memory of sounds. This i would never achieve if i carried on wearing HA's. I even is correcting myself with SH, CH, S and Z!!!

 

[cdmeggers]

good luck with your journey!

 

[deafdyke]

I won't be happy if I get a substandard result like I hear in those samples. My hearing is good enough in my right ear that anything less than that in my left ear will more than likely detract heavily from my right ear's hearing and make me disappointed.

You know........I wonder how many ambigious canidates would change their minds about getting a CI if they heard a sample of what an implantee hears. Yes it's awesome for those who have really poor speech perception with hearing aids........but I think some people may be thinking that it really does overcome all the disadvantages of being hoh. They don't realize that a lot of the people who were raving abt it were right off the bat canidates.

Over the next few months, I'm going to see if I can get the best possible digital hearing aid for my right ear and see if I can get something good enough to hold me over until stem cells arrive.

Just a word of advice. Experiment with different types of aids until you find the one that is right for you. The best possible aid for you might be the latest digital.....but it might also be a plain ol' Phonak.

 

[set2]

Phi,

It is good you took the time to really think about the CI. For me the biggest difference the CI has made for me is in speech discrimination. I was only getting 18 % with my Sumo DM. With the CI I am getting over 80 %. If I had over 70% discrimination with hearing aids there is no way I would have gone for the implant. I doubt I would have qualified.

Another factor was that things did not sound great with the the HA,especially music and turning up the hearing aid only made it worse and did not help with speech discrimination.
Yes, I am one happy camper.

Keep track of your hearing and the options that are out there to help you. Be sure you do what you feel is the best for you.

 

[deafdyke]

I was only getting 18 % with my Sumo DM. With the CI I am getting over 80 %. If I had over 70% discrimination with hearing aids there is no way I would have gone for the implant. I doubt I would have qualified.

Another factor was that things did not sound great with the the HA,especially music and turning up the hearing aid only made it worse and did not help with speech discrimination.

Yes indeed. I think virtually ALL right off the bat canidates feel that way. I do think that some ambigious canidates seem to think that the CI magically overcomes the disadvantages of being hoh. It's understandable........but I think the ambies (except for those with severe recruitment or tintituas) really need to be required to listen to the sound a CI produces before deciding.

 

[sr171soars]

........but I think the ambies (except for those with severe recruitment or tintituas) really need to be required to listen to the sound a CI produces before deciding.

As far as it goes, that is a reasonable statement. But unfortunately, nobody really knows what a person with a CI hears except for the one wearing it. In this case, it is really in the "eye of the beholder".

The interesting thing for me was the first day of being turned on. It did sound somewhat robotic and other "weirdness" at first. I was definitely adjusting to the "differences" but by day two everything became normalized. It really never sounded like that playback of that sample in another thread.

I guess what I'm saying is that the brain can compensate and smooth out how one hears with a CI. Today after 4 1/2 years, I really can't tell the difference between my CI and what I "remember" using my HA from a general perspective. Only one thing comes to mind that is basically the frequency limitations on both ends of the frequency scale (high and low). Most of the time, it never is a problem.

Back to the OP...

You are the only one who can decide what is best for you. If it is not for you, then so be it. At least, you have taken the time to study it carefully with a variety of information.

Best of success...

 

[ref74]

Inthe tons of reading about CI, I've never found completely satisfactory information about the potential additional information the not-implanted ear, properly aided, could add to the hearing. In principle, if there's some decent residual hearing, it is possible to get a compensation on the low frequencies of this "limitation on the ends of the frequency scale".
I guess it is because the most of people using a CI have no benefit from the HAs, or simply because the benefit from the CI is so great that all the rest becomes negligible. Nevertheless I still believe it could make sense.
I would really like to read a comment on this.

 

[john57]

Having two ears working together usually works better. But what I am talking about is bimodal hearing not binaural hearing. I am combining my remaining residual hearing in the left ear that only has 18% discrimination left with my hearing on the right with the CI at 85% discrimination. Together they give 95% discrimination for speech. This is very significant for me. Mathematically this may not make as much sense. But I kept in mind that we are combining hearing into a bimodal mode that presents hearing in a sequential mode from the CI side to hear in simultaneous mode on the ear with a hearing aid , there are still other benefits. For example, music is a bit smoother and louder than the CI ear alone. For some people, the hearing aid in the other ear gives more bass than the implant can give, but that is not the case for me as my own CI implant gives rich bass. I do not think that the sound demos really tells how the brain can recognize the information that is given to it to make it more clear and rich. I do not think it is filling in the blanks, but the brain learns to take the sequential information from the CI side with the hearing on the other ear as a reference into something more related to natural simultaneous hearing. Some people do not have enough residual hearing on the opposite ear to make bimodal hearing practical and can interfere with the discrimination on the CI implant side. Like I was saying in a previous post some CI manufactures and studying hybrid CI implants which combines a hearing aid with the CI implant on the same ear. Some studies are indicating that Bimodal hearing on the same ears gives great results providing that some low end residual hearing that can be aided with a hearing aid. There is a few people here on this forum using Bimodal hearing on this forum.
I wanted to say good luck to Phi4Sius in his pursuit of better hearing in his way.

Inthe tons of reading about CI, I've never found completely satisfactory information about the potential additional information the not-implanted ear, properly aided, could add to the hearing. In principle, if there's some decent residual hearing, it is possible to get a compensation on the low frequencies of this "limitation on the ends of the frequency scale".
I guess it is because the most of people using a CI have no benefit from the HAs, or simply because the benefit from the CI is so great that all the rest becomes negligible. Nevertheless I still believe it could make sense.
I would really like to read a comment on this.

 

[ref74]

Having two ears working together usually works better. But what I am talking about is bimodal hearing not binaural hearing. I am combining my remaining residual hearing in the left ear that only has 18% discrimination left with my hearing on the right with the CI at 85% discrimination. Together they give 95% discrimination for speech. This is very significant for me. Mathematically this may not make as much sense. But I kept in mind that we are combining hearing into a bimodal mode that presents hearing in a sequential mode from the CI side to hear in simultaneous mode on the ear with a hearing aid , there are still other benefits. For example, music is a bit smoother and louder than the CI ear alone. For some people, the hearing aid in the other ear gives more bass than the implant can give, but that is not the case for me as my own CI implant gives rich bass. I do not think that the sound demos really tells how the brain can recognize the information that is given to it to make it more clear and rich. I do not think it is filling in the blanks, but the brain learns to take the sequential information from the CI side with the hearing on the other ear as a reference into something more related to natural simultaneous hearing. Some people do not have enough residual hearing on the opposite ear to make bimodal hearing practical and can interfere with the discrimination on the CI implant side. Like I was saying in a previous post some CI manufactures and studying hybrid CI implants which combines a hearing aid with the CI implant on the same ear. Some studies are indicating that Bimodal hearing on the same ears gives great results providing that some low end residual hearing that can be aided with a hearing aid. There is a few people here on this forum using Bimodal hearing on this forum.
I wanted to say good luck to Phi4Sius in his pursuit of better hearing in his way.

Thanks john57, you gave me exactly the kind of info I was looking for.
If I understood correctly, if the residual hearing on the other ear is enough, it is possible to get significant benefit, while on the other hand the bimodal hearing could be a real disadvantage if the residual hearing is poor. That's very interesting...