I'm new to CI

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bwatson20

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I was born deaf and always wore a hearing aid in my right ear all my life. I am 26 years old and last September I was playing softball and was sliding to 2nd base and a girl from the outfield threw the ball and missed and the ball hit me right about my right ear. I lost my hearing immediately having a concussion. I had ear surgery on my right ear hoping my doctor could fix my inner ear where I have a hole in my eardrum. 6 weeks later some hearing came back but not all. I had lost 20% word recognition in my right ear. I was devasted.
My doctor recommended me to get a CI in my left ear for backup and hopefully to improve my hearing. I had the CI surgery done April 2nd and have been activated for 6 weeks now.
I am hearing things like the phone ringing and my dog barkign and can hear voices but I am still very uncomfortable with it because I hear better with my hearing aid right now. I still have no recognition of words with my CI and still very fusturating.
I don't wear it all the time and maybe I should but I can't wear it to work because I am a supervisor and I still need to hear and understand people.
When I take my CI off I feel like a sigh of relief because I can hear normal things again with my HA.
Has anyone gone through something like this? How long did it take to feel comfortable or like the CI was working for you.
I have my next checkup 6/25/07.
 
If you don't mind my asking, were you ever able to understand speech with your right HA? The reason I ask is because the answer to that question will determine how long it may take you to understand speech with your CI. If you are prelingually deaf (in your post you said you were born deaf), it may take longer for you to be able to understand speech as opposed to someone who lost their hearing adventitiously.

I'm postingually deaf and it took me 2 weeks before I was able to understand speech.

By 6 months post activation, I began to feel comfortable with what I was hearing through my CI (sounds began to "normalize").

I know how you feel about not wearing your CI all the time. When my first CI was activated, I was tempted to only wear my HA because I couldn't make any sense of the sounds I was hearing through my CI. Everything sounded metallic and high pitched.

However, over time, I found that sounds began to "normalize" and sound more like I remember when I wore HAs. I found that the more I wore my CI and practiced listening to TV, the radio, etc. the clearer speech and environmental sounds became. I found it helpful to always keep a radio or TV playing in the background so that my brain had something it could listen to and interpret.

You might consider writing a journal of what you hear with your CI. This will not only help you see how your hearing changes from day to day, but it will also assist your audi in creating a good map.

Hope these suggestions help! :)
 
Hi there and glad you have found us for support!

I came to have my CI in a similar situation to you, except that I lost my remaining hearing suddenly with no explanation. Unlike you though I had my better ear implanted, which had been stimulated with the hearing aid since I was the age of two and a half. Consequently it was much easier to get rehabilated.

I'm guessing from your post that you have never worn a hearing aid in your left ear, which has just been implanted? If this is the case then it would be a good idea to give it more time and sigh, yes unfortunately, to get more benefit out of the CI you'll have to wear it for a decent amount of time every day, including a short time with your hearing aid switched off.

You may also want to ask your audie about auditory verbal therapy resources and specialists, who can assist you in improving your hearing of speech in that ear. Do make sure you make use of all your previous visual cues such as lipreading, as CIs are a tool that help you complete the picture so to speak.

You might also want to join a deaf or hard of hearing social group nearby for social relief? I'm not into deaf culture myself but some people have found it to be very helpful in terms of being with others in similar situations and it might be fun to learn sign language, if you do not already know it. I'm only suggesting this as a possible option for you to think about to help with the frustration that you are currently experiencing. Don't worry if it's not for you, we are all different.
 
Yes, I have always heard speech very well with my HA in my right ear and still can, but not as good as I used to. I find myself reading lips a lot more then I have before. I am a supervisor in a noisy envirnoment and found its been more difficult for me to understand what they are saying which can be fusturating at times because I have to ask them what all the time.

I have a feeling that my CI will take me a while to feel or get comfortable with it because yes everything does sound metallic and high pitch to me right now with my CI only on.

My audi was surprised the last time that I went that I wasn't recognizing any speech and I still really am not so I don't know how she is going to feel when I go for my checkup on the 25th.

Thanks for your post and hopefully things will tend to get easier and better for me.
 
bwatson20 - Wow you got activated quickly! I was implanted May 17th & didn't even get activated til yesterday!

You gotta remember that having a CI is quite different & you need to be patient and just keep practicing. What I do is wear my HA & my CI at the same time so I can learn faster on hearing sounds. It's helping very well. I don't really understand speech just yet, [altho my husband doesn't agree!] - cause everything still sounds just really weird when people talk. It seems like the pitches bounces all over the place when people talk. It's kinda funny actually, heh. I'll be glad once that's gone & I hear it normally again. :]

Oh and when I took my CI off - I can hear things normally again with my hearing aid but I know to keep my CI on to keep practicing so I keep my CI on no matter how over whelming it gets [well okay, I would take it off for a quick 30 secs t hen put it back on but that's as far as I'll go!]

Just remember - it takes time & practice!
 
One thing that a lot of people do to improve speech recognition is to practice with audio book CDs. Start off with a children's audio set where you can read the book and listen to the speech at the same time and then progress to more difficult levels as you improve.

I did this when I started off and at first, it sounded difficult to pick out the voices. But the more I did it and with every mapping, I noticed a definite improvement.
 
R2D2 said:
One thing that a lot of people do to improve speech recognition is to practice with audio book CDs. Start off with a children's audio set where you can read the book and listen to the speech at the same time and then progress to more difficult levels as you improve.

I did this when I started off and at first, it sounded difficult to pick out the voices. But the more I did it and with every mapping, I noticed a definite improvement.
Click to expand...

Good advice! Most don't start off like I did understanding speech right off the bat.
 
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