That's why I am waiting around 3 years, this is plenty of time for the pioneers to have gone ahead and for us to see results from the dozens of pioneers. The stem cell labs will also build alot of experience for hearing loss/deafness and other conditions. In the next 3-6 months, we should be seeing more "before" and "after" audiograms from the next dozen or so pioneers.
Another thing to consider is that the "after" audiogram was taken about a month after the first stage/round of stem cell treatment. Improvements may continue for 3-6 months after the last stage/round of stem cell treatment has been administered. So we should know of a followup at the 3 and 6 month points post treatment. While they report a 20db average improvement, was that after 1 month? There very well could be another 10 or even 20db improvement after 6 months!
A 30db improvement in my case would give me enough residual hearing to be aided to 0db in the low frequencies, 10db in the mids and 20db in the highs. This is better than CI in every frequency and id have more access to sounds and speech vs. an average CI result of 30db across.
On another note, some fear that stem cells will make you hearing and they don't want to be hearing because they want the ability to enjoy silence while sleeping. Ive tried to explain that stem cells today or anytime soon is not capable of a full restoration. A 30db improvement will put me in the moderate-severe deafness category, ill be less deaf than I am now.
Maybe 15 years from now, stem cell technology will be so advanced that it may be able to get you as good as 20db HL unaided. Of course those who don't want to be hearing can simply get less stages/rounds of treatments. You can keep getting additional stem cell treatments till you are happy with where your hearing is with HAs. There is no need to keep spending tens of thousands on stem cells once you attain enough improvement to get full benefits from HAs unless you wish to be hearing and not want to wear HAs.
