The hearing and cochlear implant debate! Share your opinion!

[deafdyke]

and can hear some with her HA.

How much is some?

She was told 20 years ago she was a good candidate

Well if she was a canidate 20 years ago, (when criteria was a lot stricter) then it sounds like she's a right off the bat canidate. If she has a deafer ear, then she could get that one implanted and stick with being aided in her better hearing ear.

 

[deafdude1]

I found another website that debates cochlear implants:

Introduction to CochlearWar.com

That person believes in the right to choose so he is not against teens and adults deciding on CIs for themselves as long as they aren't pressured into getting CIs. He also understands CI being an option for those born hearing and became deaf postlingually. But he is against CI for those born deaf(prelingual) and explains why. One point he says is that CI is hyped way too much and there's alot of bias and cherrypicked stats that make CI sound almost like a cure.

From the studies ive read, a CI for children appears to give them hearing similar to those with an 80db HL wearing HAs. That's if the CI works properly and you achieve an average result. Shel has said that 25% of children get little or no benefit from CI. This is why id only implant my child if he got little or no benefit from HAs, had 100+ db HL and only after trying all the best HAs programmed with maximum amplification. That person sees nothing wrong with deafness and opposes trying to "fix" them. HAs aren't considered a "fix" because they are not permanent nor invasive(no surgery) and the person always gets the choice to stop wearing HAs.

 

[ecp]

Agree with you!




I asked my audiologist this and he knows how to program them so they will be loud but not painful. Like CIs, HAs also have a treshold and comfort level. You want the treshold level to be as low as possible, yet never exceed the comfort level. If I can get my treshold down to 15db at 250Hz, its proof that HAs do a great job, well provided you still have residual hearing.




One of the posters got down to 10db with CI and actually says it's too good. She's now happy being in the 15-25db range. She tried 40db and everything was too quiet. So she is proof that db does matter to a point. Try turning down the volume on your HA, youll notice everything is too quiet and that people seem to be whispering. Also when you talk people comment on how loud you talk. So yes db is still important.

Thanks for your replies. Keep them comming, I like debates!

It’s been a long damn time since I paid attention to you but you must have significant low frequency residual hearing if you can hear 25 dB at 250Hz. With my bearing aids programmed to the max before I got my CI, my best aided threshold was 45dB at 500Hz. Unaided, the threshold was 105dB.
Getting a cochlear implant didn’t destroy my residual hearing, I still have some measurable hearing in the low frequencies. About the same as my pre-cochlear implant threshold.

 

[karl1972]

That's a lot to read. my my. I don't even know where to start.

A little background info: I was born profoundly deaf and got implanted several months ago.

It's so hard to do the statistics of "happiness" of one having the CI. Are you asking if children grow up resenting having CIs or resenting how they are treated (like a hearing) BECAUSE they have CIs? Two very different things. I've noticed that the frustrations of a person who grew up with a CI is very similar to a HoH person. They both can hear a lot, but because they can hear a lot, people assume they can hear everything.

How can you determine if waiting to get a CI will harm the child if we can do fine without the CI? I did perfectly fine without the CI, however, I doubt my life would be WORSE with the CI. I can only see CI bringing benefits. You can only determine "harm" if you can magically see one's life with and without CI.

I don't know much about moderate/HoH people being candidates for the CI. I can tell you that I thought I heard okay with the HAs (relied a lot on lipreading), and didn't realize how much sound I was missing when I got the CI. Also, training to hear with the HA seems to me totally different from training to hear with the CI, at least for a born (or pre-lingually) deaf person because there are the adjustments that need to be done. With the HAs, it's highly likely that you will miss some sounds NO MATTER how loud it is. With the CI, most, if not all, sounds will be "heard", but adjustments need to be made THEN you have to learn the sounds. For example, recently I had AVT, and with the CI, I could NOT tell the difference between bee and baa, and with the HA, I can easily tell the difference (which means I "know" what they sound like), so my CI needs to be adjusted for that. However I can hear the t, p, s, sh very easily with the CI where I cant even hear them AT ALL with the HA. The HA's can only give you so much.

I'll stop for now!

i have been offered CI's i am 47yrs old,but with digital hearing aids a waste of space for me,i am worried that i will be at the mercy of the tech companies ,like i am with digial hearing aids,so i am not bothering,if i could do my job without hearing aids i would,i work as a customer adviser although my audiologist has told me i am too deaf,i have done it for 25 yrs lol