hi, I came over here after I saw a comment you left on a post on deaf. I just wanted to wish you luck on your journey, and, since it's LJ and all, give you my two cents, which you are more than welcome to ignore!
Bilateral implants are awesome if you have no residual hearing, or very very little. However, if you do still have some residual hearing, you may want to consider one implant and a really good digital hearing aid. There's just some information that current implants still can't quite provide (especially low frequencies), even though they get better all the time. In the past, the hearing aid has also been better at dealing with music, but many of the implant companies have made strides in that area, so that's less of a concern.
Now, the more opinionated part. :) You need to go with the CI that you feel is best for you, so that may not be the same as what I think. But, I'm a teacher of the deaf and have had students that have used all three and have had to troubleshoot/work with all three, so I have some insight there. Hands down, the most user-friendly is Cochlear. Always has been. And now, with their new processors with the remotes and everything... wow. And those new ones are SO trim... To be fair, I haven't seen anyone with a Nucleus 5 yet, just the Freedom, but I have had the opportunity to see demo models. I'm excited to see them in action this summer at AG Bell (they typically try out new models on deaf adults that are present at the conference; Advanced Bionics did that last time). Advanced Bionics is next in line for most user-friendly, but their version of user-friendly, like Med-El, is blinking lights. At least AB's change color, unlike Med-El's, where you have to practically learn morse code to figure out what is wrong. Besides the fact that the Med-El ones are just ugly.
All that said, they DO all work. AB and Cochlear have rechargeable battery options, which is definitely a bonus. Med-El may do that now, I'm not completely up on their latest processors as they are not very popular where I live now. I would also find out what your audiologist has the most experience with because if s/he is not very comfortable with your favorite, that could affect how you feel about it.
and hopefully I have not offended you by blabbing in your post. :)
You totally did not offend me. I had been wondering what your background was when I saw your response in the CI implant on deaf as well :) Very fair I thought, and actually answered the questions, which you also did in response to this post :) The biggest thing for bilateral...is partially money to be honest. If I did bilateral, if insurance does cover portions of doing bilateral, then it would be cheaper to do bilateral at once, instead of one now and the other later. But again, I'm not going to definitely decide until I find out what my insurance would cover, and that won't happen until after I find out if I'm all cleared by the MRI. The other thing that makes me wonder if I should do bilateral at the same time, is if doing them at the same time would change the dependency on a certain side of the implant. Often times when people are implanted on one side, and then later implanted on the other side, 80% of their functioning for hearing is done on one implant, the first one. The second one is mostly useful for environmental sounds. I have yet to do more research on this, but I don't want to put the time and effort into it until A - I know it's even a possibility, and B - my final comprehensive presentation is over for my master's :) Fortunately the MRI is after the final comp, so it'll work out :) I was leaning towards Cochlear as well, just cause I am an early interventionists for families with children who have a hearing loss. :) I've seen the implants work for both Cochlear and AB, but I've never met a person with Med-El....and it seems audiologists are not as familiar with Med-El here. However, I do know that the audiologists here are about 50/50 when it comes to troubleshooting and working with customer service between Cochlear and Med-El. I've seen the presentations of both The Nucleus 5 and the newer AB (which I cannot think of for the life of me right now), and was impressed by both, but my gut is still telling me Cochlear, and the husband feels the same way as well. It'll be interesting :)
oh good, unsolicited advice can so often offend. :)
I totally hear you on the money part; it's crazy how much the whole thing comes to, worth it or not! And you're right about the dependency; it can be hard to be equally good with both implants. However, that can be true even if they're done at the same time. I guess I've just always been paranoid about knocking out all useable hearing before one is sure the CI will work. I know you're doing all the right things to find out if it would be successful, and it sure sounds like as long as the anatomy is good, it totally would be, I'm just a paranoid kind of person. :) I'm also probably pretty uncharacteristic of an oral deaf educator, so there you have it. Overall, it seems like as long as you put the effort into do the auditory rehab, you can be successful with one, or two. I do think a lot of the time, the second implant isn't trained as well, or as much, as the first because the first already works, so why belabor another? Not that that's good logic, I just wonder if that's where it's coming from. Like a kid that just gets the first implant, that kid has to wear just that one implant all the time and learn everything with it. Then if you get a second one later, you train it for a few minutes alone every day, and that's probably all. Your brain rarely has to depend on it. Of course, that's all theory and I'm sure your research would be more accurate. :)
That's awesome that you do the early intervention, especially since you are kind of in both worlds (oral and signing). I love the unbiased approach! Even though I'm totally for using speech and residual hearing (or CIs), I know it's not right for everyone and always want people to have all the information.
Bilateral implants are awesome if you have no residual hearing, or very very little. However, if you do still have some residual hearing, you may want to consider one implant and a really good digital hearing aid. There's just some information that current implants still can't quite provide (especially low frequencies), even though they get better all the time. In the past, the hearing aid has also been better at dealing with music, but many of the implant companies have made strides in that area, so that's less of a concern.
Now, the more opinionated part. :) You need to go with the CI that you feel is best for you, so that may not be the same as what I think. But, I'm a teacher of the deaf and have had students that have used all three and have had to troubleshoot/work with all three, so I have some insight there. Hands down, the most user-friendly is Cochlear. Always has been. And now, with their new processors with the remotes and everything... wow. And those new ones are SO trim... To be fair, I haven't seen anyone with a Nucleus 5 yet, just the Freedom, but I have had the opportunity to see demo models. I'm excited to see them in action this summer at AG Bell (they typically try out new models on deaf adults that are present at the conference; Advanced Bionics did that last time). Advanced Bionics is next in line for most user-friendly, but their version of user-friendly, like Med-El, is blinking lights. At least AB's change color, unlike Med-El's, where you have to practically learn morse code to figure out what is wrong. Besides the fact that the Med-El ones are just ugly.
All that said, they DO all work. AB and Cochlear have rechargeable battery options, which is definitely a bonus. Med-El may do that now, I'm not completely up on their latest processors as they are not very popular where I live now. I would also find out what your audiologist has the most experience with because if s/he is not very comfortable with your favorite, that could affect how you feel about it.
and hopefully I have not offended you by blabbing in your post. :)
Reply
The biggest thing for bilateral...is partially money to be honest. If I did bilateral, if insurance does cover portions of doing bilateral, then it would be cheaper to do bilateral at once, instead of one now and the other later. But again, I'm not going to definitely decide until I find out what my insurance would cover, and that won't happen until after I find out if I'm all cleared by the MRI.
The other thing that makes me wonder if I should do bilateral at the same time, is if doing them at the same time would change the dependency on a certain side of the implant. Often times when people are implanted on one side, and then later implanted on the other side, 80% of their functioning for hearing is done on one implant, the first one. The second one is mostly useful for environmental sounds. I have yet to do more research on this, but I don't want to put the time and effort into it until A - I know it's even a possibility, and B - my final comprehensive presentation is over for my master's :) Fortunately the MRI is after the final comp, so it'll work out :)
I was leaning towards Cochlear as well, just cause I am an early interventionists for families with children who have a hearing loss. :) I've seen the implants work for both Cochlear and AB, but I've never met a person with Med-El....and it seems audiologists are not as familiar with Med-El here. However, I do know that the audiologists here are about 50/50 when it comes to troubleshooting and working with customer service between Cochlear and Med-El. I've seen the presentations of both The Nucleus 5 and the newer AB (which I cannot think of for the life of me right now), and was impressed by both, but my gut is still telling me Cochlear, and the husband feels the same way as well. It'll be interesting :)
Reply
I totally hear you on the money part; it's crazy how much the whole thing comes to, worth it or not! And you're right about the dependency; it can be hard to be equally good with both implants. However, that can be true even if they're done at the same time. I guess I've just always been paranoid about knocking out all useable hearing before one is sure the CI will work. I know you're doing all the right things to find out if it would be successful, and it sure sounds like as long as the anatomy is good, it totally would be, I'm just a paranoid kind of person. :) I'm also probably pretty uncharacteristic of an oral deaf educator, so there you have it. Overall, it seems like as long as you put the effort into do the auditory rehab, you can be successful with one, or two. I do think a lot of the time, the second implant isn't trained as well, or as much, as the first because the first already works, so why belabor another? Not that that's good logic, I just wonder if that's where it's coming from. Like a kid that just gets the first implant, that kid has to wear just that one implant all the time and learn everything with it. Then if you get a second one later, you train it for a few minutes alone every day, and that's probably all. Your brain rarely has to depend on it. Of course, that's all theory and I'm sure your research would be more accurate. :)
That's awesome that you do the early intervention, especially since you are kind of in both worlds (oral and signing). I love the unbiased approach! Even though I'm totally for using speech and residual hearing (or CIs), I know it's not right for everyone and always want people to have all the information.
Anyhow, I've hijacked your post enough. :)
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment