I have a cochlear implant AMA

[AdmiralJaneway]

I’ve been deaf since birth (am now in my 40s) and have had a cochlear implant for eight years.

Thanks for the thread, OP, really interesting.

DH and DNephew both lost hearing in one ear following illness last year. DNephew has a hearing aid, DH doesn't currently, but his last 2 consultant appointments were cancelled due to covid.

What kinds of hearing loss are CI suitable for? Both are keen musicians (Dnephew is studying music at university). DH has coped at work due to everything being on Teams, but struggles in noisy public environments and will find returning to open plan office difficult.

Which CI did you have ?

MY DH was implanted 20 years ago at SOECIC, it changed our lives.

@Schoolchoicesucks I’m sorry to hear they have lost hearing. I’m not sure I’m exactly qualified to say what types of hearing loss a CI is suitable for. The threshold is currently that people must be unable to hear anything less than 80 decibels on testing.

What I will say is that those that have recently become deaf (rather than life long deaf) generally tend to do significantly better after implantation.

@FinallyFluid I have the Advanced Bionics Naida. The centre name has changed slightly but if that’s Southampton then that’s where I got mine done!!

They are fab at Southampton.

DH wears a Cochlear, cochlear and was implanted by Peter Ashcroft who helped develop the Cochlear CI.

Enjoy my lovely, the happy tales I could tell you about post switch on, but this is your thread, so enjoy.

Thanks for answering my questions @AdmiralJaneway. I’m a total technology geek and CIs fascinate me. Then how the brain takes this ‘foreign’ input, learns it and interprets it. Amazing!

Thank you for an interesting thread OP. Like someone upthread, you’ve already answered most of my questions. I think you also answered my only other question indirectly when you said you enjoy the silence at night: is there anything you miss about being deaf now that you have your implant?

@boatyardblues - that’s a truly great question - is there anything I miss about being deaf?

I have never stopped to consider this but the answer is no, because I am still deaf, I still have the ability to take my ears off (as it were!) if I need to. If I ever go down the biological treatment route (if and when available) for the other ear then I think that I would need to get used to sleeping with sound and that would be difficult I think.

Thank you for taking my question in the spirit it was intended, Admiral. 🙂 I would love to have silence at night. We are on a main thoroughfare to a popular park and the drunken revellers carousing their way home in the early hours is a real problem this time of year, especially with indoor venues closed. The boy racers also like our road as a practice circuit. 😕

Thank you so much for an interesting and educational thread. I am currently learning BSL to support a student and am finding it fascinating.

I love how you refer to “taking off your ears” at night.

Have you ever been in a situation where you need an alarm system suitable for the deaf at night. I’ve always wondered how prevalent this is in the deaf community for those that live alone, in the event of fire for example when they cannot hear smoke alarms. Does anything like this ever unsettle you if staying in a hotel room by yourself or it’s just a part of life?

Op I’m delighted that you have benefited so much. I have 2 cochlear implants, done with a 6 month gap in between. I am now in my 50’s, was born hearing but lost it gradually in my 20’s/30’s and relied on hearing aids.

The operation has completely changed my life. They are invisible as not behind the ear, and I totally have my life back. And yes, I relish the silence when I take them off at night!

I am SO glad i happened upon this thread..! Context - 32, hearing deteriorating since i was about 16/17 cause unknown. Spent some time in late teens/early twenties getting tested and being given hearing aids which i was adamant did not work nor did I want to wear - i mean, i was 22, just moved to London.. etc. I did not pursue further. For the last 10 years or so I have adapted to lip reading, subtitles and arranging myself in order to hear as best I can but I think i am reaching the end of managing this way. I am scared to be honest. I know i am a candidate for a CI as it was mentioned way back. I also seem to suffer from bouts of Meniere's but this has not been formally diagnosed (not even sure if it can be). I did not know invisible cochlear implants existed! I am also interested to learn more about what OP referred to for biological advances.. anyway. Feels better to get it all out. It is an exhausting and depressing thing to live with sometimes .

aliboob44 I was scared for years. I now know that if your auditory nerve is not stimulated enough your brain slows down, making it harder to understand speech, not just hear it. The more understanding you have of speech, the better you will do with an implant. I’m no expert but was told this by my implant team.