Anybody here with Cochlear Implants? I’m asking for input only from people with first-hand experience.
I’m 70 and my diseased hearing has reached the point where even state of the art hearing aids are no longer very effective. Both my Audiologist and ENT have suggested Cochlear Implants as a possibility I might pursue. FWIW I’m already aware that CI’s aren’t magic bullets that “restore” lost hearing. I’m wondering just how difficult the learning curve has been for recipients.
I have no first-hand experience, but in the interests of keeping this thread alive, I’ll contribute.
My ex-wife is an audiologist who attended at a number of cochlear implant surgical procedures. As I recall from her, a cochlear implant is an all-or-nothing procedure–that is, if you have one, then you’ve ruined what hearing you do have (apparently, the procedure severs the aural nerve from the ear, and replaces it with wires from the cochlear implant, meaning that if the cochlear implant doesn’t work as promised, you cannot go back to hearing aids).
Additionally, what you’ll hear through a cochlear implant won’t be what you heard when you could hear clearly. Thanks to my ex, I once heard a recording of what cochlear implant recipients hear, and it was barely recognizeable as spoken English. Children who are born totally deaf (i.e. no connection between the aural nerve and the brain) can be taught to recognize what they hear through it, but with adults, it is much more difficult to understand “through the mud” (as my ex put it), since they once enjoyed perfect hearing, unlike children who never did.
I’d suggest that you ask your audiologist and ENT for more information, especially since it is apparently an all-or-nothing procedure. They’re the professionals and should be able to advise you appropriately.
A few years ago, my wife in her 50s, got an implant on one side and a hearing aid in the other. It’s not an instantaneous magic bullet, and there IS a learning curve. But that doesn’t stop them from being miraculous.
The story that made the biggest impression on me was a few weeks or months after she got the implant, she was outdoors with a friend, and she heard these weird intermittent sounds. Talking with her friend, the friend figured it out and explained, “That’s the birds chirping.” If I remember the story accurately - and this is very important for the question you’re asking - it’s NOT that she had to learn a new thing, that this weird electronic Cochlear Implant sound is chirping. Rather, her hearing had been so bad for so long that she had forgotten what chirping sounds like, and that’s what she was relearning.
I will talk to her later, and suggest that she join Straight Dope (or use my account) so that she can offer her first-hand perspective.
I’ve spoken with my ENT about this topic. My hearing has been failing for years, but it is still within the range of what is considered addressable with hearing aid. My right ear is totally gone, in my left I get by with a hearing aid.
He told me that medically speaking I should have had CI surgery on my deaf side years ago, but my insurance wouldn’t pay. I’m 62. He said I’ll probably qualify when I’m 70, but by that age the ROI isn’t good. It’s a sad state of affairs. If I had an extra $100,000 I would have considered surgery years ago.
What is ROI?
Replying to the responses so far…
Thanks all. Very interesting.
Within a few years my hearing, even with the best available hearing aids, will be so weak and distorted that I’ll effectively have nothing left to lose by committing to implants. By that time I’ll be in my mid 70’s and I suspect the learning curve will be far more daunting for someone my age.
Oh. Return On Investment? Got it. The process is easier for younger people.
That recording is what I’d love to hear.
My doctor’s point about return on investment was that in situations like yours and mine, they can predict that cochlear implant will be necessary eventually and so surgery should be done earlier than insurance typically covers. But the older the patient is, the less likely they will pursue surgery.
Insurance companies in the US have it figured out.
If you cannot pay there might be clinical trials you can enroll in.
As a side note many deaf people are against implants and are OK with being deaf.
There’s a big difference between born deaf and born with normal hearing that you later lost in middle age or later.
Though you’re right there’s a LOT of politics among the congenital deaf community that they’re different, not damaged / handicapped. And as such look at CI as a bit of a sell-out to the larger society. An understandable POV, but not one relevant to the OP.
Our own @RivkahChaya is an expert on this stuff (the politics, not necessarily the implants). I’m @-ing her name here so perhaps she’ll stop by once she gets the ping.
Thanks again.
I was going to stay out of it, since I do not personally have a cochlear implant, but since I’ve been pinged, I’ll say two things:
Actually, 3 things-- I want to reiterate that getting a CI means crossing an event horizon: you destroy all the residual hearing in the implanted ear. You have to be pretty certain that not only do hearing aids not help, but that there is not a breakthrough hearing aid technology on the horizon that might help.
Since the OP is looking for medical advice, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Thanks to everyone for their input here. I’ve thought about all these options, and am currently shopping for better hearing aids instead of pursuing implants.
And I loved the line “As a side note many deaf people are against implants and are OK with being deaf.” I need to relax and enjoy life even with the MUTE button pushed…
Just a side side note, an implant might be an all-or-nothing proposition, but so is having your wife join The Dope.
Mine would be following me, correcting every post I made:
“Umm, thought I should point out that when digs said ‘last year, in Blüdhaven’, it was actually a decade ago in Codsville.”
But deaf people being okay with being deaf is a very different situation. They have an entire community with whom they can communicate via sign language. You will not have this. Certainly, try to find the best hearing aids you can, but don’t rule out CI’s down the road.
I haven’t mentioned my other option: accepting deafness (when it arrives) as a natural aspect of my particular old age. BTW I did find some examples of “what CI hearing sounds like” on YouTube. Haven’t tried listening to any of them yet.
A LOT of good feedback so far, thank you all.
That’s certainly an option. My 95 yo MIL is most of the way to that destination. Without her hearing aids you can shout for all you’re worth up close and personal & she hears zero. With them she can hear sorta. If you speak loudly and enunciate clearly. But it’s evident she’s still guessing at about half the words I say.
There’s lots of social science research that becoming deaf in old age is a huge social isolator. And that social isolation is very hard on your remaining longevity. Silently typing back and forth as we’re all doing here is nice and all. But face to face connection to other people via speech (or SL if you and your pals have those skills) is huge.
There are crappy outcomes in life that we just have to accept when they happen, then try our best to find the pony in the pile of horsesh**. IMO going deaf in old age is one of those things. Accept if you must, but fight like hell beforehand to prevent. There’s maybe a decade of extra longevity in play here.
I know a mother at my kids’ school who went suddenly deaf from a high fever a few years earlier. She managed to learn to lipread so well that I didn’t realize she was deaf for several days after meeting her - she had to tell me. I realize most people won’t achieve the same level of lipreading proficiency, but it’s certainly an option.
Can you practice learning lip-reading now, so that it’s not such a stretch when the hearing goes? I wonder if there are youtubes that will help you learn.
COVID has demonstrated to lots of older folks that they lipread more than they realize they did. Between the muffling nd hiding the mouth, masks are not helping the hard-ish of hearing.