Guest guest Posted February 27, 2001 Report Share Posted February 27, 2001 In a message dated 2/27/01 8:43:39 PM GTB Standard Time, princessaudrina@... writes: << I was on the list before but not able to keep up I am back now **Hugs** ~*Lesley*~ >> Lesley! Welcome to this list.Still has a ton of mail as ever,lol Sara and Nimet from Ohio Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 24, 2008 Report Share Posted June 24, 2008 Hi There and welcome to the forum. Each case of cochlear implant is different, meaning. The surgery takes place out patient and if all goes well your son is released the same day. Most doctors like to follow up with the patient a week after surgery. Most doctors activate several weeks after implantation. In my case I was implanted first time on the right side April 3rd 2007 activated May 14th 2007. Implanted second time June 3rd 2008 and up coming activation day is June 30th 2008. As you can see by these date ranges several weeks are in between them. I have read here in this forum of cases where activation day is a week from the day of implant. Others just several days after wards. So it all depends on the doctor. Reason most doctors wait that long is they like to wait for things inside the inner ear to calm down and blood clots to go away etc etc etc. RS Implant April 2007 Activate May 14 2007 LS implant June 3 2008 Upcoming activation June 30 2008 University of Miami Dr. Balkany From: msmistysu <msmistysu@...> Subject: New Here:) Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 2:30 PM Hi. I am new to this group. I have a 12 year old Deaf son who is probably going to get a CI. He has a progressive loss so he does have a little hearing still with his aides. He is also oral though he signs as well. I was wondering if anyone can tell me, once he gets an CI, how long will it take him to be able to use it since he did have hearing at one time and does have speech? Thanks, Misty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 24, 2008 Report Share Posted June 24, 2008 Hi Misty - welcome to the group! What a wonderful adventure you and your son have ahead of you! As to your question about how long it will take before he is able to " use it " , my assumption is that you mean how long it will be before he is understanding sounds since he had hearing at one time. It will depend on how long he has been without usable hearing in that ear. The sooner he is implanted after losing the ability to hear speech, the faster he will be successful at understanding speech with the CI. In my case, I was implanted in an ear that had not been able to wear a HA due to high frequency loss (no response to sound above 1500 Hz), and severe hearing loss in the lower frequencies, starting at 55 dB 250 Hz, steep slope to 1500 Hz. This was for 51 years. Prior to implantation, my word recognition score in that ear was 20%. I've been activated now for 14 months.. The first 8 months of activation was difficult for me because I had to get accustomed to hearing high frequency sounds I'd never heard before. The sensation I had whenever I heard a high frequency sound was that my brain felt like it was being vibrated to death (someone else described it as being Tasered - which if you can imagine what that might feel like, could be as apt a description as any). It wasn't painful to me, but it was very distracting. It took 6 months before I no longer had those sensations for most high frequency sounds. It took 8 months after activation before I was able to hear, with the CI, at the 20-25 dB levels from 250 Hz to 4000 Hz, which was exciting for me because I never heard high frequency sounds before in either ear, and now I was hearing them in my implanted ear. After that was accomplished, I was able to start working on word/sentence recognition. At 2 months activation, my sentences in noise score was 8%, 8 months after activation it was 22%, and 1 year after activation it was 42%. I believe that I continue to improve as I sense I am understanding more and more with my CI ear. Of course, I'm still using my non-implant ear with a HA as I still have pretty good word recognition with that ear yet, and having that ear aided with a HA is giving me sense of direction of sound, as well as the surround sound, which makes music and the spoken word sound so much better. With hearing in both ears, my sentence in word recognition score is 94% accurate. As for your son, his experience may be very different. He will have sound right away upon activation, but it will depend on his brain (and how long it has been " lazy " - not working at its hearing) as to how much of that sound he is able to recognize right away. But one thing for sure, with rehabilitation, desire to obtain the best hearing possible, and willingness to work at it, he will be successful with his CI. Best of luck to you and your son! I hope you keep us posted as you continue your journey with a CI. New Here:) Hi. I am new to this group. I have a 12 year old Deaf son who is probably going to get a CI. He has a progressive loss so he does have a little hearing still with his aides. He is also oral though he signs as well. I was wondering if anyone can tell me, once he gets an CI, how long will it take him to be able to use it since he did have hearing at one time and does have speech? Thanks, Misty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 25, 2008 Report Share Posted June 25, 2008 Hi Misty: I am an adult who was implanted 12 years ago with the Nucleus 24 at the age of 51. Like your son, I had progressive hearing loss beginning from the time my Mother first suspected when I was about 2, but not diagnosed until I was 5. I was fit with hearing aids and due to the progression of my loss; I had a 95dB loss at age 15. Hearing loss greater than 92dB is considered deaf. When I was first diagnosed my loss was moderate to severe or about 60dB average. Of course, the miracle of cochlear implant technology was not available at that time. Over the years I continued to wear hearing aids, even though they did NOT provide me much speech discrimination. I became an excellent speech reader and never learned to use sign language. It was the thinking at that point in time that deaf children should try to remain oral, and my parents did not take any exception to this because I was doing very well despite my severe hearing loss. When I was implanted at age 51 I had several things going in my favor. One: My original hearing loss was not so severe as to prevent me from learning speech, so I had the advantage of hearing speech which created auditory memory that is so crucial for our brain to adapt to what I like to call " CI hearing " . Then, I did have a period of time between ages 5 to about 10 where I had pretty good aided hearing, so again my auditory memory had a leg up. What worked somewhat against me was the long duration of profound deafness and in the case of one ear, no aided hearing. That said, for me it took about 3-4 months to feel speech sounded like I remembered it. I was able to understand speech immediately, it just sounded different (like the AOL computer voice that says " You've got mail " ) Speech sounded horrible, but at least I could understand it. I share this to give you hope, but with the caveat that my auditory memory was more intact than perhaps someone born with a hearing loss greater than 60dB. The auditory pathways in a person with more severe hearing loss would most likely be less developed. It is this person that may have a longer journey to develop auditory pathways to speech understanding. The experience of each CI recipient is unique and is impacted by many different factors. One of them is something we have absolutely no control over - and is called elasticity of our brain. Some people just have more of it than others, and it is nothing to do with IQ!! It also is the big " unknown " as we move forward, and the other factor that helps is just how tenacious and curious a person is about learning new sounds never heard before. As a child, I just hungered for more sound and learning to understand sounds was almost a game. Fortunately, that was still the case when I received my CI at 51 years of age. I just challenged myself and played mental games to see how I could improved from day to day. The absolute worst day was activation day.....but it only got better each day after that! Best of luck and I hope all goes well for your son. Does he want the CI? That is a huge motivator in itself. Feel free to write off list as well, if there is anything I can do to help allay your concerns. Warmly, Carol in WI --- Original Message ---- From: msmistysu <msmistysu@...> Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 1:30:19 PM Subject: New Here:) Hi. I am new to this group. I have a 12 year old Deaf son who is probably going to get a CI. He has a progressive loss so he does have a little hearing still with his aides. He is also oral though he signs as well. I was wondering if anyone can tell me, once he gets an CI, how long will it take him to be able to use it since he did have hearing at one time and does have speech? Thanks, Misty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 28, 2008 Report Share Posted June 28, 2008 What is your overall understanding without your HA. New Here:) Hi. I am new to this group. I have a 12 year old Deaf son who is probably going to get a CI. He has a progressive loss so he does have a little hearing still with his aides. He is also oral though he signs as well. I was wondering if anyone can tell me, once he gets an CI, how long will it take him to be able to use it since he did have hearing at one time and does have speech? Thanks, Misty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 30, 2008 Report Share Posted June 30, 2008 Overal understanding with my left ear without the hearing aid? Well, when they tested me with individual words while doing an auditory exam, my understanding of single words was 70% before my surgery. New Here:) Hi. I am new to this group. I have a 12 year old Deaf son who is probably going to get a CI. He has a progressive loss so he does have a little hearing still with his aides. He is also oral though he signs as well. I was wondering if anyone can tell me, once he gets an CI, how long will it take him to be able to use it since he did have hearing at one time and does have speech? Thanks, Misty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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