Guest guest Posted May 11, 2011 Report Share Posted May 11, 2011 I highly recommend NOT listening to opinions about CI hearing results from those who do not have experience working with CIs (or using one). The brain has incredible plasticity, and for those of us who were post lingually deafened, it works to make sense of input and we convert mentally to what was once familiar because this is what the brain wants to do. Indeed initially many of us " hear " chipmunk voices (or in the case of my 2nd CI, a less common low pitched accent), but this typically declines/vanishes over time with practice/rehab. Best analogy I can think of is that the brain routes the " new " sounds from CI into old comprehension pathways and learns to reinterpret that input along those old channels or circuitry so that sounds begin to register a lot like the old ones. This means that the voices of family and friends now sound just like they used to. Having said that, when my CI was turned on, I was so ecstatic to comprehend anything, that I said I would happily take that and only that for the rest of my life if that was all I got. Another huge benefit is that hearing with a CI is so relatively automatic compared to hearing with hearing aids (in quiet) that I started to wonder if the qualification standards should be lowered, meaning those with moderately severe loss might hear better and more easily with CI than with hearing aids. I only wish I had had the surgery years earlier as that would have saved me a lot of stress, exhaustion, emotional wreckage. It takes post-op work (practice) and some CI patients do not have miraculous outcomes, but as my Mayo Clinic audiologist says, these days, essentially 100% of patients hear better with CI than before. PS: an ENT from a large practice in Texas told me that CI sound was fake, I couldn't use CI with hearing aid, that I didn't qualify for CI anyway, and that I should just take disability. I am a health care provider myself, and in my opinion that was malpractice (or at least definite negligence) and resulted in my feeling increasing despondency which could have had a very negative outcome because I was at rock bottom. BUT thanks to HLAA information I figured I should get a second opinion and I am now leading a wonderful hearing life thanks to the CI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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