activation-sound as vibration

May 30, 2008

HI-

It is always very interesting to me at the wide differences people have in

hearing upon activation to the cochlear implant. Over the years, I've known of

people who said they heard quite clearly all the way to people who initially

" felt " sounds as vibrations. 19 years ago, with my activation, people's voices

had an underwater/mumbly quality with mens and womens voices having similar

tones. The good news is that activation is just the start and with practice,

patience, and perseverance as well as future mappings with your ci audiologist,

everyone progresses. I also remember being quite startled at how loud the whole

world was and found that if I decreased my sensitivity(which softened sounds)

upon first putting on my speech processor and then increasing the sensitivity as

needed helped. This whole cochlear implant business is a new challenge for your

brain and like many things in life, the more one uses and listens via a cochlear

implant, the better

your brain and implant get at working together and the easier it is to be a

cochlear implantee.

Earlier this month I went through ci evaluation of my non-implanted ear, which

is a candidate. My ci audiologist did explain that due to the length of time

that the left ear has been deaf(52 or 55 years), I most likely will hear sound

as vibrations initially and that it will take a lot of work on my part to get

that ear hearing to the best of its ability. I'm up for the challenge as it has

been a lifelong dream to hear bilaterally. Now I'm waiting for insurance

approval before I can go any further.

So, do not be discouraged about hearing sound as vibration in your early days as

a cochlear implantee. This is your baseline. At sometime in the future, you

will be able to look back and rejoice over how you have progressed. The hardest

part about being human is that we want to hurry up the process and to be able to

hear at our optimum best now. With you using your cochlear implant and future

mappings with your ci audiologist, it will get better!

Keep us posted to how it is going with you and your cochlear implant.

With cochlear implant joy-19 years+

Margo Klug

Recommended Posts