Cochlear Implants

[sherbertdip]

I'm early sixties and have been going deaf for 20 years now, I'm now at the stage of profound hearing loss in both ears over much of the acoustic range.

I'm getting some new hearing aids soon but was told that Cochlear implants are the next stage, timing is obviously dependant on the future drop in hearing ability.

I've been told that the NHS only fit one implant so becoming monaural, I don't relish this as just having one hearing aid working makes hearing difficult.

A long shot I know but can anybody here give their experiences of implants?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

When you get your implant in one ear, you'll still have the other ear as it is now, with a standard hearing aid.

My wife got a CI in 2018. She had 25% hearing in one ear and zero in the other. They wanted to implant on her "good" ear but she insisted they did it on the totally deaf ear. Turned out to be a great call, she got a great result on her dead ear, which with the CI, is now far better than the 25% ear. She has a Coclear N7 on the implant ear and a GN Resound hearing aid on the other. Both are bluetooth so she can stream the tv and her mobile phone to both ears.

[sherbertdip]

Thanks Twig, sounds odd that they would want to implant in the good ear.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

sherbertdip said:

Thanks Twig, sounds odd that they would want to implant in the good ear.

The best results with a CI are achieved by implanting on the ear with the best hearing. That's the default. The flip side is that if it doesn't work, you don't retain the hearing you had in that ear, you lose it all.

If you have one ear with some hearing and one ear with none, you're taking the risk of ending up completely deaf if you implant the good ear and it fails. If you implant the dead ear and it fails, you're no worse off.