Why chose medel

[Penelopesmom]

My daughter ten months old has bilateral hearing loss and Eva. We are torn between ab and medel. Why did you chose medel over everyone else? And are you happy with them?

[Mary Beth]

Hi and welcome,

I am thrilled with MedEl. I chose MedEl for the electrode array options and their history of a high quality product. Customer service has been great. At this time, MedEl is the only brand that can withstand MRIs at 3.0 Tesla so that is also an advantage.

Good luck with your decision.

Mary Beth

[Elbras]

Hello Penelope's Mom,

I have been wearing the Sonet processor for 1 week and I am very happy with it. Of the three companies,

I chose Med-el for these reasons :

1) Atraumatic electrodes - since I had some hair cells in the low frequencies that were not totally damaged and I wanted to keep those hair cells

2) 24 electrodes providing a wide dynamic range -

3) Magnet can withstand 3.0 tesla strength - this helps if your child should ever need an MRI, this can be done without surgery to remove the implant first. Also, strong enough that I can play Pickleball without the magnet falling off.

4) I was very pleased with how smooth and sleek the processor looks and feels. Aesthetically I did not care, but I was expecting a bulky processor and magnet and to my surprise that was not the case.

Do your research and best of luck to you and your child. Elaine

[Sandy]

Hi Penelope's Mom.

Welcome to Hearpeers.

My hospital changed from another company (sorry but I don't know which one). I am very happy with my Rondo, the service from Med-el is great, it is a high quality product and my hearing has gone from 0% to 84% in two years. If you have more questions, feel free to ask. One of us (or all) will respond).

[Mary Beth]

What is pickleball?

[Ivana Marinac]

Hello Penelope's Mom,

Welcome to the Hearpeers - regarding your questions (I am not an implantee so I will just fulfill some datas:

A) if your child ever need an MRI, magnet can be removed and scans are much more accurate on this way. I have different implant and almost half of head is not visible,

the array length which theoretically means that longer part of cochlea is covered, in practice we are talking about covering lower frequencies which are located in the more distant part of cochlea due to the principle of tonotopicity - there are great videos which show you what I want to explain.

C) due to the inability just to chamge electrodes and put another because this actually traumatize hearing receptors, it's not possible for the same person to say this is better than the other. At last - huge part (even few times) take the process if the (re)habilitation - like a marathon. Literally.

We are here for you, no matter what you choose - ask free whatever you might need to know. Here are gathered people with CI's of different producers. As long as we can share as much informations as we know - the more, the merrier...

[Elbras]

Mary Beth,

Pickleball is like tennis, but played with a racquet ball racket and a woofle ball. The ball is served underneath rather than above like tennis. The court is also slightly shorter. Lots of fun

Elaine

[Mary Beth]

Cool! Thanks for explaining.

[Penelopesmom]

Thank you all. It's so confusing and a difficult decision. I love the option of an MRI if she needs one. I'm concerned about the accessories as well as reliability. I read somewhere that medel is almost maxed out for the implant processor part while ab is only at 30 percent and since my daughter is so young I'd like to minimize her chances of more surgeries

[hadron]

Hi  Penelope's mom,

 

Yes It is a very difficult decision. All three major CI companies have a great product.

With all due respect I would not base my decision on something you read somewhere.

There is competition between the three companies which leads to great products for the users.

Rest assured that each company has and will continue to have great products.

 

MED-EL likes to use the term future-ready to describe how their products and accessories are built.

If you still are worried about the future capability of the MED-EL processor please ask your child's CI audiologist as they have a lot of experience with the processor and can tell you if it is indeed future ready.

 

MED-EL has a document called "Hearing implants for Children: A Parent's Guide". It will give you a sense of how and why MED-EL develops implants for children.

 

You can download it from the MED-EL website at:

 

http://s3.medel.com/downloadmanager/downloads/maestro_2013/en-GB/21567.pdf

 

MED-EL also has a document called "Why choose MED-EL?" but I could not locate it on their website. It does a good job of explaining why many people choose MED-EL CIs.

 

Perhaps Erik can locate it?

 

Whichever company you choose will provide a great product, which will allow your daughter to hear well and thrive.

[Ivana Marinac]

Hadron,

 

I can only find a table of comparing different systems, it`s under the section Proven performance on this link:

http://www.medel.com/us/cochlear-implants/

 

Somehow I think that you meant at something else...

[Ivana Marinac]

Hi  Penelope's mom,

 

 

 

Whichever company you choose will provide a great product, which will allow your daughter to hear well and thrive.

 

Yes - due to the never-ending process of neuroplasticity.

[Mary Beth]

It is definitely overwhelming choosing a brand. Rest assured that MedEl just released the Synchrony implant recently and it is described as having future technology built in. The accessories that I use with my MedEl processors work great and a future ready wireless technology will be coming at some point. MedEl mentions it on their website.

Talk with your surgeon and audiologist. Get their input. It is a big decision and one that can not be changed easily later on.

The difficulty in getting unbiased opinions is that everyone who performs well with their CI thinks their brand is the best. Smile. There are very few people who have had experience with 2 different brands. Even those people can not actually give equal comparisons as each ear can function differently after implantation regardless of brand.

Most important things to consider are the surgeon and audiologist's opinions and their experience with the brands.

Best of luck,

Mary Beth

[Penelopesmom]

We have to research all the companies our hospital implants all three and will not guide us as we should make the decision based on our families needs.

I read and heard that medel doesn't focus on developing accessories. So what type of accessories are available?

[Mary Beth]

Welcome. I'm not sure I understand that comment. MedEl has future technology built into the Sonnet processor for wireless connectivity. All MedEl processors have telecoil built in so we can access many third party telecoil accessories, including those that work with Bluetooth. The Rondo has water wear so we can swim underwater and hear while in the pool, etc.

It's an overwhelming decision. I remember feeling shocked that I had to choose.

If you have specific questions about accessories or how we hear with our MedEl processors, please feel free to ask.

MedEl has a stellar reputation. Check recall histories of all three companies.

Wishing you the best,

Mary Beth

[Ivana Marinac]

Did you mean that - Med-El doesn't develop it's own accesories?

Bonebridge recipients can be jealous at all posibilities which CI has and BB doesn't.

For instance, there is only one type of streamer for BB.

[ChristopherGClick]

I attended an advertised AB afternoon meeting in the San Francisco area to converse with 3 (AB) CI recipients for about an hour each last month.  One bilateral (1st CI 2007, 2nd 2014), one unilateral 2014 & another in January 2016.  I obtained a data sheet (not AB produced or endorsed) comparing the US approved manufacturer devices,  An item that caught my eye was that while global Medel market share was 30%, the current number of US Medel patients is fairly small (170).  My desire to speak to and hear even one Medel CI user appears a long shot.  I find the Medel site/forum most to my liking, but wish I could meet with a Medel CI user in person.  Is there a Medel CI volunteer located from southern Oregon to central California to the Reno, Nevada area I could arrange to meet (my travel, your convenience)?    

[Mary Beth]

Only 170 of us in the US? That seems way too low. Check out Hands On Hearing website and attend one of the workshops. I'm attending the May workshop in NC even though I have to fly to it because I also want to meet MedEl users in person.

[Kara of Canada]

Your numbers Chris are wrong. Please double check it and update us please. This may be a number of a certain implant or device. Which seems quite unreasonable if it's a total number of users.

[Cara Mia]

Chris, if you don't find anybody close enough to talk face-to-face, come back here. We can pretend that we are at Reno or Medford Starbucks chatting in person about Med El.

[Cara Mia]

Some info on CI brands market distribution for just one year (2012-2013). I won't be surprised to know that Med El is doing even better now.

 

From 30 June, 2012–30 June, 2013, approximately 50,000 cochlear implants were sold. Given the world population of about seven billion, this means that roughly seven cochlear implants per million individuals are sold each year.

During this period:​

• MED-EL sold 14,027 cochlear implants. This is approximately a 28% market share
• COCHLEAR sold 26,674 cochlear implants. This is approximately a 53% market share.
• All other companies combined sold 9,000 cochlear implants. This is approximately 18% of the market. These figures are estimates based on the revenue figures published by cochlear implant manufacturers Advanced Bionics, owned by Sonova, Switzerland; Neurelec, owned by William Demant, Denmark; Nurotron, China; and other minor activities.

http://www.medel.com/cochlear-implants-facts/

[Ivana Marinac]

I attended an advertised AB afternoon meeting in the San Francisco area to converse with 3 (AB) CI recipients for about an hour each last month.  One bilateral (1st CI 2007, 2nd 2014), one unilateral 2014 & another in January 2016.  I obtained a data sheet (not AB produced or endorsed) comparing the US approved manufacturer devices,  An item that caught my eye was that while global Medel market share was 30%, the current number of US Medel patients is fairly small (170).  My desire to speak to and hear even one Medel CI user appears a long shot.  I find the Medel site/forum most to my liking, but wish I could meet with a Medel CI user in person.  Is there a Medel CI volunteer located from southern Oregon to central California to the Reno, Nevada area I could arrange to meet (my travel, your convenience)?    

 

Hi Chris,

 

I doubt that this number is correct especially if one producer talks about another.

Secondly, I have been at last international CI conference where producers did not say actual numbers - how AB has these numbers?

[ChristopherGClick]

Thanks to the three of you for such quick replies.  Good news is I erred in reading the data sheet which read patents not patients.  Middling news is that Mary Beth's recommendation for the website was good. I like the site, particularly "Jeff's Blog", but only 3 workshops are presently scheduled in the next six months, 2 in North Carolina (May & Sep.), 1 in Texas (Apr. 30).  Jeff's last Blog post was Nov. 2014. So while I'll expect there are more MedEl CI users out there in the US (will research that for Kara) I'd had simply hoped I could find some more "locally".  I'll be sending UCSF (one audiologist covering two positions at present) another plea for contacts, but may have to rely on Cara Mia's suggestion.  UCSF had already asked me to run down CI users on the web sites in the meantime.  When I checked Cochlear America (with good, i.e. smaller geographic regions identified), only about 25-30 users had registered on the site for all of "Northern California" (divided north/south).  I had told UCSF I was leaning toward MedEl, but wanted to speak to users.  So here we are at virtual Starbucks "west".  One AB user (Naida Q90 implanted Jan. 5th, 2016 at UCSF) with whom I spoke is an electrical engineer who liked AB's system from a technical standpoint.  His surgery & (short) rehab period has been smooth thus far, biggest "bumps" are he can't use telephone yet & struggles when his wife plays piano.  Tremendous improvement over hearing aids worn for 30+ years as his hearing deteriorated over time.  Another user (bilateral) says he's never had issues with rehab (wouldn't even call it that it's been so smooth), every programming adjustment has improved his hearing since he suddenly lost it all (had never worn hearing aids) over a 2 month period almost 10 years ago.  Music sounds "thin", but it's not our natural hearing.  Both he and the third user had their surgeries performed at Stanford.  She still works daily with rehab listening exercises as she starts her 3rd year as a CI user, but also regards it as a huge improvement over hearing aids worn for 40 years to cope with a hereditary cause.  More questions shortly.     

[Mary Beth]

Hi Chris,

Welcome to virtual Starbucks west. So if I am following you correctly you are trying to choose between CI brands. That is an odd feeling isn't it? Having to choose our CI company. It felt like buying a car - Subaru, Honda or Toyota. Many of us have spent countless hours studying up on all three US CI companies. I remember that time very well.

So while we sip some coffee, I will share my experiences with you.

In the end, I chose MedEl because of the electrode array choices and the condition of my cochlea. I have a good friend who has bilateral AB CIs and I work with students who have AB and Cochlear CIs. So I am familiar with all three brands but only have personal experience with MedEl.

My right ear had not processed any sound at all for 24 years before being implanted. It started understanding speech several hours after activation. I can use the phone, listen to podcasts or audiobooks, enjoy music, understand the TV without captions- all with that CI alone. It's been amazing!

My left ear wore a HA until a few months prior to surgery. It was implanted second and did not understand speech on the first day at all. Weird huh? Not what I expected either. However, once it started understanding speech it just took off! And it really loves music. So far it's been activated 4 1/2 months. Already I can speak on the phone, listen to podcasts/audiobooks, enjoy music etc with that CI alone.

Last month I went to a Bonnie Raitt concert and enjoyed it all. Then went to a Broadway musical and understood everything from the stage even though I was sitting far far back.

MedEl, as a company, has been great to work with. They respond to emails right away, are quick to fix any problems, etc.

I like the MRI compatibility with the new Synchrony implant. I have one Concert implant and one Synchrony implant so I need to follow the MRI rules for the Concert.

Here's the catch. You will find successful CI users with all three brands. You will also find people who are struggling CI users with all three brands. A lot depends on what you are willing to do for your auditory rehab. and how much of the sound info your ear sends to your brain.

I'm sure you will make the right decision for you. I am thrilled with MedEl. I thank them everyday for the wonderful gift of hearing they have returned to me.

Best of luck on your journey,

Mary Beth

[Kara of Canada]

Hi Chris you have yet to meet Adam. He is our bionic buddy that is from NC like you. He will pop in soon I'm sure. He's been away for a few days. He is bilateral as well. He has plenty of knowledge to share. I personally didn't get the choice my surgical team chose for me. That's how it's done in Canada. But I lone my CI!! I have a concerto implant and a sonnet which I chose black as something new for me!! As it turns no one can see it anyway!! Oh well. It works so well today I was at the dentist and I heard them doing somedrilling down the hall and around the corner!! Never have I heard so far away!! Anyway it's nice to meet you and I wish you all the best.