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CI/Hearing Aid Combined Use


Javier E

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Hello everyone, I currently wear hearing aid for bilateral profound hearing loss of accute sounds. I have qualified for a hybrid CI for my right ear and likely in few years time the left ear will follow. I would like to know how overall sound is perceived when you have to wear a combination of hearing aid and CI. The hearing aid provides amplified natural sound and the CI has the risk of potentially providing a somehow distorted sound (tinny, metallic or robotic). If this would be the case, would this confuse the user or cause permanent annoyance to the user? Thanks.

 

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@Javier E

welcome to HearPeers.

wearing a hearing aid on one ear and using a cochlear implant on the other ear is called bimodal.  It is important that the cochlear implant provide the most natural sound it can and then the brain learns to combine the inputs.  Have you looked at Med-El electric-acoustic systems EAS?  They have a lot of information about EAS and about bimodal listening online.

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Hello javier,

For a year i have had medel ci on left ear. I have 50 % remaining in right ear.

I trained my ci for 12 months with no assistance on right ear

My ci sound is so close to normal now. Yhe electronic sound basically fades away as the ci ear is rehabbed with several programs listed in places here in hearpeers plus medel has rehab programs and mentors.

I added a hearing aid a month ago, yes the ha makes sound feel echoey, its also getting better.

Sound comes together at times, sometimes i like the ci sound better!

I dont miss too many words in quiet now. I am  Working on background noise now.

I am loving that i am implanted!

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Hi Javier

I went bimodal June 2021, CI on left and HA on right. At first I relied heavily on my HA side but gradually used my CI more and more. It takes time and training though, not an insta-fix. 

While I wear the CI and HA it all ties together for me and I can still enjoy things that I am still training the CI on, namely music (it’s normal for that to be the hardest).

Earlier this year I got a new HA to see how it would help while keeping up with the CI training. Recently tested and used that info to conclude the CI is the way to go. In about three weeks I’ll get implanted on the right side too. 

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