Dianna Posted September 23, 2023 Report Share Posted September 23, 2023 Interesting totally!!! I have a flex 24, and EAS, when rehabbing music, i did experience sounds that appeared to be the same when they should have been different. Some a whole octave. I have been working more on hearing with background noise of late, and considering participating in a new research besides the current one in "age related testing" . I will look for the trial to see if its public before commenting. My "freinds" at iowa are busy lol. Anyway, i had 50% hearing in both ears, doc chose flex 24 and eas for me and let me choose the side. I would love to know why, and i will ask away at my next research appointment. I am hearing so much more i hate to "rock the boat" when i asked for the timing adjustment of processor to oticon HA, it felt like i forced my audi to think outside the box and do something out side the parameters of what this university department does so am i getting "standard" tune ups, maps?? Im not scheduled for testing until december so im in wait mode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enegra Posted September 23, 2023 Report Share Posted September 23, 2023 55 minutes ago, Dianna said: Anyway, i had 50% hearing in both ears, doc chose flex 24 and eas for me and let me choose the side. I would love to know why, and i will ask away at my next research appointment. Some surgeons choose to use shorter electrode arrays for better chances of retaining residual hearing. If you had 50% WRS with HA then likely you had a decent amount of it. A shallower insertion means the electrode would not go deep in the low frequencies, leaving those areas mostly intact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dianna Posted September 23, 2023 Report Share Posted September 23, 2023 2 hours ago, Enegra said: Some surgeons choose to use shorter electrode arrays for better chances of retaining residual hearing. If you had 50% WRS with HA then likely you had a decent amount of it. A shallower insertion means the electrode would not go deep in the low frequencies, leaving those areas mostly intact. Lol thank you agnes, i just read such an article, so i get it. Im receiving info about research they would like to do. I actually inquired about one that is volunteering for a PET scan and im still thinking. So ( sorry dont have a copy) my pre surgery audiogram must have indicated low sounds still there. This explains why i have great high frequency hearing with the CI, but not noticably great low freq. This is what i would explain to my audi, but its still improving!!! What i do know from my chart is the 12th array is totally out of the cochlea and the 11th caused some discomfort so is off. Logically i would ask for a post op ct scan to "see" my placement but doc hasnt suggested plus my medical coverage was reduced due to covid federally funded extra help being discontinued so i have basic of basic medical. (Different subject, looking for better advantage plan) so i have not requested nor looked into any otoplan or abf. Just watching and absorbing conversations here in HP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tim Posted September 25, 2023 Members Report Share Posted September 25, 2023 It has been nearly a week since the booth test and minor adjustment to my MAP from ABF. No significant improvement and still planning on doing a rollback to the original frequency sets barring a sudden "aha moment" from the brain's neuroplasticity. I seemed to fit most of the criteria for likely success, including the one that @Mary Beth quoted from a journal paper: Quote ”however, acceptance was only established if the point of first electrode contact was less than 230 Hz." Mine was at 175 Hz. As discussed in an earlier post, the lack of retained residual hearing along with the gap of 6 months might have made it harder in my case along with electrodes 11 and 12 being position above 8500 Hz. It still seems like I'm getting better recognition/appreciation of higher frequencies at the cost of most speech. As to the questions about music, some higher pitched instruments in Hearoes are much clearer like the flute. Not enough of an improvement there though to make up for the harder time handling the vocals. Still glad that I had it done so I could give it a try. Lauren 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HearPeers Heroes Mary Beth Posted September 25, 2023 Author HearPeers Heroes Report Share Posted September 25, 2023 @Tim I am analytical by nature so I like it when my personal experience and the research/data all aligns. Smile But I have learned along the way that no matter what the research shows, sometimes my personal experience differs. Trusting my perception of what actually works best for me in my daily life (no matter what the Med-El defaults recommend or what the research studies show) has enabled me to help create MAPs that provide my best hearing. Everyone’s journey is unique. MAPping, in my opinion, is both a science and an art. Some CI audiologists excel at both and if/when we find such a CI audiologist, we are indeed fortunate. Wishing you the best. Enegra 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tim Posted October 10, 2023 Members Report Share Posted October 10, 2023 I've been using this thread as a spot to report on my experiences with ABF. This morning I rolled back the ABF to the original, default logarithmic frequency assignment. It just didn't seem to take for me. I expected that this meant that I would have a few weeks or a month to return to my pre-ABF performance. I asked my Audi to do a booth test for word recognition scores before and after reversion. The results were surprising! A picture is worth a thousand words so here it goes: Before CI, I was at 11% in my good ear. At 3 months, was 44%. Climbed to 64% when I had the ABF done. Didn't have time to do a WRS test before leaving the clinic but at home, I could tell it just wasn't working well for me. Expected a setback and was hoping that a month of hard core streaming rehab and improve things. After a month, did a WRS test score and found that I was still doing very poorly at 27%. Didn't have time to do much testing or experimentation so scheduled an appointment for a few weeks later with a plan to roll back unless there was sudden improvement. That brings me to this morning. I was mentally preparing my myself for still being in the 20s or 30s for a WRS since it was hard to see too much improvement. I thought the rollback would put me back in the 40s and and I would need to put in the effort to catch back up to where I was this Summer. WRS test with the ABF was 43%. Better than earlier but still bad. My Audi just grabbed the last pre-ABF mapping (frequencies and thresholds) and we went to the booth for WRS. Jumped all the way up to 81% with only a couple minutes to get used to the new map! I was shocked! Instead of putting in a few weeks or a month of rehab to catch up, I progressed as if I had not taken this little detour! (My score of 81% is right on the trendline of where I would expect to be now!) Everyone's hearing journey is different. Don't be afraid of a few bumps or detours. I'm even more glad that I tried the ABF than I was a couple of weeks ago. Didn't work out in my case but now I don't have to wonder if I should have tried it. I don't know how much data there is reverting ABFs but my anecdotal case suggests that it may not be difficult, even after a couple of months of trying to adjust to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tim Posted October 10, 2023 Members Report Share Posted October 10, 2023 I corrected some of the dates so the chart looks a little different but the story is the same. The test scores for today (43% and 81%) might have been better with more adjustment to the thresholds but we thought the decision was clear for me to switch back. We'll do another map in January to adjust things. Also, had a wow moment ( @Mary Beth trademark noted!) today. Had my first phone call with my wife this morning on just my CI. She insists on using speakerphone all the time and that just was not good enough audio quality when I tried it in the past. Today it worked! Anthony Canada and NathalieM 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HearPeers Heroes Mary Beth Posted October 10, 2023 Author HearPeers Heroes Report Share Posted October 10, 2023 Happy improved hearing @Tim! Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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