4 weeks and counting

[Mary Beth]

Our region has been following stay at home orders for 4 weeks so far.  All elective surgeries and appointments have been cancelled during this time and remain cancelled for the foreseeable future.  This means that all CI MAPping appts, activations and new surgeries are postponed.

Many of you are facing the same situation.

 

How are you doing with your CIs?  Anyone having trouble?

[Mary Featherston]

I've been wearing my Rondo2s to work more than usual, because I'm basically staying in my office.  No background noise, no need to have two mics. 

[Mary Beth]

@Mary Featherston

Do you use a securing option with your Rondo 2 processors?  If yes, which one?

[Mary Featherston]

@Mary Beth oh, yes.  They're not loose and don't fall off, but I'd be worried all the time without the tethers.  I use the ones with a hair clip.  The collar clip bothered me, kept hitting my neck.

[Tommy C]

I use the tether clipped to my collar with my Rondo 2.  My audiologist wants me to use the weakest magnet possible. The strange thing that I noticed is the processer will sometime fall off when it is first attached to my head in the morning. After a while it stays in place very well. It is like the magnet is weak early and strengthen as time goes by. Does anyone else experience this?

[Mary Beth]

@Tommy C

Fo you have an internal Synchrony implant?  The one with the rotating magnet that enables us to have 3.0 MRI?

 

If yes, you can place the Rondo 2 on your head.....slowly turn it to the 2:00 position and then to the 10:00 position.....then back to its regular 12:00 position.  This helps align the internal magnet.

[Tommy C]

Thanks @Mary Beth, I will try that . I did not know that the internal magnet rotates. Makes sense because at times it feels like it is repelling when I am trying to put it on. I guess the magnet get turned during the night. 

[Mary Beth]

@Tommy C

I have one of each type of Med-El internal magnets.

My Concerto internal uses magnets marked by circles for strength and is polarized north/south in a top/bottom fashion.  It behaves like a refrigerator magnet and the coil attaches in exactly the same position every day.

 

My Synchrony internal uses magnets marked by triangles for strength and is polarized north/south in a left/right fashion.  Sometimes the coil attaches strongly and other times it doesn’t.  If I follow Med-El’s direction about slowly turning the coil to 10:00 and 2:00 and back to 12:00, it helps a lot.

I never get the sensation that my coil is being repelled by the internal magnet.  You may want to contact your CI team about that.

[Tommy C]

Thanks @Mary Beth, I will go over this with my audiologist when I get to see her again. My last appointment was cancelled due to the virus restrictions we are under. The next appointment is scheduled for early June. They also have my sonnet2 that I cannot get until then. I am completely ok with that because at my age of 79 I must take every precaution to avoid exposure to this virus. I just hope that we will be able to keep that appointment and not have to reschedule it again.

[Mary Beth]

@Tommy C

Stay safe!

Many of us have had our MAPping appts cancelled.  Fingers crossed we can only have our appts safely soon.

[Mary Featherston]

I have an appointment for early May.  I'm going to email next week and see if we shouldn't cancel.  I don't want to reMAP at this point anyway - things are just sounding really good after my last one.

[Mary Beth]

@Mary Featherston

Did you notice an immediate improvement after your last MAP or did it take a bit to settle into its goodness?

[Mary Featherston]

@Mary Beth MONTHS.  My brain is kind of high-maintenance, I think.  Every little change - and this last time was very small tweaks - and it's all OHNO IT'S DIFFERENT I CAN'T DO THIS, OH NO OH NO OH NO.  What, MUSIC?  HA HA HA.  Start working again.

Seriously, 4-5 months.  Every...single...time.  And that means that I almost never really have good listening - hence my intention to ask Kirsten not to reMAP.  And she said we don't have to once before, so I'm kind of deciding I'm done for a while.

[Mary Beth]

@Mary Featherston

Great plan!  My audiologist calls those kind of MAPs my “old favorite”.  
 

If I am hearing great, we do not tweak the MAP.

 

I thought I understood CIs and MAPpings as a Teacher of the Deaf working with students with CIs for years.  Man was I wrong!  There are so many things that I understand much better now as a CI user myself.  And one of those things is....there is no such thing as a SLIGHT MAP change!

[Mary Featherston]

@Mary Beth isn't that the case!  Man, I was really thrown this last time, I was hearing so well.  It's coming back, but boy, I do NOT want to do that every six months, I'd never have nice clear sound.

 

[Mary Beth]

@Mary Featherston

I found it helpful when we are tweaking a MAP to ask for the old MAP in one of the program slots.  I give the new MAP time to settle in and even take it through aural rehab exercises.  If it does not settle in, I can go back to my previous MAP.  It is very difficult to know in an audiologist’s office how a MAP will function in real life.

Once in awhile we have made a tweak to a MAP that I knew needed to be tweaked and I could tell immediately that it was going to be fabulous.  Those are happy days! No adjustment period needed.  Smile.

[Mary Featherston]

@Mary Beth This last time was really odd - it was almost no change at all, just a percentage up or down on various electrodes.  Usually what happens is that when I leave, it sounds good - I listen to music in the car, everything's fine - but the next day my brain's going OH HELL NO and it's restarting all the rehab.  Not from zero, obviously, and I've never found a new MAP to be bad.  But when we're at the point of these tiny incremental changes I just doubt, in retrospect, that it was worth doing. 

There are times when I'd like to be able to tell my brain to just shut up:  when I get a new MAP and then once in a while when it's 2:00 or 3:00 am and I wake up and it won't shut down. 

But mostly we get along.  🙂

[Jdashiell]

On 4/15/2020 at 12:29 PM, Mary Beth said:

@Tommy C

I have one of each type of Med-El internal magnets.

My Concerto internal uses magnets marked by circles for strength and is polarized north/south in a top/bottom fashion.  It behaves like a refrigerator magnet and the coil attaches in exactly the same position every day.

 

My Synchrony internal uses magnets marked by triangles for strength and is polarized north/south in a left/right fashion.  Sometimes the coil attaches strongly and other times it doesn’t.  If I follow Med-El’s direction about slowly turning the coil to 10:00 and 2:00 and back to 12:00, it helps a lot.

I never get the sensation that my coil is being repelled by the internal magnet.  You may want to contact your CI team about that.

The processors, Rondos and Sonnets etc, are matched with the implant so the magnets attract.

my right side processors will not connect to the left side because they are not matched 

maybe a higher magnet strength is needed? Either way, definitely contact CI team/ MedEl

Joe

[Mary Beth]

@Jdashiell

True.  The processors are assigned to a specific internal component and will only work when on the correct side.

They will adhere to our heads on the incorrect side but will not work on the incorrect side.

This safety measure has not always been in place so people who have older internal components must be careful to place the correct processor on each side.

[Tommy C]

This is not an every day problem, only happens occasionally. The tip of rotating the processor from 10 o'clock to 2:00 o'clock and back to 12:00 o'clock seems to fix the problem when it occurs. Thank you @Mary Beth for this tip. I personally prefer a stronger magnet but my audiologist disagrees with me and I trust her to know more than I do.