Newly implanted musician/low bass singer with low frequency hearing losses

[Michael Goldberg]

Just saying hi.
I'm a low bass with Meniere's disease which causes low frequency hearing loss in both ears.   Was implanted in right ear with Med El on Dec 14th but won't get activated until Jan 27th
I just got accepted into a UCSF study with Med El investigating Personalized Mapping & Music Perception using high resolution CT Scan. 
My CT Scan is scheduled for Jan 12th, activation not until Jan 27th as that was the first available time slot.
I will:
 have my cochlear implant activated with a personalized frequency map based on the CT scan (as opposed to the standard default frequency map)
 Attend 4 cochlear implant testing sessions over the next year
  o Each lasts 2-4 hours
  o In person or via video conference
  o Music and speech-related listening activities
 After 1 year my CI will be switched to a standard default map
  o Attend 2 more testing sessions
  o Use standard default map for 1 month
 Undergo testing to see which is better for me - personalized map or default map.

As a musician I'm looking forward to seeing how much music perception I might be able to gain with this. Earlier studies were quite promising.

[Kylie]

That is very exciting!

[Kylie]

As a singer myself this is particularly interesting. Looking forward to updates about how this goes for you.

[Mary Beth]

@Michael Goldberg

Great to see you here!  I look forward to following your journey.  I have been following Dr Charles Limb’s image guided pitch perception studies for awhile.  Very interesting stuff.

[Jason77]

This is very interesting. Please keep us updated on the progress. My wife is a singer and does a lot of music theater. Hoping I can enjoy that again. I was just implanted and my activation in Jan 25. Looking forward to the crazy sounds. 

[Michael Goldberg]

@Jason77Yeah, I've also been told that at first it can sound really weird - chips, R2D2, bursts of static, bells and whistles, you name it.  But that the brain adapts and makes sense of it.   Looks like we'll be activated very close in time - keep us posted on your progress as well. 

[Jason77]

@Michael GoldbergWe are definitely activation neighbors. Will keep everyone updated.

[AnnetteT]

On 1/7/2022 at 10:14 PM, Michael Goldberg said:

I just got accepted into a UCSF study with Med El investigating Personalized Mapping & Music Perception using high resolution CT Scan. 
My CT Scan is scheduled for Jan 12th, activation not until Jan 27th as that was the first available time slot.
I will:

@Michael Goldberg, I think we're in the same study! I was just activated on Feb 17 (less than a month after you and and @Jason77, it seems ☺️) after getting my CT about a week before. My audiologist actually shared the mappings with me lined up with "standard" mappings. It was interesting to see that some of the high frequency electrodes have no overlap with the default frequencies. I am looking forward to my first testing session. When I was first activated, everything sounding like a blurry vacuum cleaner and I am now at the point where voices sounds reasonable and I can have simple conversations without captions and enjoy some music. 

[Jason77]

9 hours ago, AnnetteT said:

@Michael Goldberg, I think we're in the same study! I was just activated on Feb 17 (less than a month after you and and @Jason77, it seems ☺️) after getting my CT about a week before. My audiologist actually shared the mappings with me lined up with "standard" mappings. It was interesting to see that some of the high frequency electrodes have no overlap with the default frequencies. I am looking forward to my first testing session. When I was first activated, everything sounding like a blurry vacuum cleaner and I am now at the point where voices sounds reasonable and I can have simple conversations without captions and enjoy some music. 

Glad you are progressing so well. I can honestly say that everything sounds normal to me now with the exception of music, wind noise in the car and crowd noise. The last 2 are electronic sounding. It’s a journey and everyone is different. My progression was very fast. Much faster than I expected. 

It’s very interesting that your maps lined up with the standard mappings. Maybe you have a “textbook” cochlea? Haha

[AnnetteT]

6 hours ago, Jason77 said:

It’s very interesting that your maps lined up with the standard mappings. Maybe you have a “textbook” cochlea? Haha

I'm not quite to "normal" sounding, but well on my way. Sorry I was unclear in my other post. The graph lined up my maps with standard and they had very little overlap (zero alignment on some of the higher electrodes) on the right and some overlap (partial alignment) on the left (each electrode has a range of frequencies and the frequencies were very different in my custom mapping). When I said lined up I just meant that they were on lines next to each other . I can share this in a DM if you're curious.