Tim

[Guest guest]

Hi Tim,

It is hard to make a choice, especially when bombarded with all kinds

of hype, as you put it.

I have a Nucleus 24 implant, and listen to and enjoy music. The music

I was familiar with before my loss sounded the same as the way I remember

hearing it with my hearing aids. New music is a bit harder to

understand, so I frequently go to lyrics online or any other lyric search

engine and get the lyrics. Then I can listen and read along and put the

new music into my auditory memory. When I buy a CD to play in the car or

whatever, I'll choose one that has songs I am familiar with. For

instance, I got one with 12 songs, and I knew 8 of them. But through

listening to the entire CD, I learned the other 4 songs as well.

Of course, since we are not living in an opera (some ARE in a soap

opera, but that's different), I'd say speech is the thing you need to

worry about. Music is sort of an extra. If you have great music hearing

ability but can't understand speech, you are going to be in a pretty

rough place.

The hybrid device is only made by Cochlear Corp, and is only done in a

few locations. So you will need to find yourself a place that does that

implant style if you decide to go with it. I'm pretty sure the Cleveland

Clinic is one participant in the hybrid program, and someone in the

middle of the country. Cochlear can give you the information.

Do you have one ear that is better than the other? One that perhaps

doesn't have good lower pitch hearing? Because if you got that ear

implanted and continued to use the hearing you have in the other ear with

a hearing aid, that would be another choice.

I had no hearing in either ear when implanted 8 years ago. That was

the criteria at the time. My Dr. implanted the worse ear (one that had

no hearing, and no stimulation for 20 years). I still have no

amplifiable hearing in the unimplanted ear. But the " dead " ear has

served me well. I listen to and enjoy music, TV, radio, movies. I

understand speech without lipreading, and in really noisy situations,

like restaurants, I also lipread. Always amazes folks when I know what

the specials are that the waitress rattles off, when the folks with

typical hearing didn't understand it.

So, bear in mind how much speech you listen to, versus how much music.

Nucleus offers 4 different types of mapping strategies, so you can try 4

totally different types of map, and all the variations of them. They

range from a very slow stimulation rate (SPEAK) to a moderate (ACE) a

faster (Hi-ACE) and an extremely fast (CIS) rate. Other companies offer

a single strategy. So if you are looking for the most strategies

available, that is one thing to consider.

Once you get evaluated, the Dr. can tell you if she thinks a hybrid is

an option for you. I'm not sure if you have to return to the implant

sight to get the hybrid mapped, or if anyone can do that.

Good luck, read the website for more details on the different

implant types. www..com

Ask any questions you have,

The Original

From: " Tim " <fleming.t@...>

Subject: Anyone doing well with music?

As I approach my evaluation day, Jan 17th, I'm trying to educate myself

more and more,

and, from what I'm reading, a lot of people with CIs have a hard time

hearing music well. I

have a severe/profound skislope loss above 1,500 hz. But my low

frequencies have been

really stable over the last 8 years that I have had my hearing tested. So

I am able to enjoy

music with my HAs, although the lyrics escape me most of the time, and of

course regular

speech is very difficult. It seems that all CIs, or nearly all, give

great speech improvements,

but are somewhat variable with music.

So I am trying to figure out the best strategy. SInce I have stable,

decent low freqency

hearing, I think maybe the hybrid approach could work, if I had an

implant in one ear and

the HA in the other. I'm also interested in the hi-res technology from

AB. It's so hard to

separate the hype from the truth, however, so that's why I was interested

to hear from

those who can compare their music experiences pre and post CI.

Thanks to all in advance!

Tim