r/Cochlearimplants

I have BAHA max 6.

I haven’t worn it for the three years I’ve had it, but finally gave it a go since I don’t want to be stuck at 50 with a bad ear (unilateral aural atresia).

I’ve noticed that things are so… noisy? My feet hitting the pavement is noisy, people closing their car door outside I can hear, and there were old cans in my car clanking around while I was driving and usually I don’t even notice, but with the BAHA I was so irritated and jolted by the sound.

However, it’s only on 50-60 level volume.

I suspect my experience is just me getting used to hearing more sounds, and not that it’s too loud. But how can you tell which is which?

I’m curious about how long after surgery you were activated. I’m a little over 1 week post op, but am not going to be activated for another 4 ish weeks, meaning 5 weeks post op. In all of my surgery notes, my surgeon stated that he has his patients wait 6-8 weeks after operation to be activated, with 8 being the standard. When I was told I’d only have to wait 5 I was delighted lol.

But as I’m healing, I couldn’t imagine only being activated 1 week post op? I still have some swelling, and my head is tender to the touch. I imagine that having a magnet on it would only be painful.

So I’m curious about other’s experiences. How soon after operation were you activated? Do you feel as if it was too soon, or that you could’ve done it sooner?

Hi,(19F & UK) over the last year or two, I have started to get intense headaches on my magnet site that go into my eye, neck and mouth. My eye has a strange pressure feeling like someone is squeezing it, and my left side of my mouth, more specifically my cheek (implant side) has a weak sensation. It happens a couple of times a day with varying intensity; it could be that it's a very slight headache and I can ignore it or it's just so intense that I have to rip off the processor and physically hold my hand over the magnet site.

I am 18 years post-cochlear implantation, and I have never had any symptoms that were processor-related until now.

I, at the very first point of call, went to my audiologist, and he seemed concerned and wrote it down. He checked my implant site and my electrodes, he said all is fine and that since I have an average of 15 hours on air daily, he thinks it'll be down to overuse.

I switched down magnet sizes as I've been on a size 3 all my life, and nothing has changed except for my processor falling off all the time, so nothing has come out of that.

I'm not disputing that it may be down to overuse, but I have always had a range of 13-15 hours with the processor, and symptoms have only cropped up recently, and I've tried everything, even putting a little plaster on the processor, thinking it was just rubbing onto the site.

I obviously have tried to cut down on my hours, but I find it gives me that usual headache in the morning if I don't wear the processor for a while, and everything feels overstimulating, so 13-15 hours is the most comfortable for me.

I have not changed anything with my mapping, and I'm scoring very highly on hearing tests; I'm just at my wits end.

Has anyone else experienced the same? Is there anything else I can do holistically, or is this a thing I need to go to the GP with? I just want rid of these headaches.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I have a nucleus 7.

Been finding lots of posts about advice around surgery and activation, but we’re not there yet. Our daughter (9 months) has been recommended for CI by her audiologist, on her left side for sure and they’ve said probably eventually on her right side. Anyway- we haven’t had imaging yet, first we’ll meet with ENT and I’m just feeling like I really don’t know what I should be asking about and want to do everything I can to look out for our girl. Thank you!!

I had an episode about 15 years ago which took me from excellent hearing in both ears, and left me with a 20 db loss in left ear, and effectively deaf (0% word recognition) in right ear. I have mild, intermittent tinnitus in the left ear and constant, loud high-pitched tinnitus in the right ear. After several years of dealing with my insurance company, they have referred me to Emory in Atlanta for evaluation.

Has anyone with single-sided deafness received a CI after this length of time and had a successful implantation? I’d honestly be happy if it mitigates the tinnitus some, and increased word recognition, selective hearing, and improved sound location would be a bonus.

Hi everyone,

I am 9 weeks out since activation day on my right ear that previously had no hearing for 41 years. Everything is going well. Sounds are still robotic but I hear so much more and I'm understanding speech so much better than I can ever remember.

I just got the go ahead to have surgery on August 4th on my left ear now. This ear had hearing all my life that was at about 50% word recognition and over the past 2 years it had dropped to only 4% word recognition.

My question is, will my ability to understand speech and sounds be immediately significantly better than my right ear? I understand everyone's experiences are different, so I want to hear what you're experiences are with being bilateral. How did one ear differ from the other?

Thank you for your input!

Is anyone having an issue with how Nucleus 8 handles Bluetooth? Sometimes I would be able to hear both the surroundings and the streaming sound at the same time which is better. But most of the time, I have to stream slightly sound for my n8 to fully connect, and if there’s no sound being streamed, it would disconnect. Despite my MacBook or iPhone showing it’s connected to N8 Bluetooth wise, I would miss a sound effect as my n8 connects then disconnect when no sound effect is in play.

I hope someone gets what I mean by this.

So I had my first auditory verbal therapy session today, just a day after activation. It was definitely more challenging than I expected. Both my audiologist yesterday and my AVT therapist today tested me on the Ling 6 sounds with masking, and I got all six correct. Because of that, my therapist moved me on to word recognition.

That was humbling!

We started with lip reading first, then repeated the same words with masking. Lip reading felt manageable, but recognising the masked words was much harder. Interestingly, I found some longer words easier than very short ones. My daily homework now is Ling 6 sounds plus word practice (lip reading first, then masking), along with trying different processor programs over the coming days, ideally before I return for my next session next week. Having said that my therapist did say this was not a race and it was ok if I could not complete all the tasks given with full competence by next session and the pace of learning was entirely in my hands and I could drive the pace of all the sessions.

I came home mentally exhausted and full of self-doubt, not to mention feeling still very tired from listening to all these sounds in just the last 24 hours, after 2 weeks of complete silence, along with dealing with a sore, and numb yet painful head where the magnet sits, the pinna hurting from the sound processor sitting on it, but my therapist had also reminded me that this is rehabilitation, not a test. Today’s goal wasn’t to get every word right - it was to give my brain its first chance to start connecting these new sounds to familiar words.

For those further along in your CI journey: when did masked word recognition start feeling easier for you? Any tips and strategies to share?

I woke up before my alarm because I’m nervous, but I get my first cochlear implant today. (For Context: I was born with moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears, but it’s progressively getting worse as I now have severe hearing loss in both ears. I also can sign ASL pretty well even though I was raised orally.) I’m both excited and also nervous for surgery in a few hours…

I’m going with the Cochlear brand. Surgery today and activation on July 31st. I took a solid week off work. I’m nervous about my facial nerve and potential vertigo more than losing my residual hearing, but we’ll see how things go. This community has been lovely to learn things from. 🤟🏻

I recently switched from Windows to Mac after I've used basically Windows for about 30 years. One reason why I did so was an experiment I did on my wife's Mac. I was able to connect to Mac M4 directly, without the mini mic. And that experience was so good that I also switched from Android (Samsung S22) to iPhone 17. I bought me a Mac M5 a few months back.

I have never been happier with this experience. Mac is hands down a much better experience than with mini mic together with Windows. You want to change a mix of your mic? Do it on mac directly. You want to call someone from mac? Well, easy with mac + iPhone. It just works. I easily can mix the mic during a call if I want to. Also alone without the Mac, iPhone beats Android (Samsung S22, I don't know about the later models) by lengths. Connection is much faster than it ever was on S22, it's not just "a bit" faster, it is considerably faster. And setting up the sound mix with mic etc. - is also much faster. For example, if I want to use mini mic which I still use for my office computer, I can change the mix much faster than on Android. On Android, I would have to tap slowly to change the mix and hear every beep for every change in the process, extremely annoying. Also, it is much easier to set up the ringtone and media sound to N8 directly (so nobody else hears it) is much easier and you even have more options for that.

Overall: If you Use Cochlear N8 (and likely also for N7), I hands down recommend Mac and iPhone. Those two also work together perfectly.

The only small drawback I've found so far is that when the mac is open/switched on, N8 tends to switch to be connected to the mac. The handover between iPhone and Mac is strongly leaning towards Mac. I can change that manually on the mac, but sometimes, I forget. That can be annoying, but totally manageable and I definitively don't want to look back.

If you have any questions, I'll look at them as soon as I can, but I'm about to hit my bed right now. I'll check this thread again tomorrow.

Hola a todos, tengo dos ipads y con ninguno logro enlazar mi nucleus 7S, le ha pasado los mismo a alguien y lo pudo solucionar.

Agradezco la ayuda.

Hey guys! I just got my implant done yesterday, and I'm super excited to get it activated and working hard to hear through this ear again! I was curious specifically about nicotine post-surgery, as I have not been given a definitive answer on how long to wait (I am 21 years old and live in a legal state).

I have no problem abstaining from nicotine or marijuana, but am curious how long I might want to wait, as I know that nicotine can slow the healing process, and marijuana can mask symptoms such as nausea.

I have heard anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months, and I definitely do not want to jeopardize this opportunity!

What do you guys know/think? I would appreciate any point of view!

Thanks :D

Started a new job, we do have a work phone to make most calls and for communication. But we are required to use a Radio to communicate between our partners ect, not full blown conversations but enough to communicate. I haven't ever really used radios but I'd assume they'd be quite difficult to understand due to a lack of lipreading, static noise ect.

I have the Nucelus 8 and wondered if theres anything I can do to help me hear what people are saying via the radio easier for me? I wear just one CI on left side, right side nothing and cannot hear from either ears, am profoundly deaf.

I am still a couple weeks out from my first mapping and things are coming along, two weeks since activation. Still hard to understand people or TV without subtitles and yeah, all music sounds like techno.

But I had a question for the group. I worked in data centers before getting my implant and I’m currently on sabbatical of sorts until I see if I can go back there. I know background noise is an issue with implants and there’s a ton in data centers, so that might be an issue if I go back. That said, the background noise is from mechanical equipment and a steady pitch and frequency. Does anyone know if I were to get the exact frequency the background noise is at, if I could give it to my audiologist to create a custom “work map” that would basically turn out that frequency and allow the background noise to not be as much of an issue?

To me it seems like something that they should be able to do, but I just don’t know if anyone has ever done it.🤷🏻‍♂️

I got my CI activated in my right ear (single-sided deafness case) last week and I'm struggling.

Two things are making rehab really hard and I'd love to hear from anyone who's dealt with anything similar.

1. Residual hearing in the implanted ear. I still have a fair amount of residual hearing in the implanted ear, and I think it's competing with the CI. I feel my brain currently doesn't have enough motivation to decode the electric signal. In a quiet room I can stream a podcast straight to the processor, follow the transcript, and match the CI sounds to the words. I've had some limited success with the most basic levels on an auditory training app too. But the moment I'm in a normal environment, the CI signal just collapses back into noise. For SSD cases what actually helped your brain start 'listening' to the CI signal in normal environments rather than prioritising natural hearing (both from good ear and/or residual in implanted ear)?
2. Very loud tinnitus drowning out the stimulation. My tinnitus is very severe / catastrophic (essentially the main reason for getting implanted), and right now the CI signal feels tiny by comparison — just faint metallic beeps that barely register against the gigantic roar of tinnitus. I know you're meant to work up to higher levels gradually, but I worry I'm starting so low that my brain has no reason to care about these beeps. Has anyone found stimulation levels needed to be pushed higher/faster for the signal to become meaningful /to achieve more tinnitus suppression?

Basically: if you had significant residual hearing and/or loud tinnitus going in, how did you get over the hump where the CI signal stops being "just more noise" and starts being useful info that your brain cares about in general settings rather just during training and rehab (which I'm trying to do at least an hour of every day)?

Any training routines, timelines, or mapping tips appreciated as I am feeling super overwhelmed and disappointed at the moment

Today both sides activated it is so nice to be able to hear out of both ears it's not perfect but I can understand stand people voices very robotic but to me a big win i been 5 days out I still have some pain in right side has anyone have the same issues