Real Life Stories
Real Stories. Real Recipients.
Decisions, Decisions.
As a candidate to receive a cochlear implant, the next stage in your journey to sound requires you to make a series of choices. Some of these choices will be easy. Others you will find difficult. Above all, it is essential that you make your decisions based on carefully considered, reliable information.
Your audiologist and physician are a good starting point for gathering the knowledge you’ll need to form those choices. In addition to offering you brochures and other documents, your audiologist and physician may also suggest contacting the Bionic Ear Association (BEA), a rich source of facts about cochlear implants.
The BEA was one of the first places Linda Binns of San Diego turned for insights, as well as the emotional support she needed. “The people at the BEA were so nice,” says Linda, 52, a married mother who works as a child support officer in the district attorney’s office (she lost her hearing at 38 due to head trauma). “They were there to answer my questions. They also put me in touch with people in my area who already were using cochlear implants so that I could meet with them and see for myself what kind of a difference the device was making in their lives. The users I met and the people at the BEA itself offered me a lot of encouragement too. I really appreciated that.”
If you have not already done so, you need to select the physician you want to perform the implant surgery, and decide where and when it will happen. Chances are you already have a relationship with an otolaryngologist. These ear-nose-and throat specialists are considered the best trained to perform the implant surgery.
However, not every otolaryngologist offers cochlear implant surgery. If your otolaryngologist does not offer cochlear implants, you should ask him or her for a referral to a neurotologist colleague who performs cochlear implant surgery. Or, use our Clinic finder to locate a list of implant surgeons near you.
Which Ear: One or Both?
You may be able to hear well if, like most people, you receive a cochlear implant in just one ear. Some have received an implant in both ears. Having an implant in each ear may allow you to better distinguish where a sound is coming from, hear better in noise, and enrich the quality of the sound you hear.
Although your surgeon recommends bilateral implantation, your insurance company might not cover the second implant (it varies by insurance companies). You’ll need to decide whether you want both ears done in the same surgery (simultaneously) or in surgeries separated by some months or years (sequentially). For more insurance information, confer with your cochlear implant center and surgeon.
If you are getting only one implant, period, you still must decide in which of your two ears to have it placed. “I chose to have mine put in my left ear because that was my stronger ear in the days when I could still hear with the help of hearing aids—implanting the left ear would let me hear through the side I was accustomed to using,” says Michael Chorost, 42, an educator, technology expert, and writer from San Francisco.
What comes next may be the most confusing part—your selection of a brand of cochlear implant. Ask your audiologist or physician for a list of names of cochlear implant makers, or go online to find them.
“I searched the Internet, visited every relevant website, read them from front to back, and followed every link,” says Linda.
Michael, who was born with gradually worsening hearing problems that left him completely deaf by age 36, was aware of cochlear implants long before the day arrived in 2001 when he would need one, so he already knew who made the devices. Still, choosing a brand was difficult.
Fortunately for him, his audiologist at the California Ear Institute introduced him to a fellow patient who had conducted extensive research into the different makes and models. “His work on this was truly monumental, and included comparison tables,” says Michael. “He was kind enough to share that research with me, and it ultimately led me to choose Advanced Bionics.”
From what Michael learned, Advanced Bionics held the edge in upgradeability. “To me, that was very important,” Michael says. “The Bionic Ear appeared to offer more potential for being upgraded in the future as new and better coding strategies and software became available so that I could conceivably have more and better hearing.”
Kristin Pagliuca, a thirty-something financial administrator who lives near Boston, didn’t have the benefit of such research to help her in making the best choice. “I didn’t at all understand the fundamental differences between the products,” she says. “They all looked great, as far as I could tell.”
To solve the dilemma, Kristin divided the products into their component parts. Then she contacted each company by email and asked for a detailed explanation of that particular component’s advantages. After she received an answer, she then would email a note to the rival brand and pass along to that company the answer she received from the other maker and ask for comment.
“I ended up facilitating sort of an email dialogue between the companies,” she says. “It took time, but I gained a lot of really helpful insights from them that way.”
One such insight Kristen uncovered was that more electrodes in the implant’s array (the part that is surgically placed in your inner ear) does not necessarily make the device better. “At one company, they talked about having 24 electrodes and the other talked about having 16. Well, to an average person, 24 seems like it would be able to do more for you than 16. But as I kept asking questions, I learned that what matters is not the total number of electrodes but how many of them fire at the same time, thereby stimulating the nerves to interpret sound. It turned out that the one with 16 electrodes, all 16 of them can fire at once if needed because each electrode has its own power source—that is a total of 16 power sources; but the one with 24 electrodes, none of them fire at the same time because there is only one power source shared by all the electrodes. To me, that meant the one with 16 electrodes actually offered more hearing potential because it has more ways to deliver auditory nerve stimulation with fewer electrodes but significantly more power sources.”
Incidentally, the 16-electrode implant is made by Advanced Bionics, and that was one of the many reasons why Kristin made it her choice of device manufacturer. “I also liked the fact that their implants had a larger dynamic range,” she adds. “That meant it would be possible for more soft and loud sounds to be made usable automatically. I learned that some people don’t benefit from wider dynamic range. But I thought to myself, if I’m one who would benefit from it, then I’d like my implant to have that capability.”
Pleasing to the Ear, Pleasing to the Eye
Beyond wanting excellent performance from a medical device expected to last for many years, Michael, author of the book Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human, insisted on an implant offering stylish external components. That was another reason he went with Advanced Bionics. “Its headpiece hardware was more attractive looking, and the processor’s controls were set up a lot better,” he says.
Linda too had fashion on her mind when she made her choice. “I liked the look of the Advanced Bionics Auria System,” she says. “I was already comfortable wearing behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids, and felt that the BTE Auria would be right for me.” Linda leaned further toward Advanced Bionics when she found out it is a U.S.-based company. “That was important to me—I buy American whenever possible,” she says.
Kristin, meanwhile, factored into her brand decision the availability of accessories. In particular, she appreciated that Advanced Bionics offered an add-on called a T-Mic® Microphone that would allow her to use a telephone without first having to connect a cable between the phone and the implant’s processor. “Because I’m a heavy user of phones, it made more sense for me to go with a brand of implant that would allow me to just pick up the handset, put it up to my ear and start conversing, the same way a hearing person does,” she says.
Ask, and You Will Receive
The key to making a good choice is to ask questions, no matter how obvious the answer might seem—because the obvious answer might not be the correct one, as Kristin learned. “Ask those questions to the manufacturers and to as many professionals as you can,” she advises. “Meet people who already are using a cochlear implant. Make sure you understand the product and the process before you commit.”
Linda agrees. “When I finally felt that I knew all that it was possible to know about each of the cochlear implant companies, I easily chose Advanced Bionics,” she says. “I informed my surgeon that this was who I wanted to go with and he said, ‘Good. I was hoping you would.’”
The opinions and experiences expressed in these stories solely reflect those of the recipients interviewed. Results and experiences with the Advanced Bionics HiResolution Bionic Ear System will vary.
Next: Start Choosing>>
Have more questions?
Connect to a MentorTalk to a recipient
Visit Hearing JourneyJoin the online community
Contact the Bionic Ear AssociationReach our support network
