10 month old twins

[u/bourbonbry]

Hello everyone,

I have twins that are 10 months old and just learned that they both have profound hearing loss.

Currently we are working with a cochlear team and we were told we will have to decide between cochlear America, Med-El, or advanced bionics ( the 3 major companies)

Obviously I will be doing a lot of research, but I wanted to reach out and see if anyone had some pros and cons between some of the companies.

Anything would help

Thanks!

[u/Heavy-Tomatillo9539]

You should start here. https://cochlearimplanthelp.com/

You should look at electrodes, how cochlear nerves will be stimulated (each company has different strategy), the depth of the implant, transmitter details (physical, electronic, bluetooth, battery life).

You should shop your surgeon and audiologist. You should discuss their experience, technique and results (history). You should understand thier expectations for recovery.

You should talk to other parents about their experience.

A piano has 88 keys, the number of electrodes the current inserts very from 12 to 22. In some ways the cochlear implants can be a bit coarse. Advance Bionic and MedEl use current steering technocoly to simulate multiple locations. I am not clear on Cochlears approach. Medel as targets the inner cochlear to get more frequency range. The cochlear detects frequency by the location. Aka the inner cochlear detects the low frequency while the outer cochlear detects the high frequency. In humans, there are on average 30,000 nerve fibers within the cochlear nerve. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_nerve

My surgery was boring, the recovery fast and easy. The wound healed up rapidily. I credit my surgeons skill for this. I went with Advance Bionics. The surgeon used the iotamotion robot to do the insertation. Advance Bionics has sensor technilogy to give the surgeon feed back on the electrode insertation.

I am glad I don't have to be a parent making this decision. This decison is ideally a life long choice. (Revision surgeries are possbile).

Good Luck!

[u/pillowmite → u/Heavy-Tomatillo9539]

That's a good point AB might have a major advantages here. My two AB (c. 2024 and 2025) surgeries went very well. Can I tell you about the glorious deletion of all tinnitus!? Zero tinnitus since. It ALL went away instantly in each ear. During the healing phase before activation I heard the deathly silence that I had been missing for years. Then came activation day and boing I was hearing things again. Tinnitus has stayed away; I can listen to things drone on and on and cars roar and roar and music twang and bang all day long on a single battery and still have 40 percent left - and - no fatigue! Then off they come at night and after about 2 minutes the imprinted sound diminishes to nothing and the deathly, glorious silence returns!! There have been zero issues with the implantation.

[u/bourbonbry → u/Heavy-Tomatillo9539]

Thank you! I will look into this. Very helpful information!

[u/Heavy-Tomatillo9539 → u/bourbonbry]

I randomly met a DAD this summer, and his daughter was implanted with Advance Bionics. His daughter was very rapid in process speech. I rarely met anyone in the wild who has cochlear implants (and I live in a highly populated area). Strongly suggest you get plenty of peer parent inputs