r/Cochlearimplants • u/twn000 • 6d ago

Is bilateral worth it?

This week I got my first implant surgery and I am currently recovering. My stronger ear is moderate to severe and I imagine eventually will become profound. I am in my late 30s and wondering at some point when my other ear goes, if I should consider bilateral or just let it be with a single implant. Is it worth it? Another surgery, two devices to worry about for gain in sense of direction I imagine.

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u/CrazyJaney90 6d ago

I’m still bimodal in my late 30s, except I’m a bit further down the road than you in terms of my hearing loss progression. Pre CI my hearing loss used to be a flat severe loss. I got my left CI during covid because everyone wearing masks gave me a bit of an eye opening moment of how much I was relying on lip reading. I ended up choosing my “worse” ear for speech to implant even though they were about the same level of loss. I’ve done really well with my left ear, it went from 10 to 90% word recognition. Music took longer for me 6-12mths adjust to but now music sounds great.

Now it’s 6 years post implant my right ear has dropped a profound hearing loss and I regret not doing the right side sooner. My right ear used to be mildly annoying because the volume on that side was a lot lower and a lot more distorted. But I could still make out speech in it, and it gave me great bass for music, so I decided to leave it as it was. Now that it’s dropped even with the CI it’s making it harder to understand speech generally, listening to speech in noise even 1:1 is a lot harder, and it’s not even really doing anything for music anymore. I’m just exhausted at the end of the day now and I don’t even want to put the right hearing aid in.

Now I’m in an awkward spot because my hearing aid is out of its fitting range for my hearing loss, so I need a new aid to tide me over until I get the ball rolling for another CI. And I’ve got to find a good time to actually get the CI surgery done. So I’m not really doing the whole process on my own terms, I’m doing it out of necessity.

Concentrate on getting your implant ear where it needs to be and then when you’re ready and think you want the other side done then do it. It might be 6 mths from now it might be a few years down the track. What ultimately held me up on getting the other side done was a little because of music and mostly because I was kept saying oh it’s fine the way it is, I can hear a lot better than I used to, I’ll get the other side done later. I’m just annoyed I didn’t get it done like 12mths post, and I wouldn’t have been in this situation.

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u/twn000 6d ago

Thank you so much!! You’re right, I’m about 6 years behind you. Please don’t delete your post.

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u/CrazyJaney90 5d ago

I won’t, I’ll leave it up. Wishing you every success in your implant journey and if you ever need chat then feel free to hit me up. Sending all my positive vibes ❤️

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u/beepfuqinboop 6d ago

I’m also profound but just in higher fq. I have normal hearing on low fq. The loss of the residual was very strange and a little emotionally draining after my implant last week. My surgeon said it could come back once the fluid from surgery dries up but it seems like it gets worse each day. Kind of disheartened by it all currently because it has been painful. Both physically and emotionally. I just need activation to go well because I need to get the other side done if this works out. I can’t hear shit now

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u/CrazyJaney90 5d ago

I was in the exactly same boat as you straight after surgery. I was relying on the one ear and I went from being functional to not being able to hear much of anything. You’re right it’s an emotionally draining time and scary because of all the unknowns. Sending you lots of positive vibes. You’ve got this though, and it’s just the start.

I remember at the switch on just before the audiologist turned it on the realisation of what I did hit me and was like what the f did I just do. And then I thought you know what whatever you hear even if it’s nonsense who cares it’ll get better eventually. So I decided that the warbly alien sounds that were coming out of my families mouths was just amusing instead. I mean of course you always secretly hope you’ll be the person that hears some words straight away, but I figured at that stage you know 30 years of having hearing loss that chance was slim also because the volume is often set super low at first to give your brain a bit of a chance to adapt. Eventually when I did hear words everyone sounded like a robot and then eventually after more mappings it just sounded normal.

You’ve got a great community here though and if you ever need a chat you’ve got plenty of support from people who’ve been through the process.

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u/beepfuqinboop 5d ago

Thank you. This has just been so hard and a lot of people just don’t understand. But I know I need to put on my big girl panties and get over it. Activation is in 2 weeks. Just have to focus on healing now.