This made it clear that I was having a hearing problem with my left ear. Two hearing tests and an MRI later, the Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist said that it was an unexplained hearing loss with no potential for getting better. He said to monitor it and check back if it got worse.
For the next decade, I just dealt with the hearing loss and tinnitus. I have one ear with excellent hearing and coped with it reasonably well.
Last year I noticed that I was having to ask people far too often to repeat themselves and decided to have it checked again. My bad ear had gone downhill. Now I couldn't even make out words. The audiologist said that I had profound hearing loss in the bad ear. The ENT said the most powerful hearing aid available would not be of any help with my poor word recognition scores. He referred me to another specialist.
The neuro-ototologist looked over everything and said that the best option for me would a cochlear implant. Unfortunately, the FDA hasn't approved cochlear implants for single-sided deafness. In Europe, it is approved and commonly done but since the FDA hasn't approved it, insurance wouldn't cover it. Instead he recommended a bone conduction hearing aid.
I had never heard of a bone conduction hearing aid before. The principle is actually quite simple. A small device that looks like a traditional hearing aid gets the sound signal and then vibrates the bone to send the sound signal to the cochlea. For people with problems in their outer ear, the vibration can go to the same side. In my case, it would vibrate the whole skull to send the signal across to the good ear where it would be fused with the hearing from my good ear. It would mean living in a monaural world but I'm already doing that. Still it, sounded hard to believe that it would actually work.
The clinic loaned me a device for two weekends on a headband. I even wore it to class to hear my students' final project presentations. It looked a little funny with a headband but I explained that it was all the better to hear them with. I was surprised how well it worked - especially given that it was only a demonstration. The headband is generally only used for small children and demonstration purposes. The processor snaps on to a hard piece of plastic on the headband and pushes on the skull. It has to go through skin and hair which cuts into the signal quality - especially at the higher frequency but it still worked pretty well. I could carry on conversations with my good ear plugged and listen to music. I was really shocked at how well it worked.
Rather than using a headband, the signal quality is improved in the "permanent" installation by going straight to the skull bone. This is done by implanting a titanium screw called an abutment into the skull. The processor then snaps right on to end of the abutment. This seems quite dramatic but is similar technology to having a pin inserted in a broken bone or a fake tooth in the jaw. The big difference is the screw is visible and exposed to the outside world. Unfortunately infection and skin irritation is a possible longterm issue.
Given that the system worked pretty well for me on a headband and that I was testing an older generation product, the Oticon Ponto Pro Power, I had confidence that the newer Oticon Ponto Plus Power with a direct connection would work even better.
A competitor, Cochlear, had a product called the Baha that worked the same way. Their model had the advantage of allowing a magnetic connection between the processor on the outside of the skin and the bone implant device on the inside. The vibration would still be made across the skin. The ENT said that they had poor success with the magnetic system and the idea of the skin being sandwiched between the magnets to be vibrated did not sound good. Comments from users and research papers seemed to be equally mixed.
I agreed to use the Oticon Ponto Plus Power. The doctor wrote his order and it was approved by insurance in a couple of days. I was all scheduled to have the surgery done in April of 2015! Of course I continued doing research on options, trying to get additional input before literally having a screw put in my head.
I lucked into word that a doctor at a nearby research university had done cochlear implants for single-sided deafness. If this really was the best option - I wanted to explore it before having surgery done. I put a hold on the surgery in order to investigate this option. This led to a year long search process...
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