All my audiograms thus far with my comments on them!

My audiograms are shown below. Click on each to enlarge.

This is the oldest audiogram I can find, its from 1998. That audiogram did say I have a stable profound hearing loss so I assume it was the same on previous audiograms. Maybe the audiologist somehow kept a copy before 1998, we will have to call around and find out. I can tell you that I didn't hear unaided even when I was little so I certainly wasn't HOH but deaf since birth.

I do wonder if I had cochlear dead zones in the high frequencies. I do remember being able to hear birds and whistles so I probably was still able to hear 3000Hz. My aided hearing took a big dip past 1500Hz despite my unaided hearing being flat. My dad says the audiologist programmed maximum gains in the mid and high frequencies but did turn the gains down a bit at 250Hz, that's why im missing out in that frequency :(

My mom found this audiogram in July 2009. I was shocked and surprised to see that I had no residual hearing above 500Hz! The arrows point downwards at 750Hz and up at the 110db max(90db max at 8000Hz) that this audiometer was capable of outputting. I was also shocked how much worse my hearing got! I never noticed that I lost what little high(er) frequencies I had! This means there's so few sounds that are high frequencies I never noticed I lost them!

My aided audiogram taken 20 days later. My unaided audiogram was input from 20 days ago, I don't think they retested my unaided hearing. My aided hearing at 250Hz remained the same 35db as it was in 1998 but it took a huge dive in the other frequencies. I am surprised at only hearing 50db aided with 95db unaided when I heard 30db aided with 90db unaided in 1998!

I am also surprised I heard aided to 3000Hz when I had no unaided hearing past 500Hz! Perhaps this was a false response due to cochlear dead regions? I am impressed I could understand some words on a speech test with such poor aided hearing! It goes to show how important the low frequencies are!

I was surprised at that 65db threshold at 250Hz! I also recorded better thresholds across the audiogram compared to 2002! Surely my hearing didn't improve? Maybe those are just false positive responses due to cochlear dead zones above 750Hz.

This left corner audiogram is from September 2008. My hearing falls off the bottom in the higher frequencies. Pretty much identical to my 2002 audiogram. The audiologist then said that no HA would touch a 120db loss and that he recommends CI. The next day he retracted his recommendation after seeing that I got some benefit from the new Phonak Naida HAs. I still hear pretty good in the lows.

I was surprised at the poor scores at 250Hz. Ive tested my hearing on several occasions after this audiogram and I can hear 70db at 250Hz. My aided 250Hz hearing is way better than 35db, I know because I hear 250Hz louder and further than 500Hz at home on my speakers. That audiometer needs to be recalibrated at 250Hz. However my other scores are accurate.

This audiogram from July 2009 was taken in-situ with audiogram direct, a feature my HAs support. My unaided hearing is 120db at 1000Hz and up. The aided scores are a home test with my speaker but they make sense given how much gain my HAs were programmed for. I plan to have another aided test in a soundfield for official scores now that my HAs have been reprogrammed. Ill edit this post with all future audiograms.

I might get CI in 3-5 years, need to learn more! My thoughts posted here.

Ive been thinking to myself about my future plans. There's still so much I need to learn about CI and so much more I need to research. Ive read many CI blogs and most with CI have a positive experience. But I just got done reading her negetive experience.  Although she did hear better with CI, she experienced complications with her CI and has stopped wearing her CI. She started wearing it again but is still experiencing problems and has stopped again. She also is sad to lose her residual hearing. I hope she can have her problems addressed and be happy with CI again. I do wish her well.

You may ask what happened to my plans for stem cells? The plan is still in action but no one yet knows when human clinical trials will begin. I plan to get a CI consultation in 2 years or so and if CI technology in 3-5 years can meet all my requirements and stem cells isn't around the corner by then, ill get one ear implanted and save the other one unless I lose all hearing in that ear.

Right now I have a 70-75% chance of improvement with CI over what my HAs can deliver. That comparsion was made with my current HAs programmed for maximum gains. I definately plan to try different HAs before getting CI. It makes me sad to see some people skip this important step. What if better HAs improve your speech from 20% to 70% or lets you hear 0db at several frequencies? Some of you do have enough residual hearing to accomplish just that.

Ive checked previous audiograms and my hearing has gotten worse. Ill post all my audiograms in another thread very soon. This is very important information for myself and for everyone reading to learn. I expect my hearing to slowly get worse and I might not hear above 500Hz a few years from now. In fact my 2002 audiogram shows no residual hearing above 500Hz but more recent audiograms place my loss in the 110-120db range above 500Hz. I will need a TEN test for cochlear dead regions.

Cochlear dead regions deserves it's own thread. But from what ive read, it's very interesting. A dead region is where you have no hair cells left and no residual hearing. You could still respond on the audiogram but the response is false and in fact arises from off-frequency stimulation. For example, a 120db stimulus can be heard by me as high as 2000Hz. But am I really hearing 2000Hz or are my hair cells at perhaps 500Hz responding? The piano thud test shows my hearing is "good" to 900Hz and goes downhill fast and ends at 1200Hz. Speech tests show pratically no benefit above 500Hz, any hearing above 500Hz doesn't really improve my speech score for some reason. Ill post about that in detail on another thread.

Ive been told that a CI should and probably will significantly benefit me today. My math places around a 3 out of 4 chance of hearing better with CI based on how much residual unaided hearing I have on a recent audiogram. You see, the more residual hearing a person has, the more benefit he will get from HAs. If I can hear 50db aided at a certain frequency and someone has 30db more residual hearing(say 90db vs. 120db) that person could be hearing 20db and not only that, the quality would improve since there's alot more surviving hair cells! There's some people who got CI who's audiograms I wish I had, id hear great with HAs with that much residual hearing. Ill have to wait for stem cells to improve my hearing to where their hearing currently is.

Hopefully CI technology gets to the point in 3-5 years where there's at least 90% chance ill hear better than with HAs. I am not comfortable with today's 70-75% odds. My friend says AB is working on 32 channels. We have seen 22 channel CIs for around 20 years now, about time for more channels! Ill be alot more interested if one of those CI companies can come out with 32 or more channels! This is very important for pitch perception but helps improve quality and even quantity of sounds!

There's alot of conditions that need to be met regarding CI.

1. I would like to hear better than 30db in the lows(125-500Hz) better than 40db in the mids(500-2000Hz) and better than 50db in the highs(2000-6000Hz+) and I would like to hear equal or better than my HAs at every frequency, even 125Hz and 250Hz! Today's CI technology stands a good chance of meeting my conditions in the mids and highs but a poor chance of just matching what I can hear with HAs in the lows. Maybe tomorrow's CI technology can at least match what I hear with HAs in the lows?

2. I would like to hear 100Hz or better all the way up to 6000Hz or better. For this, ill need a long electrode array inserted deep towards the apex of the cochlea. The low frequencies are the most important since most of the sounds and speech comes from the lows. I am simply curious what the highs sound like but regardless, getting to 6000Hz and better than 50db sounds realistic. The highs aren't of much importance from what my hearing friends say.

3. I want a 40% improvement in speech scores on a HINT-Q test or some other standard test. If I score 30% with my HAs, id like to reach at least 70% with CI. If I can score 40% or better with HAs, I will leave well enough alone even if I am a "borderline" candidate due to very loose CI criteria.

4. Id like to hear aided with CI comparable to what a severely deaf person hears aided with HAs and comparable to what a mildly HOH person hears unaided. Id of course like to hear better than what I and other profoundly deaf hear with the best HAs set to maximum gains.

5. I will need to be approved and financed by insurance, I can't afford the $50,000+ cost myself and even if I could, id be saving that for stuff such as a house, life saving surgery, retirement and even stem cells.

6. Id need to know what kind of risk id be taking by undergoing CI surgery. Id also need to know what complications can occur and the percent odds of them happening to me.

7. Id need to find an expert CI surgeon, team and audiologist to ensure the best possible CI results and to hopefully hear better than what I hear with HAs. Id want to talk in person to others who got CI and determine objectively how well they hear. Ill tell them to turn around and ill say sentences and see if they hear/understand. Ill also play tones and see if they can hear them further than I can.

8. Id be interested in the surgeon who has set records with CI, like he did with this lady who hears from -5 to 10db with her CI! He must have done everything right for her to get a record breaking result!

9. The audiologist will need to know how to correctly program/map my CI. He/she will need to work with me and let me see all the numbers/results entered. I will want to learn much about mapping a CI so I can help the audiologist map my own CI. I want the best possible thresholds and large dynamic ranges. 80% of a CI is the mapping and there's thousands of ways to map a CI, it's way more complicated than HAs.

10. I will need to learn more about CIs, what factors give good/bad results and see all the numbers/audiograms so I can compare and learn what results I can expect for myself. Those of you blogging your CI experience, please include all information/facts. Your subjective experience only tells half the story. How much residual hearing did you have before CI? Why were you not getting enough benefit from HAs? Did you try the best HAs with maximum gains? How well were you aided in the soundfield and what was your speech scores? How well do you hear with CI and how much, if any residual hearing did you keep per your new audiogram?

11. Stem cells is the wildcard. A CI will damage my hearing and cochlea and make it harder to get good results with stem cells in the far future. It would suck to be left out of stem cells for a long time in the implanted ear. I know the saying "the time is to hear now" but what if it means you end up not hearing in the future? I expect CI to be obsolete and no longer made/supported once stem cells takes off.

12. I will be paying close attention to the progress of stem cells all along the way. Ive seen a website in China that claims they can treat a variety of conditions including deafness today! What if in 3-5 years thousands of people travel overseas to become less deaf or HOH with stem cells and hear way better than CI with their HAs using their much improved residual hearing? Ive been thinking I could risk one ear with stem cells and if this doesn't work out then ill get a CI in that ear and wait for stem cell technology to mature. Then ill get stem cells in my non implanted ear while waiting for stem cells to make it possible to repair the damage CI does and improve my hearing enough in the CI ear too.

13. I am particularly curious why CI candidacy criteria is so loose and why they are/have implanted those with only a moderate hearing loss(such as 50db at 250Hz) a such person would still hear some sounds unaided that would be destroyed with a CI. I have a 70db loss at 250Hz and even I am worried about losing this residual hearing and hearing worse in the low frequencies. Why would someone who with the right HAs can hear 0-10db aided in several frequencies want to hear only 25-40db with CI? If they are that interested in hearing the highs, surely transposition would work?

14. I will try every powerful HA out there, especially the ones with transposition. I will do my best to make HAs work since CI is a last resort. My audiologist agrees that too many people buy into the CI hype and are too quick to give up on HAs that could be benefitting them! I know someone who scored 20% speech which improved to 70% when he tried different HAs! The longer you stick to HAs, the better CI technology will be when you finally get CI and if you can wait long enough, you can get stem cells!

That's all for now. I will keep blogging as I learn more. Feel free to comment and ill respond.

update(Nov 22) I spoke too soon about thinking about CI in 3-5 years. Stem cell technology has advanced faster than I previously thought and ill be getting my chance to get stem cells in less than 3-5 years. The experts predicting a 20+ timeframe for stem cells were wrong. I now see that stem cells for deafness has recently become available, making CI a moot point now and especially in 3-5 years. Hypothetically, if stem cell technology never existed then yea id get CI when CI technology improved some more. But now CI is old news and will quickly fade away.

Getting some facts straight regarding audiograms, hearing loss, HAs and CI.

Someone said to me: I learned something at JTC I thought I would share with you.

(you showed me the image)

Do you see that triangle at the top of the audiogram? You hearing aids should be programmed inside that triangle for speech perception. If they aren't able to reach that high, they need to be, at least, shaped like the triangle. Low frequency sounds like "ahh" and "b" are much louder when produced than sounds like "th" and "f", so they need to be amplifed LESS than the high frequency sounds. If they are louder, they will overpower even more. Your audiogram should ALWAYS slope UP, even if that means that you need to amplify the lows less.

Also, the line at the bottom represents the WORST your hearing can be and still be aided into the speech banana.

Caution: This is only true if you are seeking the ability to understand speech through audition.




It's impossible to get to the triangle(25db HL) in the high frequencies. For that ill need the transposition cutoff to be closer to 500Hz than 1500Hz. Maybe Phonak will design a new HA where the transposition has more programmable options. With a 1500Hz cutoff, I pretty much don't benefit from transposition since I have 120db loss at that frequency.

When my HAs were reprogrammed, different aided results were tried and with the gain on the lows reduced, I heard less. My parents said I begin to talk too loud and they had to shout at me so I could hear them. My ability to understand speech dropped as well. I also was missing out on some environmental sounds with less gains. So yea it's always good to give as much gain as possible, why hear less?

As for the bottom line(black dots) that's not true! Look at the 750Hz, 1000Hz and 1500Hz results. It's a matter of getting the most powerful HA and correctly programming it for the best possible aided hearing. I am sad when I see people with better unaided hearing than me hear worse than me aided. They need better HAs and more amplification!

------------------------------------------------------

Levels of Hearing Loss. What's the difference?

(note: I had to correct some of the grammar. Whoever wrote the guide below needs to go back to school)

Mild Hearing Loss(25-40db unaided, 0-10db aided)- a child with mild hearing loss usually has normal speech, but will have trouble in the school setting because it will be difficult to hear speech from more than 12ft away or when there is background noise. This is because much of the meaning in English is contained in the voiceless consonants which are high-pitched and soft. They are s, sh, t, p, k ,f, ch, and th.
A child with a mild loss in both ears will need some amplification in each ear to hear clearly at school , in groups, or at a distance.

My comments:  Makes sense. People who get a CI on average end up hearing 25-40db aided. So I want to make it clear that a CI does not cure your deafness nor does it give you normal hearing in the large majority of cases. You will hear equal in quantity to someone with a mild hearing loss after CI. Someone with a mild unaided loss should be aided to 0-10db with HAs. Low power, open fit HAs can do the job in this case and will give you normal aided hearing.

Moderate Hearing Loss(40-70db unaided, 0-10db aided)- a child with a moderate hearing loss can clearly hear speech only when the speaker is very close-less than two feet away. They need hearing aids to hear the softest sounds and to acquire understandable speech. If they receive hearing aids before four years of age, they usually progress rapidly in learning to talk.

My comments: Powerful HAs can aid a moderate hearing loss to 0db and no worse than 10db. I have a 55db loss at 125Hz and am aided to 0db. At 250Hz, my loss is 70db and im aided to 5db. There's still enough residual hearing to hear normally and even get to 0db.

Severe Hearing Loss(70-90db unaided, 10-30db aided)- Children with a severe hearing loss do not perceive speech no matter how close they are to the speaker. They will not learn to talk clearly and be understood without hearing aids or cochlear implants (70db or worse across the audiogram should consider a cochlear implant). All children with a severe hearing losses require special help because they receive only a portion of the clues usually available in speech sounds. With hearing aids they can detect vowel sounds,pitch,some consonants, and stress clues from speech. With their eyes they can learn to detect about 25 consonants sounds. With lipreading and listening together, they may receive about half of the clues that normal hearing people use to understand speech.

My comments: While severely deaf people experience a silent world unaided, they can be aided to normal or near normal with powerful HAs. A CI is not a wise option when powerful HAs can aid a severe loss similar to what a CI can aid. I have friends with a severe hearing loss and with the right HAs, they hear/understand speech(including S and F) as good as a CI. 

Profound Hearing Loss(90db+ unaided, 30db+ aided)-

Children with a profound hearing loss receive even less auditory information. If the child is under one year of age, they are too young to get a cochlear implant. In most states, the child needs to be at 9-12 months old. Hearing aids are not going to give much to a child with a profound hearing loss. Example: A child wearing hearing aids with a profound hearing loss will hear the sentence "Go get your shoes" as "oh eh yoo ooh" If you have dreams of your child talking and speech sounding very clear, then hearing aids are not an option for a child with a profound hearing loss. Remember 70 db or worse across the audiogram. Match the technology with the hearing loss. No Hearing aid in the world will help a profound individual like a Cochlear Implant will. 

My comments: This is only half true. I was born profoundly deaf for the most part and my old audiograms show a 100db HL at 1000Hz and higher frequencies. I was still severely deaf in the low frequencies with a 70db HL at 250Hz. I had to make do with analog HAs as well. Someone today would hear much better with powerful digital HAs.

They can still get decent benefit depending how profound their loss is. I was able to talk/speak clearly and hear/understand some speech as a child. I had much worse than 70db in the mid/high frequencies, try 100db! Not only that, I did great with old analog HA technology. Today's HAs can give good aided results for hearing loss as profound as 110db and have fitting ranges as high as 120db HL!

There's no guarantee if you have residual hearing that youll hear better with a CI, especially if you have plenty of residual hearing. CIs are great technology but should be considered a last resort after you have tried all the best HAs programmed with maximum gains. As for understanding speech, most deaf people are great lip readers and combined with sound awareness, they can score around 90%. Many of them also use sign language as a means of communication. There is a $50,000 cost(sometimes paid for by insurance) for CI as well as many risks including surgery itself.

I am not against CI but realise there is way too much hype surrounding this technology. Ive read many CI blogs and alot of people have unrealistic expectations. They claim that they will(as in 100% chance) that they will hear perfect or at least much better than with HAs. I hate to say this but there are no guarantees with CI or any other technology. The more residual hearing you have, the more you will benefit from HAs. I get great benefits from HAs(at least in the low frequencies) and if you have equal or greater residual hearing than me, you will hear more/better/louder with the right HAs than I can. Go visit your audiologist and get your HAs reprogrammed like I did, you will thank him and hear much better.

Move over cyborg queen! The Ambling Rambler sets new CI record at -5db!

Move over Deanna Bono the Cyborg Queen with her record 10db! Robyn Carter, the Ambling Rambler sets new CI record at -5db! I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw her audiogram! Thanks DeafLissa90 for the link to her audiogram and blog!

Check with Guinness world records, you could be famous! 

Her amazing CI score! Great blog, thanks for sharing your story! She lost all her hearing years ago so no residual hearing was sacrified.

She included her audiogram. I extrapolated/estimated additional frequencies to show the full range of 11 audiometric frequencies.



I have devised a foruma to calculate hearing. Ill explain it fully in another post. 

125Hz=0db HL
250Hz=5db HL
500Hz=0db HL
750Hz=5db HL
1000Hz=10db HL
1500Hz=0db HL
2000Hz=-5db HL
3000Hz=5db HL
4000Hz=10db HL
6000Hz=10db HL
8000Hz=0db HL

LFA=5/3=2(2x0.6=1) *normal*
MFA=10/5=2(2x0.3=1) *normal*
HFA=20/5=4(4x0.1=0) *normal*
OFA=40/11=4 *normal*
WFA=1+1+0=2 *normal*

Her current aided audiogram with CI. I rounded the db numbers to the nearest whole number. According to my math, she hears normally across the board! In fact she hears better than most hearing people, at least as far as quantity and thresholds goes! That is one amazing CI result you got there. Nothing worse than 10db and several with scores of at least 0db! Your record will probably last a very, very long time!

Furthermore, I was told that 10db was the best possible CI score and that 0db was impossible with CI and for the matter, with HA. I will need an official HA test to confirm the 0db aided score at 125Hz. However at that frequency, I hear better than hearing people. I don't have enough residual hearing to achieve 0db at above 250Hz. However I am interested in those with only a mild/moderate HL getting their HAs programmed for gains equal to their HL and ending up with 0db aided.  Don't you want to hear great at 0db?

I would be very interested to see how it was possible for her to achieve this record breaking CI results. Her audiologists and surgeon(s) should investigate and discover the factors contributing to such a steller result. They then can learn and share the knowlege with others and help improve CI technology. This will allow more people to end up hearing better with CI over what the best HAs with maximum gains could offer. It would also decrease the number of people who hear worse after CI, especially the borderline candidates with plenty of residual hearing and who should benefit great from HAs.

More information on stem cells to treat/cure deafness and diseases.

source1

The difference between he and I is that a symptom of his MS involved the loss of hearing. His hearing improved dramatically after the first treatment. Richard returned because scientists there believed they discovered the stem cell responsible for inner ear hair growth. His return involved the hope that his hearing would be improved even more.

source2

This was repeated again intrathecally and then an extra 3 million CD 34+ & CD133+ concentrate for inner ear nerve hair growth.

7. Risks are very minimal. The very small percentage of patients that have issues are nerve bruising at the spinal cord site but goes away in about 24 hours. Preston had this but I did not that. There are no side effects, how can there be? We as humans are composed of stem cells and if they body rejects it, it is simply eliminated out of the body. PERIOD! It is not a drug. Some have side effects from every single medicine but not with stem cells.

On Feb. 15-28th I return to Costa Rica for another treatment. ICM will be trying two new experimental treatments. One includes using the stem cell CD 133+ that was proven in Israel last Dec. to improve inner ear nerve hair growth. Since MS robbed my hearing we will now try a concentration of this stem cell to see what it can do. It was included in our original stem cell treatment and I have had to have my hearing aids turned down 4x.

source3

recently ive been reading so much about the future and the future of technology.....man, as someone once said before on this board, there really hasnt ever been such a good time to have tinnitus! all the research and funding going into tinnitus and deafness is higher than ever before, and we're constantly getting news of stem cell/gene therapy research into these areas - the scientists are ON it!!

I know how awful tinnitus etc is, but guys, we're making so much progress at such an increasing rate...there WILL be a cure for all these aural conditions soon enough! im no futurologist or anything but from what ive read about the exponential progress of technology in the futur...man, its SURELY relasitically just a matter of years away!!

I mentioned stem cells/gene therapy as personally i'm concerned mostly by hearing loss, which either stem cells or gene therapy will cure, within a decade (i base this on the research i've done thus far). i agree that the cure for tinnitus may not be based in one of these approaches, but that doesn't mean it won't be cured very soon. Diseases are most definitely on their way out...

source4

Dennis finally got time to post the answers regarding treatment for the deaf. Id be interested in seeing what the doctors and experts say about anecdotal reports of people who are having their deafness(sometimes in conjuction with other conditions/diseases) treated/cured now!

Ive seen anecdotal reports of deafness being treated/cured several times since 2007. If this is really true then we can expect human clinical trials by 2015-2020. Perhaps it's too risky and expermental to be done on healthy humans today but it may still be done on humans that have serious diseases such as MS. They can treat both the MS and deafness together with taking the risk only once. When they establish more safety, that's when we will see deaf clinical trials.

We will probably see such clinical trials in other countries first then later on in America. I will keep searching the net and get more news. Some experts are now forecasting 2015-2020 for human clinical trials to restore some hearing loss. If the anecdotes are any indication, we won't have to wait as long as feared. There still is no date yet on when human clinical trials will begin but once we have a date, itll be around the corner.

I applaud the brave souls who will risk their hearing, health and even lives being the first clinical trial subjects. Ive read that demand will be fierce with thousands applying to get into the first trials. I am not a risk taker so ill bow out and eagerly await the results of pioneers. When a high degree of safety is proven, ill try to join the later trials(phase II or III)

Update: I read more and found out that having *too* many hair cells actually results in a hearing loss as bad as having too few! Too many also increases the risk that some hair cells could become cancer! So yes just like CI, those with too much residual hearing may in fact hear worse after stem cell treatments!

However I also read that methods for halting the growth of hair cells is being developed to minimize this problem of ending up with excess hair cells. Even if you do end up with a few too many, it should be possible to kill off the extras with loud noise. It remains to be seen how much of a hearing loss is required to be a candidate, however I see no reason the severely and profoundly deaf won't make good candidates.

Good Wikipedia on Cochlear implants

People were getting CI before FDA approval and even before clinical trials. Even if it takes around 30 years to see clinical trials for stem cells to treat/improve deafness, there will be thousands of people who seek that treatment well before the first clinical trials. We are already seeing a few dozen people getting stem cells for their deafness, expect that number to rocket in the next few years. I will be following closely to evaluate results and safety.

Update! Another anecdote!

Stem cells!

My son has CP and severe to profound hearing loss. We went in 2007 and 2008 in
China for umbilical stem cells treatment. One of teh outcomes and they have been
many was the improvement in hearing loss. Each time I decreased teh power of teh
hearing aids. From their case studies they say in 6-7 treatments you recover
your hearing loss.
 
I also know they had several patients with no vision that after one treatment (
6 injections) started to see with glases. This is something you may want to look
into. There is a group BIA4kids on which lots of parents went to China for
treatment of neurological and degenerative diseases including hearing loss and
lack of vision.

My HAs have been reprogrammed. 5db aided at 125Hz, 98% speech score!

I have talked for a few months about getting my HAs reprogrammed and finally I got them reprogrammed! One of my HAs suddenly died, but the other is going strong. The dead one will be sent in for repair/replacement. Many others have experienced this bug with their Naidias dying on them. I learned alot more about hearing loss and hearing aids when I can see all the reprogramming going on.



I posted about this in a previous post. My speech comphrension has increased and my best score is a whopping 98%, higher than many with CI who took this test. I constantly score around 85% which is a 15% improvement just from boosting the lows! More gains has brought out extra loudness and makes it easier to hear!

The funny thing is "John" and "Joan" both sounded identical before my HA was reprogrammed for more gain and before I kept training my brain. Now I can differnate the two most of the time.

Im still stuck unable to distinguish between "has" and "had" although I hear both words. My dad says I need to listen closely for the hissing "s" sound. Can you hear that sound with either HA or CI? How do you score on the above speech test, see my earlier post for a link.

My dad said a bunch of numbers such as "four hundred sixty six" or "six hundred fifty two" and I got it right most of the time. Fifty and sixty still give me trouble for now, gotta keep training my brain to tell the subtle differences!



Red dots: My unaided hearing for both ears.
Blue dots: My aided hearing for both ears.

The difference is amazing! Reprogramming my HAs for more gains has gotten my low frequency aided thresholds down to normal hearing, quantity(but not quality) wise. I hear (low frequency) sounds that my mom, dad and brother don't hear! When there was a thunderstorm, I could hear the pattering of every drop of rain on the roof! I heard thunder before my mom and dad did! It was a loud, rumbling sound!

I am still learning what makes some people with similar audiograms get more benefit from HAs than others. My audiologist says it has to do with training your brain and he says I need to keep training my brain or I won't properly understand speech.

If everyone is different, why can't others train their brain to understand speech(provided they still have a measurable amount of residual hearing, such as similar to mine) I do know you still need to train the brain with CI to improve speech. Hopefully you can train your brain in your HA ear to hear lots of environmental sounds and a good deal of speech. Can your HA be reprogrammed for more gains? It's made a big difference for me in my experience. Ill be sharing it in my blog.

Right now, it's mostly the S and F that I can't differnate although I hear both of them, they sound the same! However if someone says "snake" and "snakes" I can tell there's an extra S. But between "fun" and "sun" they are so similar. So yea even with me hearing mostly low frequencies(nothing much above 1000Hz) I still am able to convey a high percentage of speech information. I read that frequencies of 2000Hz and up only account for 10% of speech.

I will post more as I learn and get fine tuned programming on my HAs

Some answers thus far about stem cells for the deaf!

My friend Dennis went to the HLAA and he was kind enough to provide some answers while chatting with me. He was too tired and busy to post the answers right now but will do so in the next few days. I am posting what answers he gave me so far.

He says the 3 doctors don't know for sure on the timeframe but they say 25-50 years just to shut people up who keep nagging the docs and to please those people who secretly hope that stem cells for the deaf does not happen "soon" or even in their lives. I talked to another friend who agrees with me that culturally Deaf people fear that any treatment/cure would destroy their culture so they are hoping everyone stays deaf as long as they live.

The docs did say that testing is currently done on mice and chickens and will move on to monkeys. They said: monkeys are next within the next 5-10 years
human trials take a minimum of 7-15 years. So yea most of us will be alive when the time comes. We will learn alot more before 2020 when trials begin on monkeys. Right now enough is known that deafness can be treated someday.

It's too early to know how many DB improvement, the doctors couldn't even answer that one. However it's known that chickens which can regenerate their own hair cells still end up mildly HOH(25-40db HL) after they are deafened with ototoxic drugs. The new hair cells which were regenerated by chickens are of lesser quality and fewer in quantity than original hair cells. I personally am going to realistically expect a 20db improvement. It will take a very long time before technology can restore profoundly deaf people to normal hearing(maximum 25db HL) but a partial restoration alone is great, youll be able to benefit from HAs again or benefit much more.

There's actually 3 different methods currently being researched. One is "implantation" of stem cells, two is "turn off the stop growing triggers" the third is to try to get support cells to turn into hair cells when hair cells die off. Ill find out more on the other methods soon. It's possible one or more of those methods could be used in humans before stem cells.

I would give it at least 10 years before one or more methods to restore some hearing to the deaf is ready for human clinical trials. In the meantime, there's powerful HAs out there and for those with no residual hearing, there's CI. You can read my previous posts to learn more about HAs and CI.

*update!* HLAA links with PDF answers! 

Friday, June 19, 2009
9 a.m. - Noon: Research Symposium, An Update On the Latest Hair Cell Regeneration Research

Cochlear Regeneration: A treatment for severe hearing loss in our lifetime?

George Gates, M.D.

Hair Cell Regeneration-Where Are We & How Did We Get Here?

Douglas Cotanche, Ph.D.

Can We Regenerate the Mammalian Audtory System?

Neil Segil, Ph.D.

Vestibular System Reconstruction

Hinrich Staecker, M.D., Ph.D.

I got 75% correct for online sentence matrix hearing test!

Take the online sentence matrix test!

65db loudness as measured with SPL meter
male voice
normal speed
no noise
25 sentences

Scored 72%. First time I got a 63% with 10 sentences. Score about 5% less with female voice. Score around 40% with some noise and 25%(chance) with lots of noise. Is this considered a fairly decent score? What did you score and under what settings? Do any of you have a link to other online speech tests?

I tried again, same settings but 10 sentences. No repeats and got 73%

***The above results were from March. I took it again in June and scored 75% consistently with male voice, normal speed, 10 sentences, repeats allowed***

Good questions one should ask about stem cells for the deaf.

Someone and perhaps others are going to the HLAA where the topic is “An Update on the Latest Hair Cell Regeneration Research." 

I have several questions id like to forward to the experts. I live out of state and therefore can't afford the long trip, but those attending could forward my questions as well as come with their own. The questions will of course be about stem cells and any other methods that can treat deafness and restore some unaided hearing.

1. Alot of us are very curious on any educated estimates on when stem cells will begin human clinical trials. Reading around puts the estimate at around 10 years from now or near 2020. What about trials on larger animals than mice, such as rabbits, cats, dogs, apes, etc? As for human clinical trials, how does one get in and do they pay full costs or get a discount for contributing/participating in valuable research?

2. Another thing of particular interest is the extent of improvement one can realistically expect. What would be the requirements of candidacy and how will the degree of hearing loss affect the degree of improvement? To what hearing level is realistic, how much of a hearing loss will one have afterwards? How many DB improvement is expected and will the improvement start first in the low frequencies? 90% of audiograms are sloping with the best hearing in the lows. Can the procedure simply be repeated to achieve additional improvement or is it a one chance deal where you are stuck(at least for a while) with whatever you get?

3. What are the estimated costs, how much cheaper will it be than CI? How will insurance factor in? Will it be affordable for the middle class or just the rich?

4. What risks are expected? Do the risks extend beyond the ear and hearing? Is it expected to be safer than CI? Is all existing residual hearing preserved with stem cells, meaning there's no "two steps ahead, one step back" problem?

5. What will happen to those who have a CI(or two) how much will this complicate stem cells and how will it affect the results? I have concerns about this and it's one reason I am saving both ears as I want the best possible results by keeping my ears intact and preserving all residual hearing. Some of us are also concerned that support for CI will rapidly become nonexistant once people start getting stem cells. Will CI become obsolete shortly afterwards?

If I have more questions, I will ask them here. Id like to know where I can find CC(close captions) videos of this upcomming seminar as well as review previous seminars?

Deaf treatment by stem cells likley to begin human clinical trials in 2015-2020

I talked to someone who has some knowlege on this. He said to expect human clinical trials in 2015-2020 timeframe. Give it another 5 years after that for FDA approval. He says it's a question of when, not if. I read articles that state clinical trials for stem cells to treat some forms of blindness will begin in 2011. So it's logical to believe that we will see such clinical trials for deafness a few years after. Certainly not 50-100 years like some Deaf people would like to believe.

I also asked him about the fate of CIs and he says CIs will be obsolete when the real thing becomes available. Itll be a third the $50k cost of CI, safer, better, natural and very popular. Most hearing parents of deaf babies will give them stem cells to improve their hearing. The CI companies will either go out of business or start offering stem cell treatments.

I then asked him what about all those with CIs, he says they will still be able to get stem cells and won't need their CI anymore. I asked him wouldn't results be better on virgin ears that still have residual hearing? He doesn't know that one. However from sources I read, they believe it's better to save your ears for stem cells. Itll be easier to improve hearing when you have existing residual hearing than to start from scratch with none.

He says it's too early to determine what role insurance will have in this. Im guessing insurance will pay for those who are deaf while those who are HOH will need to save up. If insurance considers stem cells for deafness an elective procedure, I will pay out of pocket and dad will help me afford it. I was raised 100% oral and my parents would love to help me hear better. They have been training my ability to understand sounds and speech since I was a baby.

We both know that HAs, CI and stem cells are an individual choice. I will respect other's choice in return that they respect my choice to hear better with stem cells. He did tell me and I fully understand that deaf treatment will be controveral just like CIs once were but are almost fully accepted today except when forced on babies. He says culturally Deaf fear that stem cells will eradicate their way of life. Well, they don't have to seek a treatment for their own deafness. Im sure there will be some born deaf or late deafened who choose to be that way and join the Deaf culture. 

For those of us who choose stem cell treatment, I am going to be realistic by asking for a 20db improvement. When that techology starts out, expect a partial improvement. Perhaps in another 10 years the technology will be mature enough to get many people to normal hearing, as defined of 25db or better. No one yet knows the extent of improvement and we may not know till human clinical trials begin. But don't expect normal hearing for a while. Even when it was done on animals, they were still hard of hearing but no longer profoundly deaf.

Those who were born profoundly deaf and never heard a sound in their lives will definately not be interested. I know a blind person who was born that way and that person does not wish to be cured or to ever see. That person does not miss what was never seen. I never heard much in the way of high frequencies and probably never heard above 3000Hz. What little high frequency hearing I had when I was younger is gone, today I don't hear much above 1000Hz. I have made a post about high frequencies not being very important.

I talked to another one of my friends and he agrees with me. He says the highs(2000Hz and up) are annoying and sound like a shrill squeaky sound that gets squeakier as the pitch increases. It has an "eeeee" sound quality. My dad says anything above 2000Hz is just useless noise. It makes me wonder why some are so obsessed/desperate to hear the highs. One of my friends with a CI who now hears the highs says I really am not missing out on much.

With that said, id much rather hear unaided and improve the lows but ill be fine with satisfying my curiousity on what high frequencies *really* sound if I happen to get some ability to hear highs after stem cells. I hear unaided at 65db HL at 250Hz so perhaps ill be down to 45-50db at that frequency. I wonder how much people with this moderate HL hear unaided.