BAHA questions

[jscott]

Hi: I wear traditional hearing aids and have a very good functioning auditory nerve in my worst, right ear. But the bone conduction in my right middle ear is bad. I test drove a few external BAHA aids at my audiologists and had mixed reactions. My hearing improved for sure and my voice sounded different. However I'm a classical guitarist and when I played the guitar, I was disappointed by the quality of sound. I understand that an implant will sound better. also,even with my traditional aids I have to have a music program that disables all of the compression and noise reduction features. this will be available with a BAHA.

Cochlear has a just approved implant called Osia that doesn't use a post. so no infections etc. The audiologist is very excited by this device.

My voice recognition is excellent and my hearing on the left side is pretty good. I'm not SSD. But I often won't hear people on my right side, even with an aid. Moreover, my bass range hearing is very poor. Oh, and I have eustachian tube dysfunction that causes fluid build up in my middle ear during allergy season--and that lasts for months. That really distorts the sound of my guitar. A BAHA would circumvent all that. Hooray!

I may be able to wear an external band to try a BAHA out more fully. Really my only concern is that the quality of sound with the BAHA Osia will be worse than with my traditional aids. However, with the Osia,or another BAHA like Oticon, supposedly I will be hearing across the full spectrum of sound unlike now--or darn near.

Thoughts>? sorry for the length.

[GP9]

My only experience with BAHA was a trial with the head band. After my AN related hearing loss, my ENT doctor was pushing for me to get the implant. I think he was rubbing his hands together in the hopes of getting to perform the surgery.

My experience was not great. At work, I am a locomotive engineer. The vibrations of the large diesel seemed to resonate through the BAHA. I wonder if you would have the same problem with certain musical pitches. Maybe if I followed through, they could have programmed it to cancel these sounds. In the end, I really didn’t like the prospect of the anchor on the side of my head.

After 10 years post AN, I’ve had enough of asking people to repeat themselves, and missing half of conversations. Maybe comparing our situations is apples vs. oranges. I am SSD.

[leapyrtwins]

I opted for a BAHA implant post AN surgery and it's the best thing I ever did for myself.  I absolutely love it. 

As far as your voice sounding different, that's something that goes away in time.  You get used to hearing the sound of your own voice.