John's Blog

I've decided to take a complete different focus on this blog and have moved it to http://jklarsen.com/blog . Notice i changed from myblog to just blog.

I have not been keeping up on this blog and I believe taking a change in direction will open new opportunities for me to post more often!

I woke up this morning probably about 4am but not sure as I found myself sprawled on the bottom of the steps in the living room, half on the hardwood floor and half on the carpet. Felt like I was hit by a mack truck!

I got up stiffly and went upstairs to the bathroom. I turned on the water to splash some on my face and noticed that the water was loud as it rushed onto my fingers and I thought, why would I have slept with my Cochlear processor on?

I lefted my wet hand to my head without thinking and did not feel any processor! How can this be?

I turned off the water to see if my head was just ringing from the fall. It went quiet aside from the ticking of the clock and occasional passing of a car on the street next to our house.

I stared at the mirror of the bathroom wide eyed. What is going on? BUZZ BUZZZ BUZZ BUZZZ ah damn there goes the alarm... time to get up.

Since I started my new job last August, I have discovered being part of a sophisticated technology team at a big company can be very demanding. I have had little time to write.

I have made some improvements in terms of my hearing. Last January and February I went in for some new mappings to experiment with the groundings. Apparently there are 3 grounding options. One where the magnet goes, one in the array in the cochlear and the other thats is a third wire the is embedded into my skull a few inches above my ear. Originally there were 2 grounds being used - the magnet and the third wire. The possible theory to my problems was the way the current was completing the circuit which may or may not be causing the current to stimulate the facial nerve. So they turned off the magnet ground and assigned the ground to only the third wire. It didn't really help much. The sound was very different too.

I decided to keep it set with one ground and turn on some more channels just before the pain threshold. So we were able to turn on channels 16-19 back on. Unfortunately it seemed the loudness was only based on the lowest channel. Pushing one channel down decreased the overall volume.

I decided to try pushing the other channels up from 6 through 14 so you get kind of a curve with the middle channels being the highest. Also found that we could turn up the equilizer settings for each of those channels to compensate for the lower channels - 16-19. I wish I had discovered this earlier! It works well - I am able to listen to audio books again! I feel like I am getting crisper and wider range of sound. Im able to take advantage of 14 channels instead of just 10.

I am also down to 1000mhzs too which is giving me about an extra day or two of battery life. I was only getting 2 days out of 3 batteries previously.

I had a mapping appointment last Tuesday to try going back to a mapping that I had in 2006 that had been the highlight of my cochlear implant experience.

Unfortunately that mapping would not work, even with channels 4 and 17 turned off. It was actually worse than it was when I had the mod in December 06. Both pain and my facial muscles going awry.

I had asked for the cochlear rep to attend the appointment to provide any ideas that she may have. We ended up enhancing the latest mapping by changing the frequency table and bumping up the volume on the individual channels.

The frequency table change added a little more crispness and I can hear the common white noise again. This was kind of lost to me since the December 06 Mapping.

Also they are questioning about the array moving in the cochlear. They are planning to have me get a CT scan to compare with the one done after the surgery to see how much it has moved. The assumption is that the lowest numbers have shifted outside the cochlear. That is why I'm getting the painful sensation with channels 1-4 as the electrodes are hitting the tissue on the outside.

Ah well, I guess I'm not exactly a cochlear implant success story like many of my cochlear friends. However, it is still a huge improvement regardless. I just hope I can retain where it is currently... Wish me luck.

I have taken it upon myself to learn more about the mapping process. I remember last year before August 2006 I was able to listen to an audiobook from start to finish. Recently I decided to listen to one of those books again and found that I could not comprehend as much.

I requested and received the mapping information from 2006 to compare with current map.The difference was quite noticible. 2006 had higher values and lower channels and lower values on higher channels where the current map is the opposite. I am also going to experiment with the frequency length and see if that makes any differents with the channels that I have had to turn off.

Shortening the frequency also requires lower hrtz rate so will see. Wish me luck.