The Esteem

First off, THANK YOU for being so sweet about this whole blog idea. I'm amazed and grateful for all the support I've received through this Esteem journey so far. Tonight, I'll try to explain how the Esteem works.

I had no clue that clinical trials for the Esteem took place 6 years ago. In fact, I didn't know any research on implantable hearing systems was taking place. I thought I would always wear hearing aids and that was fine with me. In fact, a few years ago, I found out my hearing loss is generic. It hit me hard. A friend told me, "So what? By the time you have kids there will be some new technology and it won't matter anymore.". While I appreciated his outlook, I thought he was crazy. :)

Then in October, a girl I went to high school with asked me if I'd seen the YouTube video of a woman getting a hearing implant. I assumed it was a cochlear implant (which is for the profoundly deaf, which I am not) and didn't watch the video for a few days. When I did, I was amazed to find that this implant is for people like me - those of us who aren't severe enough for cochlears but are too severe for hearing aids. Amazing!!

My hearing loss is due to nerve damage. Basically, when sound waves enter the ear, they hit the eardrum. It vibrates the bones of the middle ear, which carry the sound to the cochlea. Inside the cochlea there are tiny nerves called the hair cell nerves. They change the sound wave into an electrical signal that the brain interprets as sound. My hair cell nerves did not develop correctly. As a result, it takes increased volume to make the nerves do their job. Hearing aids amplify sound to the point that I can hear them. The Esteem is completely different.

When Dr. Shohet implants the Esteem, he will place the sound processor between my skull and skin just above my ear. He will then put a sensor near my ear drum and a driver near my cochlea. Then, when sound waves reach my ear drum, they will be carried to the sound processor which will turn them into electrical signals my brain can understand. In essence, the Esteem does exactly what my ear cannot. There is no way to regenerate nerves (yet!) and even with the Esteem, I won't hear like a person with normal hearing, but this is by far the closest anyone with a severe hearing loss is able to get at this time.

I'm new to blogging so I don't know if this will work, but I'm trying to imbed a picture of how hearing works and a video of my surgeon explaining the Esteem. He explains it with much greater clarity than I do. :)