CROS vs. cochlear implant

Hi, I’m profoundly deaf in my right ear. Years of menieres attacks have seen to its demise. I Also wear a hearing in my left due to otosclerosis (spell check). My consultant has asked me to consider having a cochlear implant but he also suggested the cros hearing aid. I believe it takes the sound from the right and Bluetooth feeds its into the other hearing aid. Has anyone tried this? If you have a cochlear implant fitted after being a hearing person can you tell me the quality of sound you receive please. Thanks for your advice

I was a hearing person for 56 years of my life. Add 10 years of hearing aids to that number. I had a SSHL at the age of 66, which left me with severe profound bilateral loss. I went a CI evaluation, found I was a suitable recipient for a CI. In Amongst my consult with my surgeon and the numerous questions he asked he figured out my L ear has been profound deaf since birth. So he decided to do my R ear instead.

I’m now bimodal Cochlear N7 & Resound Enzo 3D. I’m 8 days shy of 2 yrs post op now. To start I had Popeye talking away to me, but slowly over the next 6-8 months the sound from my processor has normalized. It was weird when I streamed it was a normal sound but when people talked it wasn’t. But now 2 yrs on its very, very normal.

Ive trained myself to listen to the radio, which has helped me to still enjoy music. I don’t no if I could go to a live pop band concert though. But live theatre I still enjoy. I’ve had excellent results from my CI, my binaural aided is 94%.
Good Luck with your decision making.


Thank you. Its a long journey. The thought of never hearing music again would be extremely upsetting for me. I am happy for you that you’re now able to. You are very patient. How long did it take to recover from the surgery and was it terribly painful? I have visions of paper clips flying towards my head :upside_down_face: :sweat_smile: I’m assuming its not strong enough for that

Thanks for sharing your personal journey with me

Recovering from surgery- pain wise I had recovered within 4 days, and all I took for the pain was som paracetamol… I was back driving the car in 4 days. I had no surgical complications post op either. It takes the post op swelling about 6-8 weeks to completely resolve though.

All things CI related you have to train the brain how to re learn a new way. Speech you lay down new pathways by listening to people speak constantly. Same with music, I taught myself by listening to the radio, I have it going all day. It’s all a matter of teaching the brain new techniques.

No nothing comes flying towards you. But if your head gets too close to the fridge door you might lose your processor though…


The CI magnets will definitely just mp off your head when getting within 2-3 inches of metal. It happens to me regularly. Very noticably when things get quiet.

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One thing to think about: you can get a cros on a trial basis, you can’t get a CI on a trial basis, it is pretty permanent.


Thank you. You’re right, I’m looking into it

I chose the implant, and have been relatively pleased. The two main reasons for it stand out, and in my opinion out weigh the negatives:

  1. If you have tinnitus or develop it in the future the CROS will not help.
  2. Over time (approximately 10 to 15 years) your hearing nerve and brain will effectively give up trying to hear from your bad ear. After that time a cochlear implant will not work even if fitted.
    Things that I worry about with my CI:
  3. Problems / breaking
  4. Weakened skull (I can no longer do martial arts)
  5. Solar flares
    Kind regards,
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Thank you. Yes the nerve no longer trying to hear. I had forgotten about that part actually

One more thing that I would like to mention… What if your “good” ear starts giving you problems? This has always been my #1 fear. It is reported that at least 25% of Meniere’s patients have problems with both ears. I hope this is not you, or me, but it weighs heavy on my decision to get the implant. I have had a few times when my middle ear gave me trouble making me completely deaf for a few days. This is a very isolating and anxiety provoking experience, and with the CI I do not have to worry about it anymore.
I hope this helps (and doesn’t set off your anxiety to much) :slight_smile:
Kind regards,

Curious why this is an issue.
Once you get the CI it will probably be your good ear.

Not necessarily.
In my case, and a friend of mine (who also has a CI), we both have functioning second ears that perform better than the CI. In my friends case he uses a hearing aid on his good ear to help, but in my case my ear is unaided.

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More info:
“Of the available rehabilitative options for SSD, CROS, OI devices and CIs are able to overcome deficits caused by the head shadow effect. All three devices effectively place an acoustic sensor on the side of the deaf ear. However, signals detected by CROS and OI devices are ultimately routed to the better hearing cochlea and so improvements in hearing would theoretically be limited to recovering the 5-6 dB loss caused solely as a result of the head shadow effect. Since neither CROS nor OI devices use binaural signal processing there is no expected improvement in speech perception from summation or squelch. CIs, however, allow for both an acoustic sensor as well as electrical input to the deaf side. To the degree that the auditory system can effectively combine this electrical signal with acoustic hearing in the opposite ear, CI recipients will theoretically also benefit from summation and squelch.”