Author Topic: Find local experts or travel to one?  (Read 2146 times)

spgreenfield

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Find local experts or travel to one?
« on: December 05, 2011, 10:15:00 am »
I live in a smallish city.  I'm having to travel for the surgery, but I know any hearing device will take some "tinkering" to get right....should I see if there are any LOCAL experts or ENTs that have a level of knowledge in any particular devices before I choose which one?

Pam
Pam in South Dakota

MRI & DX on 10/17/11, 2.8 x 2.3 x 2.3 cm cystic & solid mass
Left suboccipital Surgery with Dr. Tew at Mayfield Clinic in Cincinnati on 1/10/12
SSD but no nerves cut in surgery. BAHA implant 8/2012
Facial weakness almost gone!
Acupuncture helping face
Tear duct plug on 4/4/12

CHD63

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Re: Find local experts or travel to one?
« Reply #1 on: December 05, 2011, 04:52:43 pm »
Hi Pam .....

Sorry if I seem to always chime in on your questions, but I was in an even worse situation than you.  I live in a low populated state.  No one in my state has to date been trained by Oticon Medical to program the Ponto Pro bone-anchored hearing devices.  I knew this before I made arrangements to have the abutment implanted at the time of my AN surgery.  I contacted Oticon Medical and found out that there are two medical centers who have trained audiologists within three hours drive from where I live.

I chose one of them and my audiologist there is a dream!!  I made a total of three trips to see her ..... the initial programming and two more for fine-tuning after I had used it more extensively in different types of situations.  This, of course, is not ideal if you happen to have a lot of problems with satisfactory programming or issues.  I cannot say for anyone else, but I have had absolutely zero problems with mine and am very happy with the level of hearing I have with it.

I think there are two important things to remember: 1) choosing a quality product with a good track record 2) choosing an experienced and highly educated audiologist, no matter where she (or he) is located.

Clarice
Right MVD for trigeminal neuralgia, 1994, Pittsburgh, PA
Left retrosigmoid 2.6 cm AN removal, February, 2008, Duke U
Tumor regrew to 1.3 cm in February, 2011
Translab AN removal, May, 2011 at HEI, Friedman & Schwartz
Oticon Ponto Pro abutment implant at same time; processor added August, 2011