Wednesday 21 October 2009

Playing sports with your C.I

Over the past few weeks, I have seen people asking about how do I wear my C.I while playing any sports !

Lets start with managing C.I - I do have small ears, and everyday I wear a small 'Huggie that attaches to my C.I which looks like this:

Wearing a 'Huggie' with my C.I has made a big different to me. Even though I had a smaller T-mic, the implant would still fly off. So, wearing a 'Huggie' with your implant to wrap round your ears should help you

Not only I wear a huggie while playing sports. With my huggie, I tend to wear a small sports material elastic band instead of those big headband. I place the band over my head by but putting the coil wire underneath. That also stops the implant from falling off and of course the coil doesn't come off as much as it used to. Placing the handband on top the coil wire doesn't affect the sounds coming through to your ears. I found that big material head bands tend to make a lot of rustling noise and it still made the implant falls off.

I wear the band in all the sports I play all sort of sports such as football, tennis, running, gym etc. I would recommend it to other C.I users that are playing sports to wear it.

Recently Advanced Bionics has been testing the new T-mic ear mould (pictured below) This can be another way to prevent your cochlear implant from falling off.



Sometimes while playing sports, you don't always hear the whistle even if your wearing your implant, as you too busy focusing on the game. There has been times where I was playing football and I had the ball, continued to run and the referee would blow his whistle and I am still running with it.

So, what should I do to prevent this?

To help me from knowing when to stop, or when its a foul. I ask my referee to hold up a flag which he hold throughout the match. Every time he blows the whistle he would raise the flag up in the air too.; that helps me a lot. Sometimes when they are behind you and you don't hear the whistle or hear the flag you would still continue to run. This problem, I manage to solve with my team mates. I teaching my team some deaf awareness and ask them, if I had the ball and the referee blows his whistle, all my team mates would stop and stand still. That way, I can see why the game has been stopped because no-one moving around.

playing as a team, you get players shouting my out my name when they want the ball, then when I don't hear it, it goes someone else. After I had problems with this situation. I taught my team mates to wave at me as they are shouting my name which made the teamwork much better.

I There are loads of issue out there that can be dealt with. if you have any question about this post. e-mail me, hopefully I'll get back to you

katie-louise x.

9 comments:

Sun Melody said...

Katie, this very interesting experience but the sweat does not damage the processor of speech? Although I put a waterproof cover on my IC, but have not yet discovered where to sell, I will try to Widex.

Excuse my English, is that I am learning Portuguese and write the language because I have more ease in French itself.

Sweet kisses
Alice

Sarah C said...

Hi Katie! I too wear a huggie when I go to Jazzercise as when I'm doing sit ups on the floor my processor would slide off my ear and also sometimes my coil would come off when I jumped up and down - causing the whole lot to fly off! That or I wear a body worn battery and then the processor is a lot smaller, the only downside is that you need somewhere to store the AA battery holder which has a clip - it usually nestles in my sports bra!

Regarding the sweat issue, Advanced Bionics are made to be water resistant and sweat resistant so we should have no problems - it depends which brand of C.I you have..

Loudest Mom said...

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I love these suggestions, and the pictures are fantastic :)

Cloggy said...

Have you tried having the BTE in a pouch on your shoulder? You'll hear just as much, but will not have to worry about it falling off.
My daughter Lotte - almost 7 - has been wearing it since she started using it.
With all her (typical) daily activity, we have never (really - never) had problems with it falling off, losing it etc.

Have a look at her blog (lotte-sofie.blogspot.com) to see how it looks.

Furry Bottoms said...

Hi! I havent had a chance to really read through your blog yet, but is that a Clarion you're wearing? Have one myself, and it looked familiar. I've bookmarked your blog and will come back to read more when I am not at work!

Anonymous said...

Hi Katie!

Turns out the Hearmould actually has been around since 2005: Westone Labs has been building their T-Mic Retainer on their #2 skeleton mold for about five years.

Now The Bad News: It's from Westone, which is an overpriced, heavily advertised lab that sends out crap. And, you get to deal with Randy Morgan as a bonus.

I'll have to check with the other NAEL member labs to see if anyone else makes it, and post.

Dan Schwartz
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Editor, The Hearing Blog

Anonymous said...

Reposted with external links in bold italics

Hi Katie!

Turns out the Hearmould actually has been around since early 2005: Westone Labs has been building their T-Mic Retainer on their #2 skeleton mold for about five years.

Now The Bad News: It is from Westone, which is an overpriced earmold lab that ships out crap custom products that almost always must go back for remakes. And, you get to deal with Randy Morgan as a bonus.

Dan Schwartz
Cherry Hill, New Jersey Editor,
The Hearing Blog

Dan Schwartz, Editor, The Hearing Blog said...

Dear Katie,

This just crossed my desk: The Hearing Halo. Originally designed by Suzanne Jansky in Wisconsin for infants & toddlers to keep them from pulling out their hearing aids, it looks quite promising for all ages while playing sports, for securing hearing aids, CI's, and even Auditory Brainstem Implants (ABI's), as those implants do not have internal magnets. In fact, these also look helpful for securing CI's & ABI's in order to wear the processors to bed.

They are available in 27 solids & prints -- Click here to see a picture of this clever item; and the cost is only $15 (US).

Dan Schwartz,
Editor, The Hearing Blog

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Anonymous said...

Katie,

Also check out The HearClip (www.thehearclip.com). It gives you a nice fashionable alternative to the clips and bands.

Sue Gnat
Averill Park, NY