It’s been two and a half years since my original post about BAHA, and I’m thrilled that it has garnered so much conversation. Getting a BAHA is a large (and expensive!) commitment that comes with expectations, and folks seem eager to weight all of this as much as possible before committing to the surgery and a lifetime with a peg-head.

I still think it comes with minor hassles (occasional ooziness at the implant site, getting cold faster than the rest of my head in the winter and aching a bit, and changing my hairline). I discussed these in my original April 2010 post.

Important Update

I have to make an important update to the second part of my post, though, where I discussed what I thought was a design flaw: in my experience, the BAHA only picked up sound in one direction (to the side), and didn’t pick up sound in front of me, often where I needed it the most. I stopped wearing my BAHA for the most part early-on, and since, I’ve adapted fairly well to having one ear. As a result, it has been ages since I’ve seen an audiologist.

I visited an audiologist this summer to discuss alternatives to Devino, the device I have, and discovered that one of my two microphones has been broken this entire time!! I feel rather silly – it makes much more sense to have a broken microphone than for the company to design a useless product, but since I didn’t know what to expect from the device, and since I had just spent thousands of dollars on this thing and don’t remember doing anything stupid with it (like jumping into a pool), I expected it to function just fine. And so it never occur to me. An important lesson – these devices are very delicate, and according to the audiologist, you should expect to get repairs every year or two.

BAHA Repairs

BAHA has a mail-in repair center. Each repair costs a flat fee – something like $800-900. I’m not sure if this is the same for all customers depending on insurance and what not. The company stops supporting repairs on devices after a few years; so the Devino model that I have will stop receiving support soon. It doesn’t add up for me to repair my device now, but the next time I switch jobs, I might consider trying out a new device to help with the transition. What is cool about having a BAHA is that hearing technology is constantly improving, so you can expect some improvement from your devices throughout your life.

Daily Life with BAHA

It is still my experience that I do not use my BAHA 95% of the time. I work in a quiet office, and my friends and colleagues are not phased when I ask to switch seats at a table, cup my good ear to listen, or ask them to repeat themselves occasionally.

HOWEVER, I will say, it is nice to have BAHA as a backup the remaining 5% of time – particularly when I meet new people, or enter situations where I have less control over when were I sit (conferences and large meetings). Even my gimpy 1-microphone BAHA helps in these situations. I imagine that anyone who works with customers/clients, or kids would find the (fully functional) BAHA helpful much more often than 5% of the time; without a hearing device, other people will struggle to get your attention, and you will have difficulty figuring out the direction that sound is coming from.

In my original post, I felt rather disappointed in the BAHA. It didn’t perform as I expected because (a) I apparently broke a microphone on day 2, (b) it was not a replacement for my good ear, and (c) there are some minor hassles associated with having a metal peg in your head.  On a scale where 0=not recommend and 10=recommend, I was feeling a 4 or 5 in 2010. Today, I feel 6 to 7 about recommending the BAHA. As long as you think of it like a walker or wheel chair, and not a set of brand new legs, and you keep up the maintenance, I think you’ll do just fine with it. If you think you won’t need it often enough to justify, you will be much richer and less likely to have fashionable hats!