Yeson voice feminization surgery

[Jennygirl]

Also, when you do talk is there any pain or anything? Do you have to strain to talk or does it come out pretty easily? I'm just curious if after the surgery and until it's healed enough if you're always in a little pain or have to actually strain to talk at all.

I haven't experienced a single moment of strain or pain, not even right after I began talking again

The only day there was any throat pain was the day following surgery. All that was left after that was my tongue being a little sore from the instrument that opens the throat.

[Shantel]

I haven't experienced a single moment of strain or pain, not even right after I began talking again

The only day there was any throat pain was the day following surgery. All that was left after that was my tongue being a little sore from the instrument that opens the throat.

I had a procedure done at ENT recently where the doc poofed some powder up my nostrils to accommodate a fiberoptic eye inspection. I suddenly was unable to swallow for about fifteen minutes and felt a bit panicky, does that happen at Yeson during the voice procedure?

[Jennygirl]

During the examinations via laryngoscope, he does spray something in your nostrils first... I think probably to keep things dry and clear temporarily. I had no problem swallowing, though.

The only panicky moment I had was waking up after surgery, because for 10 or 15 seconds I was trying to gasp for air and my throat closed up. I immediately started breathing slow and everything was fine from there on out

[kathyp]

Wow! Abby that voice update is already sounding great. I want to go into a time machine and be able to right now speak.
     An update here is Seoul. We never went on the tour, not having a clue as to where our meeting place
was supposed to be and not having any way of contacting anybody from the clinic for the last four days we decided to cross our fingers and hope the tour company would pick us up at our apt. like they had for Jenny. We waited until 9 am no one showed so we embarked on our own self guided tour. Korea is really growing on me I would love to come back with a voice and a bike and stay longer. But not in Winter!
      My recuperating after 5 days is I assume like everyone else's at this point, your convinced that you have damaged your sutures because of some involuntary cough or exclaimation. Then your logical side steps in and reassures you that 1 patient out of 200 is only 1/2% and she was in a car accident and you haven't so etc.......The worry won't cease until they stick the camera back down my throat and Dr Kim says everything is looking good. Two more days!
Kathy
   

[Jennygirl]

      My recuperating after 5 days is I assume like everyone else's at this point, your convinced that you have damaged your sutures because of some involuntary cough or exclaimation. Then your logical side steps in and reassures you that 1 patient out of 200 is only 1/2% and she was in a car accident and you haven't so etc.......The worry won't cease until they stick the camera back down my throat and Dr Kim says everything is looking good. Two more days!
Kathy
   

Urrgh... That dreadful wait to know that recovery is going okay! So nerve wracking. Yes, I completely understand your desire for a time machine. I was counting down the days, too, if you look back earlier in the thread I think I was probably driving my friend NUTS typing to her about it so much! Actually I almost went into Yeson 2 days early to get checked out just because I was so worried about it. I lost a lot of sleep.

Rest assured, Jessie even told me that past patients were permitted to cough even during early recovery and they healed fine. Then they started asking patients not to cough at all and instead do the whoosh as a precaution.

I think the main danger when coughing is not the initial hold and release of air in the throat- it's buzzing noise as the air comes out from a very powerful sickly cough that is dangerous because it vibrates the vocal cords (I think ppl would call it a "whooping" cough or something). The main thing they don't want is for your vocal cords to vibrate.

[abbyt89]

Abby, you're sounding very good! How much talking do you do these days being only 5.5 weeks post-op? I know you mentioned that you're trying not to talk too much until at least 8 weeks, but how much talking does that mean you limit it to?

Also, when you do talk is there any pain or anything? Do you have to strain to talk or does it come out pretty easily? I'm just curious if after the surgery and until it's healed enough if you're always in a little pain or have to actually strain to talk at all.

Hi Sarah,

I talk here and there, but only when I need to. If I'm having a conversation with someone I try to limit it to no more than a few  sentences at a time. I know that I've been talking too much when the quality of my voice starts to go down, like sometimes it will crack.

There is no pain or strain, thankfully!! It comes out very easily, but it took a few weeks to reach that point. I'd say for the first three weeks it took a bit of effort to say a word and didn't sound too pretty either.

And same with Jenny, the only pain from the surgery was a mild sore throat that lasted less than 24 hours. A small section of my tongue was numb for about 4 or 5 days too, from the device they use to keep your mouth open.

[abbyt89]

Wow! Abby that voice update is already sounding great. I want to go into a time machine and be able to right now speak.
     An update here is Seoul. We never went on the tour, not having a clue as to where our meeting place
was supposed to be and not having any way of contacting anybody from the clinic for the last four days we decided to cross our fingers and hope the tour company would pick us up at our apt. like they had for Jenny. We waited until 9 am no one showed so we embarked on our own self guided tour. Korea is really growing on me I would love to come back with a voice and a bike and stay longer. But not in Winter!
      My recuperating after 5 days is I assume like everyone else's at this point, your convinced that you have damaged your sutures because of some involuntary cough or exclaimation. Then your logical side steps in and reassures you that 1 patient out of 200 is only 1/2% and she was in a car accident and you haven't so etc.......The worry won't cease until they stick the camera back down my throat and Dr Kim says everything is looking good. Two more days!
Kathy
   

So sorry to hear you missed your tour, but at least you got to see some sights! Seoul really did grow on me for the two weeks I was there, I would love love love to visit again. Maybe someday I'll take a trip  there with a Susan's girl who is going alone. That was honestly the worst part about the entire experience for me, is not going with anyone.

Good luck with your follow-up! I'm sure it will go fine. And please keep us update with your recovery!

[Carlita]

Also, Lena- it looks like the endoscopic version of the web creation procedure detailed in the link you most recently posted is exactly the same procedure that Yeson offers. I'd be interested to know if the technique differs at all when it comes to how the "web" is created... i.e. placement of the sutures and how much is tied off. average increase of 81hz sounds right on the money to Yeson's 75hz. However, there haven't been any reports of weak or breathy voice coming from Yeson... so that's why I wonder about whether the technique is slightly different.

Golly ... I've got a long way to go. My regular speaking voice is way down at 95Hz, so if I added another 80Hz that would only take me up to 175Hz ... within the female range, but I'd still need to do a LOT of work on resonance, intonation, breathing and expression. But, oh, the relief of losing that bass register!

[Lexi Belle]

Golly ... I've got a long way to go. My regular speaking voice is way down at 95Hz, so if I added another 80Hz that would only take me up to 175Hz ... within the female range, but I'd still need to do a LOT of work on resonance, intonation, breathing and expression. But, oh, the relief of losing that bass register!

I wish i knew how to find out my Hz xD

[sarahb]

I haven't experienced a single moment of strain or pain, not even right after I began talking again

The only day there was any throat pain was the day following surgery. All that was left after that was my tongue being a little sore from the instrument that opens the throat.

There is no pain or strain, thankfully!! It comes out very easily, but it took a few weeks to reach that point. I'd say for the first three weeks it took a bit of effort to say a word and didn't sound too pretty either.

And same with Jenny, the only pain from the surgery was a mild sore throat that lasted less than 24 hours. A small section of my tongue was numb for about 4 or 5 days too, from the device they use to keep your mouth open.

Fantastic! It sounds like other than not being able to talk (which I can only imagine must be itself pretty difficult) there really is not much pain involved with this surgery. It seems like most of the time in Seoul is then free to just vacation, basically, as opposed to focusing on the healing process like with FFS or SRS.

[abbyt89]

Fantastic! It sounds like other than not being able to talk (which I can only imagine must be itself pretty difficult) there really is not much pain involved with this surgery. It seems like most of the time in Seoul is then free to just vacation, basically, as opposed to focusing on the healing process like with FFS or SRS.

Oh for sure - you're back in your hotel the same day and I felt 100% the next day. I had 10 days after the surgery to just screw around in Seoul. It just sucked being alone and not being able to eat anything spicy (basically everything in Korean cuisine is spicy so you have to be very careful.)

For me the worst part of the recovery at this point, is not being able to sing! It's so frustrating, because I love to sing and they want you to wait at least two or three months before singing again. Every once in a while when I'm listening to music I'll hit just one note, quietly, that I know I couldn't have hit pre-op. It's such a great feeling especially since if Jenny's experience is anything to go by my upper range is only going to go up up up from here!

[sarahb]

Oh for sure - you're back in your hotel the same day and I felt 100% the next day. I had 10 days after the surgery to just screw around in Seoul. It just sucked being alone and not being able to eat anything spicy (basically everything in Korean cuisine is spicy so you have to be very careful.)

For me the worst part of the recovery at this point, is not being able to sing! It's so frustrating, because I love to sing and they want you to wait at least two or three months before singing again. Every once in a while when I'm listening to music I'll hit just one note, quietly, that I know I couldn't have hit pre-op. It's such a great feeling especially since if Jenny's experience is anything to go by my upper range is only going to go up up up from here!

It's just crazy that this is now available, a technique that is less invasive and seemingly more consistent and yet does not involve the amount of pain and recovery that goes along with all the other crap we have to go through. I'm still in awe really!

Yeah, I can see that being hard not singing! I love to sing, not that I'm good or anything, but it goes hand-in-hand with my love of music and dancing. That will definitely be hard to stop for a few months, but worth it in the long run. How do you think your ability to sing will be as your recovery progresses? Can you tell yet whether you'll be able to sing as you did before or anything?

So what do you think is harder: not talking at all during the first few weeks, or being able to talk now but only a little (it would seem like such a tease)? This question is for both you and Jenny, since you two have a couple months between each other and can give some good perspective on it.

Also, have you continued to notice your voice change? Is it like a daily thing in the first few weeks or months where each day it's slightly different, more refined, or is it like the same for a while then one day you'll wake up and it's a little different?

[abbyt89]

It's just crazy that this is now available, a technique that is less invasive and seemingly more consistent and yet does not involve the amount of pain and recovery that goes along with all the other crap we have to go through. I'm still in awe really!

Yeah, I can see that being hard not singing! I love to sing, not that I'm good or anything, but it goes hand-in-hand with my love of music and dancing. That will definitely be hard to stop for a few months, but worth it in the long run. How do you think your ability to sing will be as your recovery progresses? Can you tell yet whether you'll be able to sing as you did before or anything?

So what do you think is harder: not talking at all during the first few weeks, or being able to talk now but only a little (it would seem like such a tease)? This question is for both you and Jenny, since you two have a couple months between each other and can give some good perspective on it.

Also, have you continued to notice your voice change? Is it like a daily thing in the first few weeks or months where each day it's slightly different, more refined, or is it like the same for a while then one day you'll wake up and it's a little different?

I think my ability to sing will stay the same, most of singing is being able to stay on key and my ability to do that won't change. I haven't really tried to sing so I can't tell you for sure, I just know that my range has definitely been extended.

It's definitely harder in the beginning because you can't really communicate without typing into a phone, trying to get people to read lips, or playing charades. Right now I can have a normal conversation I just feel my voice getting a bit weaker and my throat a little dry after a few minutes or so and that's when I know it's time to rest my voice. But every day I notice I can go on a bit longer before I get to that point.

For me, I didn't notice much of a change in the first two weeks or so of being able to talk - my voice was weak enough that although it was healing, I didn't really notice it changing that much. If you go back a few pages you can see I posted in frustration about that because I felt like I wasn't making any progress and was worried I was stuck.

But it got better, pretty quickly in fact. The last 10 days or so (so at around 4 weeks post-op) the quality of my voice came back a ton and the pitch steadily went up. At the same time, I feel like I'm getting used to my new voice and I'm really starting to let it develop mentally I guess? I don't know it's hard to explain, but in the last 4 or 5 days alone my normal speaking pitch has gone up 15-20hz, my confidence is way up, and my voice is sounding better and better.

Everybody heals differently though, and Yeson stressed the fact many times that for some people they didn't notice any real change for quite a while. But given enough time, your voice WILL heal and your pitch WILL go up. So don't freak out like me if it doesn't change as fast as you hoped.

[sarahb]

I think my ability to sing will stay the same, most of singing is being able to stay on key and my ability to do that won't change. I haven't really tried to sing so I can't tell you for sure, I just know that my range has definitely been extended.

It's definitely harder in the beginning because you can't really communicate without typing into a phone, trying to get people to read lips, or playing charades. Right now I can have a normal conversation I just feel my voice getting a bit weaker and my throat a little dry after a few minutes or so and that's when I know it's time to rest my voice. But every day I notice I can go on a bit longer before I get to that point.

For me, I didn't notice much of a change in the first two weeks or so of being able to talk - my voice was weak enough that although it was healing, I didn't really notice it changing that much. If you go back a few pages you can see I posted in frustration about that because I felt like I wasn't making any progress and was worried I was stuck.

But it got better, pretty quickly in fact. The last 10 days or so (so at around 4 weeks post-op) the quality of my voice came back a ton and the pitch steadily went up. At the same time, I feel like I'm getting used to my new voice and I'm really starting to let it develop mentally I guess? I don't know it's hard to explain, but in the last 4 or 5 days alone my normal speaking pitch has gone up 15-20hz, my confidence is way up, and my voice is sounding better and better.

Everybody heals differently though, and Yeson stressed the fact many times that for some people they didn't notice any real change for quite a while. But given enough time, your voice WILL heal and your pitch WILL go up. So don't freak out like me if it doesn't change as fast as you hoped.

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely keep that in mind during recovery.

[anjaq]

abby, your range actually INcreased? thats cool. I thought the surgery would decrease pitch range a bit as it "cuts off" the lower frequencies. Jenny said she initially lost a lot of range but got most of it back. But actually increase that woul dbe great. I hate not being able to go up beyong what praat tells me is 410 Hz.

So abby, at what normal speaking range are you now? You had 160 Hz a while ago IIRC when not doing anything consciously. Did that change now?

[sarahb]

abby, your range actually INcreased? thats cool. I thought the surgery would decrease pitch range a bit as it "cuts off" the lower frequencies. Jenny said she initially lost a lot of range but got most of it back. But actually increase that woul dbe great. I hate not being able to go up beyong what praat tells me is 410 Hz.

So abby, at what normal speaking range are you now? You had 160 Hz a while ago IIRC when not doing anything consciously. Did that change now?

Yeah, that's one of the things I'm actually excited about if it does actually increase the range and not just limit it to the higher frequencies already available. I recall Jenny mentioning that initially her range decreased, where she was able to only go up to somewhere in the upper 400Hz range post-op (as opposed to the mid 500Hz range pre-op) but then after a while her range started to increase and is now into the mid 600Hz range.

Right now my range is ~100Hz (lowest rumble I can manage) and ~700Hz (at the absolute highest-pitch squeak I can manage). Realistically, I can go smoothly from 100Hz all the way up to about 550Hz before my voice kind of cuts out. Then I can continue around there and go all the way up to just under 700Hz. I'm hoping that post-op I can more easily get into the upper frequencies without the break in between, and potentially go higher than ~700Hz.

[anjaq]

700!!! - oh wow. And 500 without breaking - geez, I break at 300 or so and can go up to 410 at max. I start at about 90, so your range is incredible to me. Even if you loose some of that, its still very good. Did you do something to get there? Voice training, singing,...?

[sarahb]

700!!! - oh wow. I suck. I get to 410. And 500 without breaking - geez, I break at 300 or so. I start at about 90, so your range is incredible to me. Even if you loose some of that, its still very good. Did you do something to get there? Voice training, singing,...?

Hmm, not really. I mean, I have been adjusting it during normal conversation and fine-tuning my voice for the past 5 years of being full-time which I'm sure has helped. I do sing along with songs a lot and I try to match the pitch and notes (not very well most of the time, lol) but in general I haven't explicitly practiced on my voice really. The only time I "practice" is when I'm in different speaking situations and I have to try and get something that sounds decent to me so i don't out myself, and each time it's slightly different based on the time of day, how much I've talked during the day, how tired I am, etc.

Other than that I'm not sure why my range is so large. Initially I thought I may have just messed up when I was measuring it, but I've tried a few different applications and they all agree. Really, my biggest desire is to just not have to force myself into the naturally-female range. I don't feel honest when I have to do that, and it distracts me from focusing on the conversation I'm having rather than how I'm speaking. If I lose some range (which doesn't sound like that will happen anyways) I'm fine with that, so long as my natural speaking voice is decidedly female without having to force it.

[abbyt89]

abby, your range actually INcreased? thats cool. I thought the surgery would decrease pitch range a bit as it "cuts off" the lower frequencies. Jenny said she initially lost a lot of range but got most of it back. But actually increase that woul dbe great. I hate not being able to go up beyong what praat tells me is 410 Hz.

So abby, at what normal speaking range are you now? You had 160 Hz a while ago IIRC when not doing anything consciously. Did that change now?

Sorry - I should have mentioned that it was just my upper range. I don't actually know what my range was pre-op (sorry!) and until my voice has healed more I'm not going to try to see what my range tops out at right now. All I know is I can definitely hit notes that were too high before which is awesome.


And yes, my normal speaking voice is now up to about 175-180hz .

[anjaq]

Oh Abby that sounds great. 180 as normal without doing anything, thats way good and I guess to that comes then the normal variatiuon in pitch that depends on situation which easily brings it up to 200 or so then. At least for it seems to be so that if I talk to some people, my pitch will just wander up a bit, withothers it goes down a bit, but if 180 more or less is the average that is good. So probably you bottom out at 140 or smth?

Sarah, you are blessed then with a great voice in terms of range. I think I did not saw any numbers like that posted . I totally get what you mean by not wanting to concentrate on it. I hate that. In a conversation I keep checking myself and if I dont I may end up loosing it - if I give a talk it does not really work out at all, so I just hope that people dont think too much on it, but I just cannot do it - be in front of many peole, concentrate on the content of the presentation, concentrate on what to say, making up what to say as I go, concentrate on how to say it in english as a foreign language AND then keep resonance good AND then also pitch - thats a bit too much. I think usually I do not too bad in resonance, but pitch just goes down in the 140-160 range.
Ok, I am almost 40 now, so I dont need to be up at 220 or so, but still 140-160 is way too low and androgynous at best.
I did some adjustments as well obviously now over a decade of being fulltime, but well, I only got it from 110 Hz to the 140-160 range in normal conversation which is not sufficient. I am not sure if I may even have lost some pitch range after transition when I was getting less "girly" and more "woman" with time and focussed more on work and such rather than play.

Hehe - I loved singing along for a while but never managed to match the pitch. I am not very musical and cant seem to match my voice well to others. I may try one of these programs they have now to train for singing. I think with these computer games that make you sing, there are some tools out there now that can help with that, just matching a tone and keeping it. I need to get the upper range up a bit, especially the speaking range.

But 700 Hz - can you destroy glasses by singing with that