Yeson voice feminization surgery

[Jennygirl]

Here is a graph that will maybe ease your mind.

This shows (to the best of my memory) how my range changed from pre op through the first 7 months

The red squares are an approximation of my fundamental frequency in normal speech. The blue rectangles show my minimum/maximum range. Obviously when I was where you are now so early in recovery, I wasn't actually testing my range to the fullest extent. This is where it seemed to be though.



I hope this helps!

[Boca.Lisa]

Thanks. What tool did you use to do this? I'd love to chart mine. I know Dr. Kim told me my "boy" voice was 167hz and trained was 207hz but that was top of range.

[Jennygirl]

Thanks. What tool did you use to do this? I'd love to chart mine. I know Dr. Kim told me my "boy" voice was 167hz and trained was 207hz but that was top of range.

Girl, you're gonna do great. Don't even fret about it

I used Adobe Illustrator to put the graph together and eye'd it, happy to send you the vector file if you like!

[anjaq]

Also keep in mind you will have to retrain your brain to access the higher pitches instead of just using the relaxed lower register that you used to have.

I would like to know a bit more about this. How does it differ from pre-op voice training? I mean, my logopaedist now keeps trying to get me speaking in a higher pitch but I  have a hard time keeping it up there for long even if it is physically no issue but my mind keeps going low into a more relaxed lower voice. Is this similar to what you describe that it has to be trained ? If so, it would mean that even after a surgery you still would have to train to speak in a higher pitch just as it is trained in non-ops to get the pitch up? Or is it differently?

[Boca.Lisa]

Anjaq, its different unlike voice training where you are gradually increasing pitch while focussing on inflection, the lip trills used post surgery is more like the warm up a singer might use. It expands the range.

Here's a link. 

http://www.yesonvc.net/disease/voiceMovie6.asp

Hope this helps.

[anjaq]

Thanks, I will watch the video. I did not get the difference now - the gradual increase in pitch and inflection are what you should do together with lip trills post surgery?
Its what I presently am doing - usually we start in sessions with a lot of lip trills and glissandos to expand range and get rid of any breaks, then we do a bit of pitch training, basically just slowly increasing pitch a bit with lip trills and then vowels and then speaking words in that range. Sometimes we also do som inflection training, usually to liberate my voice to allow itself to go quite up in pitch in some words in a sentence or within a word even. I seem to have a bit of a blockade going over the "break" into head voice in mid sentence. Is that similar to what you do post surgery as I read it the way that you also are doing pitch training and warmups, although inflection training is probably something that is universal and can be done at any time - the same as resonance training. If those two are not done pre surgery they probably will have to be done later anyways?

[Jennygirl]

Anjaq- It sounds to me like you've got some really amazing voice training going on. To me you seem very lucky to have found such a great resource. Regardless if you end up deciding to have the surgery or not, the experience you are gaining with it seems extremely helpful. If I would have had a voice coach like you do, I may not have even needed surgery!

[anjaq]

http://www.yesonvc.net/disease/voiceMovie6.asp

Ok, this is basically what I do as a daily practice for the past months now except the "cool down" part. They are pretty cool exercises, helped me a lot to get rid of the "break" between chest voice and head voice to a good degree. It still is there but not as prominent. I understand that these are basically restorative voice trainings which was the focus of my voice therapy in the past months to restore it from the issues I had with speaking too high in pitch without training. Seems the same are used post surgically. What we also do a lot is to go from the lip trill to vowels - basically move from lip trill over to the /w/ phonation and then keep the airflow but open the mouth to make a vowel sound and then maybe even change the pitch on that. Sadly I think that most of these don't really help me that much with the genderification of my voice. The pitch in daily life is the same or has even dropped as my vocal chords are relaxing more, it does little towards resonance.

So I guess basically after surgery what they do is to give you the exercises that are designed to simply restore and heal the voice, but they do not make a lot of effort to feminize it further? I may have misread that but I had the impression that there was also something about changing pitch deliberately to get the brain used to the higher pitch. I could use that definitely - just tell my brain to just use the higher pitch that I am able to use of course and cut out the lower pitches

My voice therapist however said, if I should do that surgery, she will do these restorative trainings with me to get the voice as good as it still can be after a surgery (she does not trust this procedure at all) and minimize breathiness and such. But she seems to be really motivated to do her best to get my voice well enough now to distract me from the thought of surgical options - Even wants to take a look at the FYFV Videos together with me to see if we can utilize some of that.

[AmyBerlin]

Dear Jenny, all,

wow, I just took a short break from the forum and a whole slew of new postings awaits! My own trip to Korea is only 3 days away and I am getting a weird mix of giddy and nervous. My body apparently doesn't really know how to feel yet.

I used Adobe Illustrator to put the graph together and eye'd it, happy to send you the vector file if you like!

Can you send me the vector file as well, Jenny, pretty please? For now, use e96582d3@opayq.com as my email address. I'll reply with my "official" one, I just don't want to put it out here for every spambot on the planet.

Have a great day,

Amy

[Jennygirl]

Sent

Keep in mind I just eye'd it, but it is accurate to the best of my memory

[cjdougan]

Hi Jenny,

I signed up to Susan's just to thank you for this thread, also, thank all the other girls who have since went to Yeson for VFS.

I'm booked for surgery on the 5th of June, one year and one day after my SRS 



Christine

[kira21 ♡♡♡]

Can I ask how your singing voice is affected? Did you need to re-learn things? Is it comfortable and does it sound just as femme as your speaking voice?

[anjaq]

Oh, I am wondering one more thing now that I have talked to someone who was at Yesons on the phone - she mentioned that she feels it is a bit harder to take in air, especially when singing. My voice doctors told me that this may be an issue regarding sports and such - that it is harder to get in as much air as before. Makes sense as the airway post surgery is 1/3 smaller. Is it hard to get used to that?

[MeganChristine]

Oh wow, now that's something I want to hear some experience about too, since I'm a runner it would in effect mean 1/3 VO2

[Jennygirl]

Hi Jenny,

I signed up to Susan's just to thank you for this thread, also, thank all the other girls who have since went to Yeson for VFS.

I'm booked for surgery on the 5th of June, one year and one day after my SRS 



Christine

You're quite welcome And congratulations on your upcoming procedure with Dr. Kim!

Can I ask how your singing voice is affected? Did you need to re-learn things? Is it comfortable and does it sound just as femme as your speaking voice?

My singing voice is affected, but learning proper resonance control is still a must. I haven't tried to sing much, but I know I can. There is somewhat less power behind my voice than there used to be, but I can still belt... I am very careful about it. The last thing I would want to do is damage my voice.

Overall it does sound a bit different, and I am still regaining control.. But it has become much better in the past 4 months

Oh, I am wondering one more thing now that I have talked to someone who was at Yesons on the phone - she mentioned that she feels it is a bit harder to take in air, especially when singing. My voice doctors told me that this may be an issue regarding sports and such - that it is harder to get in as much air as before. Makes sense as the airway post surgery is 1/3 smaller. Is it hard to get used to that?

I haven't noticed that at all, even with a 1/2 suture point. It's never been a problem for me, and I am well accustomed to how a restricted airway feels (I have allergy and exercised induced asthmatic symptoms - for which I take an inhaler at times).

Oh wow, now that's something I want to hear some experience about too, since I'm a runner it would in effect mean 1/3 VO2

It feels no different to me really, and if you think about it why would it- Yeson will not shorten the length to any less than that of a cis female. So it would seem to me that a cis female would have the same difficulty breathing?

Perhaps when my vocal cords were still very swollen it might have had an effect, but even then I did not notice a difference. You will probably be fine is my guess... But if it's definitely a big concern you have I would for sure ask Jessie/Dr. Kim! They always seem happy to answer questions like that.

Lately Jessie has taken some time to get back to me, which makes me wonder if they have a lot of incoming emails to deal with. But she does get back

[@Diana]

Super Amazing , thank you for sharing !!!

I had VFS in 2007 at Yanhee hospital in Bangkok, it was good but i felt like something stuck in my throat all the time and felt uncomfortable most of the time , few years later i went back to Thailand again to have adam's apple shaving with another surgeon, he accidentally removed the vocal cord that tied up together, so my voice is now back to normal deep voice ... so Yeson is the choice I'm planning to go ASAP

[anjaq]

he accidentally removed the vocal cord that tied up together, so my voice is now back to normal deep voice ... so Yeson is the choice I'm planning to go ASAP [/color]

Oh thats a crazy story - how could he accidentially remove that. Will they reimburse you for the damage t pay for some of the costs to restore the suture? What was the VFS that you had before like?

It feels no different to me really, and if you think about it why would it- Yeson will not shorten the length to any less than that of a cis female. So it would seem to me that a cis female would have the same difficulty breathing?
Lately Jessie has taken some time to get back to me, which makes me wonder if they have a lot of incoming emails to deal with. But she does get back

Ah - I guess it is not that you would run into a problem with it generally, probably just a subjective thing as one is used to breathe differently and now has to adjust? That was all I was wondering about - I have no doubt that you will get enough air - should be no problem at all. Just that it may feel different as that woman I was talking to describ

[AshleyL]

Hello!  I'm little late to the party, I know, but I wanted to express my thanks to Jenny and everyone else who's contributed to this thread.  I saw that Jenny was saying she was going to take a step back from having a major role in this thread, but I'm hoping that some of you are still checking up on it!

I first found out about Yeson through Youtube a few weeks ago, and interestingly enough, the first video I happened to watch was Jenny's.  I was blown away by the results!  I've been post op and living full time for about 8-9 years now, and while most people don't seem to look at me strangely when I speak and my friends and family say my voice is just fine, it has always been a bit of a sticking point for me - I've never quite liked the way my voice sounds.  Actually, generally I think it sounds okay to myself, but I'm well aware that what I hear when I talk is very different from what other people hear when I speak, given the way that sound resonates within the skull.  I always semi-cringe when I hear my own recorded voice.

In the end, I think SarahR put it best when she said that she just didn't want to have to worry about maintaining her voice all the time.  I agree in that I think exercising strict control over your voice at all times affects you in subtle ways, you avoid participating in certain things for fear of slipping.  I feel apprehensive when meeting new people, talking on the phone, or, being an avid gamer, talking to people over voice chat when your identity and relationship essentially rides on the sound of your voice.

As it is, I'm hoping to schedule surgery with Yeson in the fall, around October.  I was wondering though, has anybody here had the surgery who had previously been living full time and stealth for an extended period of time?  How did you explain away the change in the pitch and quality of your voice?  With my job there is a relatively high staff turn over rate, and it has been long enough that the number of people who know about my history has dwindled down to a small fraction of the people I consistently work with.  Am I going to have to come out all over again?

[MeganChristine]

As it is, I'm hoping to schedule surgery with Yeson in the fall, around October.  I was wondering though, has anybody here had the surgery who had previously been living full time and stealth for an extended period of time?  How did you explain away the change in the pitch and quality of your voice?  With my job there is a relatively high staff turn over rate, and it has been long enough that the number of people who know about my history has dwindled down to a small fraction of the people I consistently work with.  Am I going to have to come out all over again?

Hello Ashley,

I've been stealth and post-op for 11 years. I've been pondering the same question myself, but I'm going for the polyps on the vocal folds Not sure how it'll play out in the end, but I guess people here will know by fall how it went Been in my current job for the past seven years, so it'll indeed be exciting to see how people will react over time.

I'm going to Yeson in the beginning of July.

-MegC

[AmyBerlin]

Hi Ashley

I was wondering though, has anybody here had the surgery who had previously been living full time and stealth for an extended period of time?  How did you explain away the change in the pitch and quality of your voice?

Both Saskia on this board and me have had our respective VFSs 5 weeks ago, and we've both been full-time for ~20 years. I used a vocal fold tear as an explanation, which was convenient, because my mum had one when she was around the age I am now, and so I could say "the propensity apparently runs in the family".

Regards,

Amy