My voice journey

[anjaq]

So finally I got some pictures of my voice problem:



I hope this makes more clear what I tried to draw before. You can see these openings in the vocal chords at the bottom (front) and top (back) and only roughly 2/3 of the vocal chords touching each other and making a sound. I sent them to Yesons to see what they think about it and will show them to my voice therapist.

[anjaq]

Bad News. I need to deal with that information and see what I can make of it...

This is part of the reply from Yeson on the information I sent them:

it is observed that you have vocal tremors and voice break as well as tension discrepancy due to unbalanced vibration pattern of your vocal folds.
It seems like all these symtomps have been there fore a long time and therefore to compensate these symptoms when producing sound, you seem to have a tendency to press your vocal folds squeezing them
[...]
In this case, going through Voice Feminization Surgery is possible though it may take longer recovery period requiring adequate treatment to treat your dystonia and adapting to your newly shortened vocal folds through daily vocal exercises. Also, the result may not satisfactory after VFS surgery as to it may prevent the pitch from increasing due to the vocal dystonia.

Not cool...
 

[anjaq]

Ok, I contacted them again and they said if I can "somehow" correct my vocal issues with the tensioning and assymetry, it would increase my chances of a successful VFS with them. They also suggest I come to them for a proper voice examination but that would be a bit too far now to fly to Seoul just for that. I am trying voice rehab now and see if it makes things better. I will get another examination in February to see if I improved and then another 3 Months of weekly voice rehab. This sucks so much... Not the voice rehab, its kind of fun actually, but that I need to do all of this now and not knowing if I will end up fine or if it is a waste of time.
I decided that I will, just for sake of the information, get the video of the second examination and send it together with recordings and voice range analysis to Dr Thomas as well. A friend suggested that he may be good in interpreting the information and maybe have suggestions as to if or what kind of fix there can be. Probably he will try to tell me that he would recommend his procedure though which is something I am not sure about at all - I am not suffering enough from my voice to readily do this sort of maximally invasive procedure... but maybe he also has less impact options or can at least comment a  bit on what the issues really are wny why they might make a VFS more complicated. Sadly, Dr Kim seems to be a bit too busy to really make recommendations for someone that is not a patient of his.

[anjaq]

So, after doing voice rehab now for 3 Months weekly it seems to be improving vastly. The last examination showed no visible double gap anymore, only one gap that is not that bad and still some Asymmetry but even that went down.

I improved my vocal range by two semitones or so to the higher end and imrpoved my loudness in the upper range:
 
(new) vs (old)

The shape of the chords is normalizing:

(new) vs (old)

So that is great - it means whatever was I am going now, it is probably possible now again. I will compile the data together with voice recordings and send it again to Dr Kim and to Dr Thomas just for a check, although my voice trainer of the last 3 Monaths has me booked for another 3 Months now and thinks I should be able to get a good voice without surgery but reading from the others here how much easier it is after a VFS to just be confident, not having to think about the pitch anymore and get rid of the dysphoric feelings - I am still quite hung up on still considering VFS. LOL, my phoniater who did the examination is actually curious and told me she will want to do a couple of examinations of me if I was to go to Korea.

[AmyBerlin]

Dear Anja,

congratulations, I'm so happy your voice is better!

Keep going and you'll soon be able to go to Korea, good luck,

Amy

[anjaq]

Thanks Amy. I am hopeful that I will improve more until in 3 months after the next package of voice rehab and then I will have all the options - including possibly going to Dr Kim...
(I guess until then there will be more voice recordings here of people who went to Dr Kim. )

[Unice]

This is only the second thread I have read in this forum. But, vocal surgery seems like the scariest thing I can imagine... A woman's voice is at the center of how I perceive her. Since you corrected the gap, would it make sense to continue training your voice rather than having surgery?

People do amazing things with their voice. I would imagine that you could train your voice to do what you want.

[Sophiabutterfly09]

Hey anjaq, Good job keep pressing forward and youll be at Yeson in no time I hope to go sometime this year as well

[sarahb]

Hey Anja, that's great news. I'm glad to hear that your effort is paying off.

[anjaq]

Thanks you all
Yeah I am happy - today we did some sounds in rehab again and I was not aware I could make a resonant sound that great in my singing voice (higher than the speaking voice of course). It was pretty cool and I think it is because that gap is closed now... Neat. I cannot help but wonder if that would be different with voice surgery again. Clearly what has happened though is my voice dropped in pitch with the rehab. I was told so by some people now. But at the same time it sounds fuller. Yesterday at aerobics training the trainer complimented me on my nice deep voice. I feel so bad at that because  I hate it when the voice is that deep but for some unknown reason some women love it. Probably its the same who love narrow hips and wide shoulders in women

Unice - I know it is scary and i know it is at the center of the perception and that is why it is so important to me! I am doing more voice rehab and training, but I am not sure I will be happy with my low voice even if it sounds more female. And I am also not sure I can keep pushin it up. I noticed yesterday after the sports session, If I do that, I loose pitch control and just speak in my usual range... :/ - i do not know if I can get there with just voice training alone. I will try this year some more. I am sure i can learn to make a good voice, but I am not sure I can keep it in all Situations... that i why I consider the surgical option...

[anjaq]

Ok, its almost a year since I started on this. This is how my last results look like:
http://imgur.com/a/kpBne

The best one is this one:

At higher pitches the chink is almost gone, at lower pitches ther still is a bit of a gap at the "top" (=back), but no second gap in the front. I still seem to open the chords in an "O" shape, which is not great, I guess, but hey - it improved tons.
Voice field also looks better:

In rehab sessions I can span over 3.5 octaves, which is pretty cool. Also the jitter is low ("vocal tremor") and the colored dots on the graph are almost forming a line for the colors, which is also a good sign - it says that the vocal break is less pronounced. So I declare my voice more or less healed from most of its very bad issues I had from speaking in a wrong way for years. Of course it still is low pitched. A really relaxed F0 is at 100-110 Hz, when speaking I seem to be between 130 Hz and open end to the top depending on intonation. Average is usually 140-160 if the high sylabils are calculated together with the low ones. So it still is very much noticeable that the voice is still a low voice, Even keeping it above the 130 Hz is a noticeable tension that I feel when I allow myself to relax in a lonely setting. And occasionally it goes down to the 120 Hz if I dont watich it.

So I talked to my voice therapist about all of this and she agreed with me that a surgery is an option for me, since I have a good resonance/sound to the voice that is mostly female, since I am able to compensate for some oddities, since I care a lot about my voice and am regularly doing voice rehab and because probably with a higher F0 I can then relax more and work on some other things easier. She will stick with me and guide me through voice rehab after a surgery and see how to make the best out of it then - no matter how good it will be or what drawbacks I experience. So that was giving me more confidence and now I sent in my present data and possible dates to Dr Kim at Yesons and am waiting for a reply - to see if he also thinks I improved enough, see if they got a date for me that fits and so on. To top it off, my dad was supporting me with some money so I dont have to spend my saved money for this on some bill that came in. I think chances are, that I will be in Korea in Spring . OMG...

[Eva]

Good luck!!! While I didnt go to Yeson I did have a web glottoplasty... I also HAD very deep voice, not really anymore  Im still only 16 days post op but Its already a huge relief for me

Im very impressed with your speech therapist Where I live in very rural mid western USA there is nothing like that available.... Id love to do that but its just not an option for me

I hope you can get this surgery, I feel its just going to get more and more common as more and more good results are had

[anjaq]

I think my therapist is doing a good job in my voice rehab. She may not be that great at feminizing my voice further but she knows how to make it more healthy, it seems. I Dont know how good she is at feminizing a voice that is not yet changed, I assume she can do that too. There are actually 3 voice therapists in the area who are rather good at feminization of the voice and of course seom dozend other voice therapists who mainly care about voice health. In rural areas it is probably harder - but for me at least the first 10 hours did get me a lot better. The 25 after that were also good but gave me less of a change.

I think my relaxed voice must be on the low male end - But funny thing is, even if I try to demonstrate it, people claim it is not that deep - and certainly higher than <insert male or female actor here>. Funnily when analyzed it actually is, so the impression mainly seems to come from something else.

P.S.: I made a relaxed reading recording just now and it actually scared me a little. Of course I never use that voice when being around people... But the average reading of it is at 120 Hz it seems and that is only because I go up in intonations a lot. The lower pitched words or word endings are actually way below 100 Hz, if the readings I see are correct. http://vocaroo.com/i/s1A7Lv2EnO6d

[Eva]

I think my relaxed voice must be on the low male end - But funny thing is, even if I try to demonstrate it, people claim it is not that deep - and certainly higher than <insert male or female actor here>. Funnily when analyzed it actually is, so the impression mainly seems to come from something else.

Well I get that because even though my voice really was terrible and I still need a lot of work as far as Im concerned.... I've had a lot of people from close friends to random encounters tell me about my old voice "its not that bad" all along for me... Id then wonder if they were tone deaf LOL... We are our own worst critics!!!

When the focus is so intense on the female voice even just listening to women talk can sometimes trigger dysphoria for me.... Im only 1 yr in though, all I can do is hope to develop my own voice in time, it CANT get worse anyway

Anyway I think for those with a very deep voice this surgery is a HUGE life changing deal and again I hope you can do it soon

[anjaq]

Sooo - There was a bit of a scare now as I filled in the patient form from Yeson and they said that a) due to my medical history I may be more prone than average to having a numb tongue, "unlikely" permanent, due to the surgery - and that earliest dates are available in April, which would be impossible for me. I almost wrote this off with great sadness, but then I got an appointment at a neurologist, let him check and he said that he would not see why I would be at a higher risk than others - also there was a single slot available in February at Yesons.

So I took finally the leap and booked that slot and I will be now there on February 25. I am sooo nervous, excited and all kinds of things now. If anyone is there at that time, we could meet and then sit in front of each other texting face to face

[Teslagirl]

So I took finally the leap and booked that slot and I will be now there on February 25. I am sooo nervous, excited and all kinds of things now. If anyone is there at that time, we could meet and then sit in front of each other texting face to face

That's absolutely wonderful Anjaq! I'll really look forward to hearing your progress (don't forget to record your pre-voice).

You are definitely the expert when it comes to carefully researching everything about Yeson, so I wonder if you might know why Dr Kim wants X-Rays? I'm really worried about having more radiation.

I'm so pleased for you.

Sarah.

[anjaq]

My guess would be that the Xrays are made to ensure anaesthesia will be ok. But I do not really know. I guess being 15 hours in flight to Korea will be more radation as well - probably more than the yrays there if they are done with a modern machine.

[Eva]

Congrats and good luck

[ImagineKate]

I don't think it has anything to do with anesthesia. My wife had surgery a few times and she never took an Xray.

My guess is he wants to see if you have any underlying conditions that could cause issues in general.

[anjaq]

Well - if he needs it, I dont like it, maybe I will ask if they need it, but if there are complications that could occur if they dont do this...

The two flights are about 4 times as much radiation as that Xray though
http://xkcd.com/radiation/