Yes I do have a consult with Mayer tomorrow! When I was in his office in August (with MaidOfOrleans) for her FFS consult with him, he spoke rather poorly of the satisfaction rate of his voice surgery. He said about half of the people are ecstatic with the result, and the other half end up hating it. Not very good numbers if you ask me, but some are willing to give it a shot and it can have great results if you are one of the lucky ones.
His method is entirely different. Instead of shortening the vocal cords, he tensions them by applying sutures somewhere along the voice box. The result is kind of like tuning a guitar string up with the spindle (increasing tension)... as opposed to Yeson's technique which is like placing your finger on a higher fret (shortening the length). The only thing that makes his surgery more invasive is due to the incision over the throat. I suppose if you are having your trach shave done as well, this doesn't really matter. Personally though, for trach shave, I much preferred to have the incision placed under my chin where it has never ever been seen unless I point it out and the person squints to see it. I had my trach shave performed by Dr. Ousterhout.
As I have mentioned, the surgery must be done through an incision directly over the throat to grant access to the voice box. The result is permanent in most all of cases (and he says it is permanent on his website), but there is a chance that the sutures tensioning the voice box can come loose- which makes the voice return back to normal.
The really interesting (and potentially eerie) part about Mayer's procedure is that it can be done under local right in his office (you can be awake for it). He literally tunes your voice up to the desired pitch by asking you to talk as he's tensioning your vocal cords and you can tell him to stop when you are satisfied
I gave some thought to Mayer's approach before I had my procedure with Yeson, but the selling points to go with Yeson [for me] was the high satisfaction rate, lack of incision, and permanent physical shortening of the vocal cords. Not to mention the fact that Dr. Kim with Yeson has a single area of expertise: voice. Plus there were some voice samples on Mayer's website that scared me away. When I heard from his mouth how many patients end up dissatisfied, I can hardly recommend it. It's something you'll ultimately have to decide for yourself! But if you haven't noticed, there really aren't any bad sounding examples (that I have heard) coming from Yeson. Even if the amount of pitch increase ends up being less than desired, the result still sounds feminine.
Quote from: Gabrielle on November 17, 2013, 11:54:01 PM
I would have to think, after reading through the various Yeson threads, that Dr. Kim's technique is the wave of the future.
I would have to agree. Incisionless permanent shortening of the vocal cords is pretty darn amazing. I have a feeling many other surgeons will soon be jumping on the bandwagon.
