Yeson voice feminization surgery 2.0

[iKate]

Most days I do not have time to get made up, dolled up, etc because I have to be out the door by 6:15 and get complaining and nagging if I'm out after 6:30. But the days that I can and I do, I enjoy it.

Since going full time I have been a ton more girly. I used to mostly wear pants but I haven't worn a pair of pants to work in a while. The voice does indeed help, and it helps with confidence because I don't have to worry about it outing me. Sydney_nyc and I were having breakfast the other day and she commented on that, that I am much more confident.

I also have a nagging facial hair problem that I need to address. I had laser last week and I'm slowly waiting for the shedding, but I also exfoliate with an Olay Pro-X. I have some skin issues from prior electrolysis and just bad skin care too. I may look at some procedure to fix it sooner or later. But meanwhile i have this raised shadow, oh my god. However with my voice it's much less of a concern.

This morning for sure I thought I got clocked, when this guy selling bus tickets for the tourist buses started staring at me. I looked back and he said, "tickets for the bus, miss?" I told him I work here and I'm not a tourist. He said, "everyone is a tourist here, anyway have a good day." Still don't know if I was clocked but it didn't really bother me.

[Dana88]

Most days I do not have time to get made up, dolled up, etc because I have to be out the door by 6:15 and get complaining and nagging if I'm out after 6:30. But the days that I can and I do, I enjoy it.

Since going full time I have been a ton more girly. I used to mostly wear pants but I haven't worn a pair of pants to work in a while. The voice does indeed help, and it helps with confidence because I don't have to worry about it outing me. Sydney_nyc and I were having breakfast the other day and she commented on that, that I am much more confident.

I also have a nagging facial hair problem that I need to address. I had laser last week and I'm slowly waiting for the shedding, but I also exfoliate with an Olay Pro-X. I have some skin issues from prior electrolysis and just bad skin care too. I may look at some procedure to fix it sooner or later. But meanwhile i have this raised shadow, oh my god. However with my voice it's much less of a concern.

This morning for sure I thought I got clocked, when this guy selling bus tickets for the tourist buses started staring at me. I looked back and he said, "tickets for the bus, miss?" I told him I work here and I'm not a tourist. He said, "everyone is a tourist here, anyway have a good day." Still don't know if I was clocked but it didn't really bother me.

From having met you in person, the facial hair issue is not nearly as bad as you think it is, especially considering you had just had a laser session and hadn't shed yet. And you were DEF gendered as female by both the waitresses who kept on saying "ladies" to both of us.

And yeah, the biggest thing with my voice is definitely confidence also. I used to be so nervous every time I opened my mouth in public places that I was gonna get clocked because of it. When I was with friends who know I'm trans that I wasn't concerned about getting clocked with, if we were out and about publicly, I'd still speak softly out of fear that people around us would hear my voice and clock me. Now, I just talk :-). And it's so freeing.


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[iKate]

Thanks.

I had skipped on laser for a while because of the whole Yeson thing. My last session before this one was 2 weeks before I left. I couldn't talk to make an appointment, plus I had bad timing when calling as the person who normally does my laser had to teach an electrolysis class. This was session #5 and the card they have is numbered up to 10, so I have 5 to go I guess but she really hit it hard this time hence the extra swelling.

[Dana88]

Yeah, as I comparison, I started laser before I started HRT (also obviously complexion wise I was suited to it, having pale skin and dark brown facial hair). I have now had 11 laser sessions. At this point it's FINALLY gotten all it's gonna get. I only have white vellus hairs left on my cheeks and neck, and then I have some coarse hairs in the goatee area, but they're all white so it takes several days of not shaving before they're even apparent. I'm starting electrolysis on what's left on Tuesday next week. Laser is a bitch and it just takes time. For me I saw the biggest difference at first between sessions 2 and 3 and then again between sessions 8 and 9. Just hang in there :-).


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[iKate]

Month 2, normal speech.

Trying to get a good recording, away from noise, screaming kids and distractions. I'll post up one soon.

Meanwhile here is Praat for me in normal conversation. 219Hz avg (taking out the low dip at the end) and 288 max, which isn't noise or artifacts. It's actually prosody.

[Teslagirl]

Doing some praat analysis now I am consistently above 200Hz. There are dips to 180ish but generally 200-260Hz is where I speak.

Volume and clarity is WAY better. Going to do a recording later after I've finished housework.

That's great Kate; looking forward to hearing it!

Sarah.

[Teslagirl]

It goes together. I am way more confident now that my voice changed - I dont feel like it is just about to betray me anymore. So I allow myself more and hold back less when it comes to a lot of things

I totally understand. For me it was the same - Shirts and pants all the time, not too much girly stuff, but this year things change - part of it is because of the voice thing and part is because of weight loss, but I actually probably wore feminine clothes like skirts and dresses more often this year than in the rest of my life and same thing goes for other stuff - using makeup, my behaviour changed - its very interesting to see what a boost in confidence can do for oneself - and suddenly one actually wants to do some of the girly things that one kept pushing away as being too girly, too feminine for oneself. And its kind of fun.

With me it's highly variable. Some days I'm really confident and wear girly stuff, and other days it's back to jeans and loose tops. I lost seven pounds after Yeson, but that has slowly been coming back despite my best efforts. I was hoping to get into all my old skirts and skirt suits but no chance yet. However I did manage to get into a lovely rockabilly circle dress which made me feel better. Today, I don't feel Dr Kim's intervention has changed anything in my voice and so I'm dowdy again. I sort of think that if I look boring, then no-one will misgender me because I'll look like all the other boring females here where I live. It's almost like I'm punishing myself for being transsexual. I do love so much being girly though.

[iKate]

I sort of think that if I look boring, then no-one will misgender me because I'll look like all the other boring females here where I live. It's almost like I'm punishing myself for being transsexual. I do love so much being girly though.

Oh, that is not something I worry about. I like being girly. I work in New York and I work in the media business so there are people who are dressed to the hilt here. Not to say that every day I go in looking glamourous. Far from it. But it was kind of funny, how you mentioned you look like other women around there. Today as I was getting off the elevator o the lobby and I saw one of my colleagues who worked in HR. I saw she had a dress that was the same color I had on. Then I saw the same pattern... then it clicked, we had the exact same dress, LOL! Well, then she said, "hey, nice dress!" And I bust out laughing and was like, "Thanks! You too!" That was funny, that is the first time that ever happened.

And honestly if I get clocked, meh.

I think you should relax and not worry as most people don't get an increase until months 2-4. Don't judge yourself by my or Dana's or even Jenny's or J-Mi's result or any of the rest. Everyone is different, and Dr Kim did say 2-4 months minimum.

[Dana88]

And honestly if I get clocked, meh.

^^^ that is the emotional goal for sure. Haha. I have some days where I feel like, I don't give a >-bleeped-< if people clock me, and others where I do. Trying to have more of the former and less of the latter.

I think you should relax and not worry as most people don't get an increase until months 2-4. Don't judge yourself by my or Dana's or even Jenny's or J-Mi's result or any of the rest. Everyone is different, and Dr Kim did say 2-4 months minimum.

And yes. Everyone's results are their own. And as iKate pointed out, Dr. Kim doesn't even expect ANY change in pitch until month 2. So any shift is already ahead of the game. And also as you said previously, it just sounds like your old trained voice. But that's the key. It now naturally sounds like your old trained voice without effort. That's already a definite change.


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[Dana88]

So, I had my first speech pathology session yesterday and it was great. I do have to say, she was quite skeptical of how conservative Dr. Kim is on the healing front. She was pretty shocked that it was 4 weeks of complete vocal rest. She said what's standard is one week of complete vocal rest, then 2-3 weeks of limited use, only 20-30 words a day. I told her that's what Dr. Kim USED to instruct and he's gotten more conservative. She speculated that this may be because many of his patients are foreign so he can't personally follow up, so if he makes the instructions more conservative it greatly reduces the chance that someone, without him checking in, will mess something up.

Secondly she was pretty surprised that he doesn't want you to start exercises until after you've already been speaking for four weeks. She felt pretty strongly that exercises should commence as soon as you start talking again so that you don't get into bad habits immediately. I explained that he said it's 1 week for external healing and then 8 weeks for internal healing, her response was, that if your voice is okay to talk, it should be okay for light exercises. Again she speculated the reason for this is that Yeson's speech pathologist is not going to be there with the patient when they commence exercises for the first time, so to make sure people don't mess anything up by doing anything incorrect, that that's probably why he is so conservative on that end. All of this aside, she said while she's never met Dr. Kim she's read much about his technique and heard a lot of his results and finds him quite impressive, and she said she hopes that his technique will come stateside at some point.

Anyway, I'm not technically at 8 weeks. I'm at 6 and a half. But she did have me do some very light and easy resonance exercises (she did say don't do them if I'm not comfortable starting until week 8, but I went for it). She said she does agree that major strength and range exercises shouldn't start till week 8. But even the little resonance stuff has already been so helpful. It felt like a part of my voice that had been dormant since surgery was waking back up.

Also, nice story :-)...

Today I got a phone call from the DNC asking me for money (to which I was like... I've already given you money), and they had my old name on record and said "Hi Mr. "Male name" "last name," and as soon as I started speaking she switched to "Miss." Then at the end of the call she curiously inquired if my name was correct. So I guess my voice does pass on the phone after all :-P.


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[kwala]

So, I had my first speech pathology session yesterday and it was great. I do have to say, she was quite skeptical of how conservative Dr. Kim is on the healing front. She was pretty shocked that it was 4 weeks of complete vocal rest. She said what's standard is one week of complete vocal rest, then 2-3 weeks of limited use, only 20-30 words a day. I told her that's what Dr. Kim USED to instruct and he's gotten more conservative. She speculated that this may be because many of his patients are foreign so he can't personally follow up, so if he makes the instructions more conservative it greatly reduces the chance that someone, without him checking in, will mess something up.

Secondly she was pretty surprised that he doesn't want you to start exercises until after you've already been speaking for four weeks. She felt pretty strongly that exercises should commence as soon as you start talking again so that you don't get into bad habits immediately. I explained that he said it's 1 week for external healing and then 8 weeks for internal healing, her response was, that if your voice is okay to talk, it should be okay for light exercises. Again she speculated the reason for this is that Yeson's speech pathologist is not going to be there with the patient when they commence exercises for the first time, so to make sure people don't mess anything up by doing anything incorrect, that that's probably why he is so conservative on that end. All of this aside, she said while she's never met Dr. Kim she's read much about his technique and heard a lot of his results and finds him quite impressive, and she said she hopes that his technique will come stateside at some point.

Anyway, I'm not technically at 8 weeks. I'm at 6 and a half. But she did have me do some very light and easy resonance exercises (she did say don't do them if I'm not comfortable starting until week 8, but I went for it). She said she does agree that major strength and range exercises shouldn't start till week 8. But even the little resonance stuff has already been so helpful. It felt like a part of my voice that had been dormant since surgery was waking back up.

Also, nice story :-)...

Today I got a phone call from the DNC asking me for money (to which I was like... I've already given you money), and they had my old name on record and said "Hi Mr. "Male name" "last name," and as soon as I started speaking she switched to "Miss." Then at the end of the call she curiously inquired if my name was correct. So I guess my voice does pass on the phone after all :-P.


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Glad you had a good session!  I sort of agree with the pathologist in terms of starting light exercises right away and I think her speculation about why Dr. Kim is ultra conservative is probably correct.  It would explain why Dr. Haben and Dr. Kim differ in their recovery plans even when performing the same surgery, albeit using slightly different techniques.  Great story about the phone call from the DNC.  Thanks again for sharing your progress.

[iKate]

I've decided that I won't be seeing a speech pathologist as I don't really need it. The Yeson exercises seem to be good enough. My range is increasing with the exercises and I can sing in a female range and that range is increasing steadily. I also don't have much issues with resonance or head/chest voice. I have been told by a few cis women who know that I sound more feminine than they do. My pitch is actually higher than theirs.

The theory about the Yeson pathologist not being there seems to be correct. However my thinking has always been, trust Dr Kim, he did the surgery, he knows his procedure, so do exactly what he says. I deviated only a little but I suspect he takes that into account.

As for the story, that's wonderful! That probably won't happen to me as I block all political calls, and those that get through I simply don't answer them. However, I am much more confident doing phone calls for everything else now.

[Dana88]

I've decided that I won't be seeing a speech pathologist as I don't really need it. The Yeson exercises seem to be good enough. My range is increasing with the exercises and I can sing in a female range and that range is increasing steadily. I also don't have much issues with resonance or head/chest voice. I have been told by a few cis women who know that I sound more feminine than they do. My pitch is actually higher than theirs.

The theory about the Yeson pathologist not being there seems to be correct. However my thinking has always been, trust Dr Kim, he did the surgery, he knows his procedure, so do exactly what he says. I deviated only a little but I suspect he takes that into account.

As for the story, that's wonderful! That probably won't happen to me as I block all political calls, and those that get through I simply don't answer them. However, I am much more confident doing phone calls for everything else now.

Yeah I definitely have resonance issues, but as I mentioned before, I had resonance issues preop too, so this is just bringing a preop problem into my new voice (reedy far back sound). So I decided I want to nip that in the bud as I'm healing. And yeah, I'd be more uncomfortable if she was having me do major exercises before week 8 in terms of breaking Dr. Kim's instructions, but all she's having me do is lip trills on single pitch a few times a day and humming on a comfortable pitch a few times a day. So it's not exactly strenuous, but I've noticed it's definitely already helping me achieve a more focused sound in just two days.


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[Dana88]

Oh and fun fact, she also measured my lowest usable pitch which is 152 hz. 152 hz was my preop fundamental frequency :-P.


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[iKate]

Oh and fun fact, she also measured my lowest usable pitch which is 152 hz. 152 hz was my preop fundamental frequency :-P.


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I haven't measured mine but it probably is around that. Anything lower is just air

[anjaq]

Oh and fun fact, she also measured my lowest usable pitch which is 152 hz. 152 hz was my preop fundamental frequency :-P.

Thats interesting... My lowest post op pitch is about 115-120 Hz , which is to my estimation my original fundamental frequency, too...  Lowest really useable pitch is more like 130 Hz, which is what Dr Kim determined to be my fundamental frequency F0.

I think personally doing light exercises like lip trills and humming is not dangerous after week 4, but gliding up in pitch and using the strengthening exercises should come after week 8.

One interesting thing is also, Jessie asked me actually to send in a video of me doing the voice exercises, so the SLT at Yeson could take a look at them and give me instructions on what I am doing wrong - well, the downside of that is, that apparently I am doing a lot of things wrong and I am not sure how to change that. Like if they tell me that in the /m/ and /mi/ and /meaong/ exercises I have "no resonance", I am not sure how to change that - But I am taking the advice of using more abdominal breathing and not going so high in pitch anymore. So just saying - the SLT of Yeson is not out of the world, they are willing to help even if one cannot go there for a followup. But of course the consultation is limited when done by email and video recordings... I may ask them if they can do Skype sessions (for some payment of course) to correct what I am doing wrong, but I doubt it works because Jessie and Dr Kim are the only ones there speaking understandeable english, it seems.

[iKate]

How do you determine the lowest pitch you can go?

I can go to about 125Hz as the absolute minimum humming

[anjaq]

We determined the lowest and highest pitch by singing a note, I think usually it was an "e", but basically they did not care - just sing any vowel I want and then go from the mid range up in steps , as high as possible, then start again at the mid range and go as low as I can still make that sound. Humming did not count, it had to be vocalization. We do this once with a soft and rather silent voice and once with a loud voice.
This will then give a picture on the computer of the SLT that looks like this:

and the numbers on top give the min F0 and max F0 (pitch range)

[Dana88]

We determined the lowest and highest pitch by singing a note, I think usually it was an "e", but basically they did not care - just sing any vowel I want and then go from the mid range up in steps , as high as possible, then start again at the mid range and go as low as I can still make that sound. Humming did not count, it had to be vocalization. We do this once with a soft and rather silent voice and once with a loud voice.
This will then give a picture on the computer of the SLT that looks like this:

and the numbers on top give the min F0 and max F0 (pitch range)

Yes, it was this program she used. I'm not familiar with the program but it was this kind of graph.


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[Dana88]

So I'm a LITTLE concerned. On Friday I had three back to back meetings. I tried to speak as sparingly as possible, even switched to typing at one point, but by the end of the night my voice was definitely very tired and hoarse. Then yesterday I gave it a rest, barely spoke for most of the day. When I started talking in the evening, at first it felt even worse than it did at the end of Friday night, but it eventually perked up and felt and sounded fine. Then today I've been speaking less, and same thing, it goes back and forth from super hoarse and tired to feeling fine. This is the first time anything like this has happened to me since I started talking again. I'm getting a little worried... Gonna email Yeson.


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