Quote from: anjaq on September 08, 2015, 05:13:07 AM
How long ago was the surgery? IIRC it was something like 6-8 weeks? Some coughing should be ok, although you probably should have avoided that , telling the doc that you are not allowed to do it at the moment. But I doubt it does big harm after 4 weeks. The healing process is so different for everyone that it is hard to say what is going on so far. If the web holds (you probably would know if it didn't, but you can let an ENT check with an endoscope), there will be physical changes - like you should not be able to really do a mans voice anymore and such. I hope you did some recordings pre op - of your regular voice, of your relaxed voice, of your probable pre-transition voice... to compare now and see and feel which of these now work, feel relaxed, are not accessible anymore. This will tell you that changes happened.
You know that for me the VFS was also not as incredibly a change as for some, but my regular speaking voice is not a bit higher than before and it really seems to be my natural voice now, not my trained voice. Also big changes in timbre have happened, making my voice feminine even at the lower pitches and when laughing. Those are great changes to look at. Some changes were there for me right from the start, but I was not aware of them, some changes occured later, between week 6 and 12. Not pitch changes so much though, but even that did change a little from about 160/170 to 180 Hz, probably that change was mostly because I had a better voice melody after recovering a bit more and using a wider pitch range.
Anyways - I doubt that your VFS was a failure - but maybe it does not fulfil your expectations and this can be very frustrating. Can't you go to Dr O and ask him to correct whatever went wrong with your rhinoplasty? I know, noses are difficult and lots of people have corrections, so this seems to me more the regular case than the exception, sadly.
I hope that you find a solution for all of it.
When and where will you be for the final surgery?
I second all of what anjaq said. Especially because you were using a trained voice 24/7 it may be difficult to notice a difference because what you were using all the time isn't that far off from your surgical result. But as anjaq said, the difference should be that now that's your natural voice and it would be impossible to relax back down into a male voice.
Both iKate and I were not speaking 24/7 in a trained voice preop. I had done some training and achieved a voice that was around 200 hz, but I always felt weird using it publicly so I never did. Short of saying some stuff into my phone every so often I never actually used it. But if I had been speaking in a consistent 200 hz voice, I would not have seen much of a change either because now my postop voice, depending on time of day and how tired I am, ranges from a fundamental frequency of 200-236 hz. So especially when my voice is lower and tired and closer to 200, it would have sat around where my trained voice was and I likely would not really have perceived a difference. BUT I spoke in a relaxed male voice more often than not. So the perceived difference is larger when the fundamental frequency I was used to hearing preop was 152 hz.
Also, I'd like to point out that I didn't start consistently and comfortably sitting more in the 220-236 range until almost 8 weeks postop (it really turned a corner at 7 weeks to be exact). Before then I would have bursts of comfortably speaking that high, and then more often it would sit between 190 and 200.
And also remember, Dr. Kim says some people see a large pitch shift quick, and for some people it's more gradual and can take place over 8-10 months. So while of course it's tough to wait that long, I don't think you can declare your surgery a failure at 5 or 6 weeks postop.
Try to take a breath and try to be patient.
Have you tried measuring your fundamental frequency? That actually helped me in the early weeks when I first started talking again and I'd feel like my voice was low and male sounding. I'd measure the fundamental frequency and see I'm still in the female range. Have you tried that at all and are you in a female range?
Dr. Kim says the female range is 200-250 BUT my speech pathologist says 160-185 is androgynous pitch wise and will likely be gendered male or female depending other factors (resonance, tone, cadence etc) and that 185-250 is decidedly female. I'm inclined to agree with her on that one just from observing other cis women's voices. So even if you're in the androgynous range, for 5 or 6 weeks postop, that ain't too bad.
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