Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I have been talking to Jessie from Yeson via e-mails .. I told her I am very interested to have surgery with Dr.Kim in June/July but I used to have VFS at Yanhee hospital in Bangkok back in 2007 and 2 years later i decided to go back to had my adam's apple shaved with another surgeon , i told him to be careful but accident happened during operation, my voice came back to normal, deep manly voice.

and Jessie told me that i might not be able to do VFS with Dr.Kim .. I already submitted her my pre-op check list & reading rainbow passage via vacaroo .. but she needs my vocal folds picture .. which I dont have

I'm a bit frustrated and don't know what to do .. maybe I should go to see my GP and ask him to help me ??

Any guide/help will be very appreciated .. thank you in advance

Hi Diana,

Really sorry to hear about the surgeon who messed things up for you.

I'm sure the other more experienced board members will reply soon and give you their thoughts - I haven't been here long and I'm currently booked in for surgery at Yeson in the middle of June.

As Jessie has said they need to see images of your vocal folds, I assume this is to make sure you are a suitable canditate and don't waste your money going out there to be told that your voice wouldn't see any improvement - so yes, go to your GP as a first port of call maybe and explain the situation and ask to be referred asap to a voice specialist who can take images of your vocal folds and send them onto Yeson for you. Let's face it, if anyone can help you I'm sure it is Dr. Kim - good luck ... I really hope on seeing your vocal chords he decides he can help you.

Gigi

Quote from: Gigi_J on April 22, 2014, 08:25:10 AM
Hi Diana,

Really sorry to hear about the surgeon who messed things up for you.

I'm sure the other more experienced board members will reply soon and give you their thoughts - I haven't been here long and I'm currently booked in for surgery at Yeson in the middle of June.

As Jessie has said they need to see images of your vocal folds, I assume this is to make sure you are a suitable canditate and don't waste your money going out there to be told that your voice wouldn't see any improvement - so yes, go to your GP as a first port of call maybe and explain the situation and ask to be referred asap to a voice specialist who can take images of your vocal folds and send them onto Yeson for you. Let's face it, if anyone can help you I'm sure it is Dr. Kim - good luck ... I really hope on seeing your vocal chords he decides he can help you.

Gigi

Thank you very much Gigi ! I will call my GP first thing in the morning tomorrow :)

and good luck in your surgery with Dr.Kim in June  :)

Aww no worries...I hope it goes well for you and you can head to Yeson..I'd say if your voice is pretty much back to what it was prior to your first procedure, that there is a strong chance you may be suitable to see Dr. Kim..let's hope so! And thanks....I have to quit smoking between now and then and I'm slightly concerned I might want to kill people during that time but hey ho :D

Let us know how you get on anyway!

Gigi

Diana I'm sorry to hear you had an issue with your tracheal shave :(

I would try to seek out a voice specialist doctor, I don't think a normal GP will have the right instruments to photograph the vocal cords. But, perhaps you will get lucky.

Here in LA, I had to see an otolaryngologist because no other doctors actually have a laryngoscope in office.

Best of luck to you and I hope you get the go ahead from Dr. Kim. Please do keep us updated!

Jenny

Hi Diana,

as Jenny pointed out, a regular ENT will have a laryngoscope and can take the picture. They're quite common, you should be able to find one in any medium-sized town.

Regards,

Amy

hi diana

i have some questions about first vfs at yanhee.
how was that?
was it dramatical?
dose ppl reconize your voice as female even on the phone call?
dose it require voice training?

thank you Jenny, Amy & Gigi !!

I've been very busy in real life .. I will meet ENT surgeon here next month and will keep you girls posted .. thanks again ! :)




hi yonachu

I had VFS at Yanhee with Dr.Ornuma in late 2007 (my brother who is a doctor as well,knows her, and she's a great doctor)

No drama with me , i had a small scar on my throat .. BUT it's not comfy after operation , felt like having sorethroat (you know when you had to clear your throat all the time, and it didnt look good when I had to do that every 5 mins when I was in public) .. been like this for 2 years before I had my adam apple's shaved

My fem voice was great, very fem but the voice came out not loud , had to use lots of energy especially when I talked over the phone lol ...

and no I didnt have to do any training , except I couldn't speak for about 10 days .. no training with Dr.Ornuma needed .. she just checked my pitch and told me not to talk too much in about a month

but this procedure is good for someone who is not older than 30 years old (I was 28-29 when I did it) she said the older you are, the lower vocal cord ,, which makes it hard for surgery ..

there is another Doctor .. his name is Dr.Somyos from Yoskarn Clinic , I think he's Dr.Ornuma's teacher (not so sure, but that's what I've heard) , he's great too.

good luck with your decision ! :)

yonachu- I feel that I should mention I just looked up the Yanhee Voice Surgery procedure, and they use the cricothyroid approximation (CTA) method which has a very low success rate.

There are few sutures holding everything where they set things for CTA, so it is not always permanent. More importantly, it doesn't address the actual length of the vocal cords. For some, it can end up sounding like a falsetto voice. It is not the same procedure that they are doing at Yeson and a few other places, where they actually shorten the vocal cords leaving every other part of the voice box the same. That is why results out of Yeson sound so good, they have minimized invasiveness and addressed the problem at the root. I know there are other doctors who would likely be able to do this procedure; to a voice surgeon, it is known as anterior "web" creation.. Basically it ties the vocal cords together at a given point. Dr. Kim seems to have perfected this technique with a very high success rate and predictable results.

I know there are happy patients who have had CTA, but I would urge you to stay away- the risks are very high with that procedure :o

Hopefully soon we will hear of other doctors starting to offer and further perfect the anterior web creation method. Being that it is a very simple concept, it seems to me like there should be no reason Dr. Kim will be the only one to offer it, especially with the high demand it is generating.

agreed with Jenny :)

if I would known that Dr.Kim did VFS 7 years ago, I would go to do surgery with him  :police:

to diana : thx for sharing your experience !

to jenny : about Yanhee, they only mentioned about CTA but they does diffrent procedures for diffrent cases.

and Yanhee's korean spokeman told me that they does vocal chord shortening too.

well but now i made schedule at Yeson at 5/28. since i am korean and living at seoul it only takes 1 hour to get there xD.

i have questions about your yeson experience.

1: can you drink alchole? 

2: do you have to be concious when you use your voice as fem? or just saying it same as before this procedure?

Quote from: yonachu on April 28, 2014, 03:17:18 AM
to diana : thx for sharing your experience !

to jenny : about Yanhee, they only mentioned about CTA but they does diffrent procedures for diffrent cases.

and Yanhee's korean spokeman told me that they does vocal chord shortening too.

well but now i made schedule at Yeson at 5/28. since i am korean and living at seoul it only takes 1 hour to get there xD.

i have questions about your yeson experience.

1: can you drink alchole? 

2: do you have to be concious when you use your voice as fem? or just saying it same as before this procedure?

That makes sense!

To answer your questions-

1) no you can definitely not drink any alcohol for a while (2months). I also stopped drinking anything alcoholic two weeks prior

2) at first it takes a little bit of getting used to. I guess forced adaptation is the way I would put it. Using your fem voice is easy because it is all you will have ;) you still kind of have to be aware though; you might still try to access those lower pitches for a while, but they won't be there anymore

Also, congratulations on your upcoming date with Yeson! :D

Quote from: Jennygirl on April 28, 2014, 09:35:22 AM
2) at first it takes a little bit of getting used to. I guess forced adaptation is the way I would put it. Using your fem voice is easy because it is all you will have ;) you still kind of have to be aware though; you might still try to access those lower pitches for a while, but they won't be there anymore

LOL , that sounds a bit like when they put that bitter stuff on kids thumbs to make them stop sucking on them ;)
So basically you still are doing similar things as before when you use the fem voice just that afterwards if you don't you just cannot speak, so basically it cuts off some frequencies that you used to use before and later you just cannot use them so you learn how to use the fem voice that you were able to use before as well but you kind of are forced to use it all the time? Plus it is less straining to use it, I would guess? And plus you can not slip down anymore because then the voice would just be silent. Is this a good description? (Still trying to find out how it FEELS post op )

You pretty much nailed it :D

Ok, thank you - it somehow is really hard to get subjective "how does it feel" reports of you post op girls here ;) - Everyone talks a lot about how others perceive you, how things now work out even on the phone and all that but I really am massively interested in how it feels for you self, how you use your voice, what you have to do consciously, what works out without effort, what is easier etc.

I read somewhere about botox injection after VFS with Dr.Kim .. does it mean Dr.Kim inject botox through your neck   ???

yes it is botox injection through neck

Quote from: DianaVV on April 30, 2014, 12:13:09 AM
I read somewhere about botox injection after VFS with Dr.Kim .. does it mean Dr.Kim inject botox through your neck   ???

Yes it is a very simple procedure and very common with voice docs. There are a bunch of youtube videos out there... The noise that sensor machine makes is pretty weird!

Quote from: yonachu on April 30, 2014, 12:52:24 AM
yes it is botox injection through neck

Quote from: Jennygirl on April 30, 2014, 03:05:16 AM
Yes it is a very simple procedure and very common with voice docs. There are a bunch of youtube videos out there... The noise that sensor machine makes is pretty weird!

ooh thank you for info girls ! .. I had botox once last Nov in my jaws, unpleasant feeling lol >_<

Hey Jenny,

Thanks for all your great knowledge on Yeson, I am booked in for early next year but I was wondering how long it was before you could talk all day?

I had a laugh when I read the info from Jessie that said 7 days of no talking period+3weeks of speaking no more than 5 words a day.
I was like "5 words a day, Whattt!" guess that would have been all the words I could have said.

I work in a job where I do a lot of talking, so I am mostly thinking how long would it be before I can talk for 8 hours straight?

-Elle

Hi Elle

It will take some time before you can go at it fully. It's possible that Dr. Kim changes his post-op instructions per person, so please do just follow his instructions to the tee.

That said, for me he asked that I not talk for another week following the botox injection (at 1 week post op), so that was 2 weeks total no talking. Then at 4 weeks time I could have conversation as much as I wanted to, quietly, for the next month. And holy heck was I quiet. Even after 2 months I had to limit the amount I spoke because I could tell I was straining during long periods. You really have to take it easy at first. I would say my voice was at about 30% by 2 months, 60% by 3, 90% by 6, and probably at around 12 or more I was at 95.

I am still noticing improvements in my voice's durability, and I am 1.5 years post-op by now. I think most likely my vocal tremor affects matters, because I have not had any botox injections following the one immediately after the op. And, I never took the clonazepam because I do not like the idea of taking benzo's every day no matter how small the dose.

I still have to watch out for yelling too much, because my voice will be less powerful the next day if I don't- but as I said this is still becoming less and less. I talked to Dr. Kim about it several months ago, and he said it is absolutely a symptom of my preexisting focal dystonia of the larynx (vocal tremor) and recommended that I take clonazepam as a minimum... or get another botox injection. I have done neither, because it is very manageable. I find myself in lots of situations where I am talking over things using full voice power. My friends even tend to lose their voices sometimes in conditions like that.

Hi again Jenny,

Thanks for your reply, it really gives me a lot of confidence in being able to do this and still be able to work within a reasonable amount of time.

I have conversations with people all day long so I don't really need to be loud but I do run the odd workshop or training where being a bit louder can help. My work is really good with working around people with odd illnesses or injuries so I'm sure they will have no trouble finding somewhere less vocally intensive for the first few months. [emoji6]

Thanks again for your reply, I really can't wait for my trip to Seoul now.

Oh wow, 1.5 years post op and still issues with yelling. Hmm. I would not like the idea of Botox and Benzo either. It probably would only be a temporary fix anyways.

Getting 95% back is quite ok :) - I think 100% is probably not possible. If I have to speak loud over some music or therelike, I am really tired and weak afterwards now (without surgery) as well and the next day is also not the best then. So that would not be a change. Yelling a lot ans speaking loudly a lot is obviusly as straining in a surgically altered voice as it is with a voice that has to be controlled without surgery

I think it makes sense to plan to have no voice intensive work for 2 months which is why I was having it in my mind to do such a thing only in semester break when the students are away for 2 months and less speech is needed. In the end I will need to reach all over a small lecture hall again though, so it is crucial for me that the voice will have volume, loudness and fullness after some time, if it stays weak or is less resonant, it may be a problem for me.