This is the tale of my trip to Dr Haben for voice surgery. I am still in my first week of not speaking after surgery and I already know my voice will not turn out to be one of the shining examples already posted on this site. I will go into the details latter but the rules for this thread include no criticism of Dr Haben because he has done everything possible for me. Criticism of my voice should be very carefully made because while my voice will end up in the female range, it will never become one of the beautiful one that have been posted here. If the criticism is out of line and the mods don't catch it, I will personally flag it for their attention.
I picked July 15th as my surgical date because I thought I would have guest early in September and I knew I would need a voice when they visited. I figured that should give me time to have a workable but not great voice. Waiting until after their visit just pushed the window out to far. I was very surprised that July 15th was open because I had seen on the web site to expect a month and a half wait for an appointment. As it was I put my money down on 6/23 for an appointment three weeks off. After I committed, my guest changed their plans to visit me the 4 days BEFORE I was to leave for New York. Getting everything ready for the visit was exhausting but I made the window and enjoyed my visit. Sunday night the 12th after delivering them to the airport, I finished packing my bag and got some sleep.
Monday the 13th I was up at 3am in order to be ready for the Super Shuttle ride to the airport. I made the flight with plenty of time to spare and the first leg was from Phoenix to Chicago. I enjoyed a pleasant conversation with a gentleman about 12 years older than me (I get motion sick if I read while in motion) and everything went fine until we approached the Chicago airport. The pilot cut way back on the engines was we were just kind of hanging out in the air. We touched down about 15 minutes late and the pilot did a hard stop and once he killed the speed, he stopped on the runway. After a few minutes he explained that they shut down the airport due to bad weather and everything was stopped up. Our gate was available but there were so many planes on the runway that he couldn't get to it. My next connection flight was a about an hour off and this was starting to worry me a bit. Over the next hour, the pilot shut down the engines and restarted them three times with much of the time the plane was powered off the APU. The problem with the APU is while it will keep all systems powered, it's not powerful enough to keep the Air-conditioning running at full blast so we had to close all the window shields to help control the temperature. Finally we were able to get off the plane so I located a flight board and discovered where my connecting flight was. I headed in the correct direction but my bladder was sending me a message I couldn't ignore. I saw a restroom and then the line of people waiting to use it. I stepped into line and looked to the other side of the walk way and saw my gate so one worry out of the way. In about 7 minutes I was back in business and found it would be about half an hour before my plane boarded. The flight to New York was short but bumpy because we flew over the storm that shut down the airport. After landing I took a cab to the hotel, checking in and then entering my room. My first thought was this place is a meat locker. I quickly found the temperature set to 68 degrees where as most people in the phoenix area keep a much warmer house temperature. For the comfort of the hotel staff, I only bumped it up to 78 degree but it still took most of the night for the room to warm up enough for me to be comfortable without blankets. Dinner was in the hotel and consisted of fresh salmon and apple pie. I hadn't had anything to eat for 24 hours and I figured I would need fuel. The people were very nice and the room comfortable but my pre surgical nerves were already kicking in so I didn't get much sleep.
Next morning I had a late breakfast knowing I wouldn't eat lunch. I killed time in the room waiting until I could make my 1pm call to find my surgical time. When I got through I found I needed to be at the hospital by 6am. The less time with my nerves the better. About 15 minutes before 2 I went to the lobby to wait for the cab I had reserved the night before. The cab driver was already waiting for me so we took off. He was a really great guy and has been driving for over 50 years and yes, he knew ALL about Dr Haben's work for us and others. On the trip to Dr Haben we discussed me and he was completely comfortable with trans. He didn't have another call so he said he would wait for me. As I didn't have anything else planed for the afternoon, I gave him permission to pick up another call if he had one and I would wait for his return.
Once in the office there was the paper work but it was small compared to what other doctor offices give give you. Upon meeting the doctor I found he is a very likable person and loves his work. Any questions I had were given a complete answer. The first possible problem was my mouth. My lower teeth are crowded in and not lined up. It should have been taken care of when I was young but I am to old now for teeth to be moved around in my mouth so I live with it. Finding my voice proved my voice was every bit as low as I stated and my have been even a bit lower. The real problem came when he looked at my vocal cords. One vocal cord is longer than the other. He called it Superior Laryngeal Nerve Paresis. He thought I developed it latter in life and it results in a hoarse or raspy voice. There is noting that can be done to correct it and because the affected vocal cord is the pitch limiting one, the degree he could help me might be limited.
I also explained to the doctors about my surgical jitters without explaining the source and told him in detail how my nerves were made far worst by studying my brothers death through malpractice.
Now I understand he is the doctor and knows far more about this than I do, but I have another theory. I have one brown eye and one blue eye. The blue is from my fathers side of the family and on the left side where as the brown eye is on the right side and from my mothers side of the family. Before puberty my father side I had a great voice and should consider singing. I suspect this was because my father had shallow Mob contact in Wisconsin and they wanted to to use him for an act in their night clubs. His voice was male but soft, much like Perry Como. After puberty my voice was destroyed and my father never made the suggestion again. My mothers father had a very deep voice and was among one of the lowest male voice I have ever heard. Because the longer cord is on the right, the same side as my mothers side of the family, I suspect this is something as the result of puberty and has always been with me. That combined with the fact there have been no other changes in my voice after puberty.
I was pretty disappointed at this point because I understood my voice will not be beautiful and may take much more work to get a usable speaking voice going. At this point I was only promised a 60hz push because the pitch would be determined off the longer cord but it was the best and only deal in town so I was a go for surgery.
My cab driver was waiting and the conversation centered around his family, and his interest in the arts and theater with my appointment results running around in the back of my mind. By dinner time my nerves were really kicking up so I decide what the blank, you only live once so for my last meal I would order the most expensive thing on the menu, the Filet mignon and apple pie again for dessert. To be honest, I think I should have had the salmon again. In any case, I made it back to my bedroom and figured I needed to get up at 4:30 to get cleaned up and ready in time. I was really tired after several days of little sleep so fully dressed I pulled the covers over me to warm up a little and drifted off for about half an hour only to be waken my by phone. It was my neighbor and she for the first time hear a noise from my irrigation system. I knew what she heard and it was normal. After getting her off the phone I took off my clothes and slid into bed laying there away until 2:30 when I finally fell asleep. I woke up before the alarm at 4:20 and started to get ready for surgery.
My guts were churning all the time I was getting ready but nothing came out so I went out for my ride. The ride to the hospital was short and I was about 3rd in line for processing. After a few question and paying up I was brought to the back where I was to change. I decided to use the toilet once more and everything including last nights dinner came out. One problem solve. After changing and securing all my valuables. I saw the anesthesiologist first. He only talked with me about my brothers death and said he had something special in his pocket for me and would be back after I saw Dr Haben. After he left, Dr. Haben came in and discussed a few things. After that I was laying there watching the curtains waiting for the anesthesiologist to return and then I was waking up from the surgery. Once my head cleared, I knew what happened. The special thing was a drug that prevents short term memories from becoming long term memories. I knew about the drug for several years but I never expected it to be used on me. They were kind enough to prevent one more painful memory from being added to my collection. I now need to write a letter thanking them for this bit of extra thoughtfulness.
I pretty quickly had my first round of coughs getting the accumulation from surgery out but it took a second round to get the remainder out. Neither were bad so I didn't damage anything. I didn't find any damaged teeth but my mouth felt like I went 10 round with a professional boxer and lost. My lower teeth hurt and I had sore spots all over the inside of my mouth. The pain started out at around a 4 or 5 but quickly dropped to 3 or below without pain medication. After I was delivered to a room, Dr Haben delivered my before and after pictures and explained that my neck was very stiff. This made it very hard for him to get the correct working angle and my mouth paid the price for this. The remainder of the day was spent making trips to the bathroom as I found water the best way to prevent coughing and after a few trips, the nurses decided it was time for me to get my walking uniform. Out of surgery you are given a yellow gown which means when on your feet, you must be in arms reach of help. Blue means you are safe to walk by yourself. I covered the entire floor earning my walking gown with flying colors.
I didn't receive any lunch and 3 times they ask me if I had any nausea. On the third time it flagged something in my mind but it wasn't ready to come out yet so I let it pass. My first food came for dinner and what a problem.
Fruit Cup
Wheat Dinner roll
Stuffed Chicken with gravy
While Rice
Baby carrots
Under normal conditions I would down this with no problems but my mouth was still in bad shape. The carrots where a bit raw, the wild Rice had to be chewed fine so it wouldn't stick and cause a cough and the chicken was rubbery. It took me 2.5 hour to get this simple dinner down. Everything had to be cut into small bites and I need to rest my mouth often.
Again, never try sleeping in a hospital because I totaled around 3 hours of sleep between bathroom breaks and all the racket going on.
The next morning not much happened until 7am when breakfast was served. At first I was fearful of the french toast but it was soft and went down pretty fast. It only took half an hour to finish the meal. They reviewed my drugs and got all the other paper work done. Next I used the bathroom sink to clean up for travel and time was so tight I didn't have time to put on a face or comb out my hair. I walked out the door and the cab wasn't there so I used a window to work on my hair while I waited.
In the final visit with Dr Haben, he took one more look at the surgery and reviewed the follow up information. We also talked a bit more about my cord problem and he told me he took out 40% of the cord. Depending on healing that should give be between a 60 and 80 hz bump in pitch depending on healing. I want the extra 20 hz so I am going to be very careful giving my body a crack at the higher number.
My final thought about Dr Haben is that you don't buy his time, you buy a voice from him. Any support you need in the future for your voice will come at no additional charge so you will never be left without support from him.
The doctor told me to take the first round of cough medicine before boarding the flight and checking in my baggage. BIG MISTAKE. Codeine hits me pretty hard and with the lack of sleep and center seating I needed to to everything I could to stay awake.
The trip home was not as eventful as I was seated between two women. The one to my right next to the window put a real scare in me. She started coughing and I though just what I need, a case of the flu. As the plane was packed, I didn't have any options. The one to my left I bribe with my snacks as I didn't want to risk coughing with them and we chatted all the way to Orlando. Yes, all of my responses were on paper. We reached Orlando half an hour early. I had about a 3 hour layover so I attempted to find some food. I wanted soup but couldn't find it. I ended up doing something I would normally never do and had a chicken Mc Nugget meal. It was tender enough that I could eat it but it wasn't the best dining experience I have ever had. While waiting to board the plane for the final leg, I saw the woman who sat next to me in a wheel chair and it hit me. The coughs she had were from MS and not the flu. I felt bad for thinking that on the other flight. On the last leg I was seated between two men. One was into movies and didn't talk at all. The other was using all the WIFI he could to do business. We chatted a bit but mostly for me it was working at staying awake.
The airport was a maze seeing this was the first time I used it for more than a transfer but I found my luggage and a ride home making it by 10pm. With the time zone changes my body said it was 1am or latter so I dropped everything, spent a few minutes soaking up water and went to bed getting about 7 hours of rest for the first time in days.
Friday was a slow start but I visited with my mom to let her know I was fine then went home for rest, and a bit of susan's. That was when it hit me. After the anesthesiologist gave me the medication, he started talking to me about my fear of doctors. I told him about my eye surgery at age 4 and all the fear and nausea I felt at the time. Being a responsible person he noted it in my charts and it may be the reason I didn't receive any lunch. As he was young and I didn't appear to tell him, he didn't understand my first two surgeries were with ether and I am one of the few who react very badly to it. All my surgeries after that were with injectable drugs that I never reacted to. I don't have a direct memory of our conversation but I do have a good idea of what it was about and what was said. I hope he finds it useful in helping other from developing surgical nerves like I have.
In closing there is a terrible irony about this whole thing. My mom didn't tell my sister about the surgery and I thought my mom did so I didn't say anything. I pounded off an email to her last nigh explaining it and she was interested in hearing my new voice. She may be in for a surprise.
When I was in college I had late classes and often would attempt to sleep in late. Far to often my sister would crank up her record player with her favorite artist and I came to despise that voice. Now it appears I may end up with a voice that resembles that of her favorite artist - Janis Joplin.
Hey Dena,
That's quite a story!
However, even with Dr Kim's patients, including myself, he has found vocal fold asymmetry and he corrects it. Was that the case with Dr Haben?
Quote from: iKate on July 18, 2015, 02:02:16 PM
Hey Dena,
That's quite a story!
However, even with Dr Kim's patients, including myself, he has found vocal fold asymmetry and he corrects it. Was that the case with Dr Haben?
One cord is longer that the other and paralyzed somewhat. Because the cord is a nerve there is not way to adjust the length or restore the connection. Because of this by best voice will be defined by the worst cord of the pair. It isn't a problem with the folds themselves. Dr Haben indicated this normally occurs in older people and is why old people sometime talk with a hoarse voice.
Ah I got it. I got confused with cords and folds
Congratulations on your journey :)
And Janice sounds sexy :)
hugs
Well I am still going to take a crack at his work in four more days!!!!!! Cant wait!
Quote from: Katie on July 18, 2015, 03:48:18 PM
Well I am still going to take a crack at his work in four more days!!!!!! Cant wait!
If I knew what I know now before I went, I would do the same. I hope your voice turns out far better than mine and I suspect it will. My advice you you is enjoy the people while you are there. I found them all to be very nice and made the stay that much more enjoyable. If you need anything just ask at the front desk and they will go out of their way to get it for you. Far better that the motel 6s that I would normally stay at. I now understand why when people have the money, they stay in places like that.
Its been just a few days. KIND of hard to determine how it will turn out in such a short period of time.
Quote from: Katie on July 18, 2015, 10:03:56 PM
Its been just a few days. KIND of hard to determine how it will turn out in such a short period of time.
That is correct. I am still in the no speak period and it will be 2.5 weeks before I can use it much. The doctor said for me it might take as much as 3 to 6 months before I know what I will sound like. I do know with unequal cord length it will not be a smooth rich tone and there will always be a trace of hoarseness to it. I heard a raspy sound in the male voice but I always though that was my ear incorrectly interpreting my recorded voice. I was wrong and there will be some of that in the new voice.
What I have learned so far about this problem is that in a normal voice the cords come together producing a regular stream of air pulses. These pulses are rich in harmonics that are filtered by the passages. In my voice, the cords product a few pulses of air and then there is a break in the pulse stream until the cords get synced up again. This happens so fast it can happen many times a second. The ear will know there is something wrong with the tone but won't really understand what it is.
I had only two options, stick with the male voice or go with the new one. The new one, even with the problems is still going to be better than the old one. It's just a little disappointing after all effort over years I have put into voices to discover a limit that can't be overcome.
Here are two resources that might help:
lena.kiev.ua/voice/
This resource shows that there might be some improvements possible:
zvuk.hamu.cz/vyzkum/dokumenty/Poster_navrh6_EDV_vM.pdf
hugs
Dena, if you end up sounding like Janis, you WILL be amongst the most beautiful results posted here.
I would be very happy if I could get to sound like her.
Hers was a sweet-ass voice. Unlike mine, which has a different hyphenation.
Quote from: Promethea on July 19, 2015, 11:15:15 AM
Dena, if you end up sounding like Janis, you WILL be amongst the most beautiful results posted here.
I would be very happy if I could get to sound like her.
Hers was a sweet-ass voice. Unlike mine, which has a different hyphenation.
I am starting to wonder just how many people really listened to her voice. This was what after many late nights at school I woke up to with only about 6 hours of sleep. If you listen carefully you will hear a very raspy voice. By the way, it will also be at a lower pitch though after surgery I might be able to hit those notes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qev-i9-VKlY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qev-i9-VKlY)
I listen to her voice quite often, I'm a big fan of hers. Of course I get the negative emotional response you have to it because of how your sister annoyed you with it, but not all beautiful voices are smooth. And there's a lot of dull smooth voices out there.
Anyway, if your voice used to be just a bit raspy, it's very very unlikely it will get raspier now, unless Dr. Haben screwed up real badly and you didn't follow your recovery plan and exercises.
Quote from: Promethea on July 19, 2015, 02:06:46 PM
I listen to her voice quite often, I'm a big fan of hers. Of course I get the negative emotional response you have to it because of how your sister annoyed you with it, but not all beautiful voices are smooth. And there's a lot of dull smooth voices out there.
Anyway, if your voice used to be just a bit raspy, it's very very unlikely it will get raspier now, unless Dr. Haben screwed up real badly and you didn't follow your recovery plan and exercises.
There are three things that go into Dr Haben's voices that we need to be aware of. The first is the suture he uses to hold the cords in place will dissolve over time but that should be as long as possible. I am currently on Prilosect even though I don't have acid reflux to prevent the suture from dissolving early. I was given a 30 day supply but the Doctor said if I had acid reflux, I would have been on it longer. The time the suture takes to dissolve series on the person but could be less than a month or two or more months. The doctor couldn't give a hard time on that. The next issue is swelling. To reduce that we receive steroids and I am in the tapering off stage which will last two more days. The doctor indicated this could extend from 3 to 6 months. From some of the surgeries I have had, I believe those numbers. Again it is all depending on the person as to how long the swelling will last. The last factor is learning/knowing how to use the voice. Many of us have had a good deal of voice training and that will apply to the new voice.
Dr Haben made one very clear promise to me. He said when I first start using the voice it will be far worst so I shouldn't freak out about it. Recovery will take time.
There are no exercises with this type of surgery as voice therapy if needed will target any problems you have. The thing I like about Dr Haben's work is the procedure is simple, clean and reduces the possibility of damage as much as possible. Your voice can be used in a week though lightly and the real risk is damage to the suture of which Dr Haben has had no failures so far.
Can you tell me the difference between vocal chords and vocal folds? I always assumed it's the same thing. And none of them is a nerve, just tissue and muscles... At least that is how I understood it...
Quote from: anjaq on July 19, 2015, 04:32:15 PM
Can you tell me the difference between vocal chords and vocal folds? I always assumed it's the same thing. And none of them is a nerve, just tissue and muscles... At least that is how I understood it...
I am not fully clear on this one myself so if it sounds wrong, it might be. I think the vocal folds are the inter edge of the cords and the cords are the main mass. If Dr kim alters the folds, he must be very careful not to go to far and alter the cord it's self or you end up with a problem much like mine. To better see what I am talking about, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_folds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_folds) and scan down a screen or two. You will see the folds in action producing the pulses of air that make our voice. I think the red in the image is part of the cord and that could be altered as long as the cut isn't deep enough to reach one of the nerves that run in that area.
In surgery I ask Dr Haben to explain my condition better in the follow up appointment and he did making it very clear that the cords are the nerves and my problem involves getting the signal through the cords. That statement turned my whole image of how the voice works upsides down.
By the way, I do owe you a bit of an apology because you were right about me having a possible voice problem. In the end it made little difference weather I discovered it in my home town or in New York.
Quote from: anjaq on July 19, 2015, 04:32:15 PM
Can you tell me the difference between vocal chords and vocal folds? I always assumed it's the same thing. And none of them is a nerve, just tissue and muscles... At least that is how I understood it...
They are the same thing. We used to call them "cords" because doctors thought they were more string like, but as medical technology improved and we were able to examine them and see their shape and way of movement "folds" was deemed to be a more accurate description. But old habits are hard to break and most still use both terms interchangeably (myself included).
See? Your voice will be alright, worrybutt!
By the way in the consult today doc said I had a vocal cord that didn't vibrate much either. Go figure.
Quote from: Katie on July 21, 2015, 03:03:31 PM
By the way in the consult today doc said I had a vocal cord that didn't vibrate much either. Go figure.
That sounds different that what i am dealing with but I still hope the doctor was able to give you a good option. All of a sudden we are learning how many imperfect voices there are out there.
I figured I should give a one week update. I have had a few minor slips with the voice and the sound that comes out is enough to discourage me from testing it until it has had a few more days for the swelling to go down. In the past I have tended to swell a bit more than normal and the steroids given in the hospital and after I was out should have reduced the swelling. Most of the pain was in my mouth from the surgical tool and that has pretty well calmed down. There is a little burning in my throat that I started feeling after the pain in my mouth went away but it's like I have a cold. I have used no pain medication and I have needed a few light coughs to clear the mucus that sometimes accumulates. I am keeping ice or cold water with me at all times to make sure I can stop a cough should one develop.
The biggest pain is carrying on a conversation where half of it is written. I purchased 4 good sized note books and I think before this is over I will go through two of them.
I got off my back side and load the surgical images up to photo bucket so you can have a look at them. You need to be careful in judging size because the camera tended to be off to the side when the pictures were shot. That is the working angle I can still feel in my mouth as Dr Haban had to work off to one side to get access. In the pictures the right cord is the longer of the two and the doctor tied off 40% of the cord. A bit more than 40% may heal together possibly giving me an extra 20Hz which is the other reason I am not in a real hurt to test the new voice. For your viewing displeasure I present the following pictures.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1010.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf224%2FDena_W%2Fv001.jpg&hash=9b21dd1eab5c8ebd52a3b227c3e2909f68523289)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1010.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf224%2FDena_W%2Fv002.jpg&hash=fecc6f9c337b8c424aac19c87c56e3bcb51fdf19)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1010.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf224%2FDena_W%2Fv003.jpg&hash=119b7d23e894ef7aef26d8130ac0e09c0d1f69b0)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1010.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf224%2FDena_W%2Fv004.jpg&hash=e2988fc3d82dbeae17fe071985de35dd8e3d0129)
Huston we have two problems - I like that movie
Yesterday was the first day I could use the voice and I couldn't. The pitch was way off and volume little more that a loud whisper. Thanks to a post Lunarain made about her Surgical Laryngitis I was prepared for it. A little bummed out about it but I was prepared. When I had my SRS I spent additional time in the hospital waiting for the swelling to go down so I could pee with out having a tube stuck in me to drain the bladder every 6 hours. I am guessing it may take another week or two in order to have something usable but that's only a guess so stay tuned for additional information as I figure it out. There isn't any reason to contact the doctor yet because there isn't anything he can do other than calm me down and I am not stressed out about this. I know the swelling will go down sooner or latter but I hope it's sooner. I do hope I have a voice by October 24, the day of my High School reunion but as I expected trouble, I took the july 15 surgical date so I would have plenty of time to get my voice back.
I did mention there was a second problem. We have a young guy who works part time assembling the hotrod that was my brother's project before he died. In his full time job, he had come up with the need for a security clearance and he put my mother down as a reference. That wasn't enough people so my mom suggested me as a possible reference completely forgetting my voice is out of order. I got the call Friday and let it go to the message box. My mom said we will worry about it Monday but from where I sit now, it isn't going to happen on Monday either. Why didn't this happen before I had my surgery?
Dena can I just say how much I appreciate the AWESOME medical photos. You have stimulated a professional interest in this work, in me and I would love to see any other photos that you might have (privately if that is your preference).
Those were all the photos I was given. I scanned them at a much higher resolution but they were far to big to fit on the page so I reduced them before posting them. The size is about .5 mb an image so I can ship them by email if I have an email address.
I don't know if you have looked at it but the reason I picked Dr Haben is because of his detailed web page. With it I knew exactly what to expect. I didn't have the feeling with Dr. Kim. You will find the web page here
http://www.professionalvoice.org/feminization.aspx (http://www.professionalvoice.org/feminization.aspx)
Quote from: Dena on July 25, 2015, 05:20:00 PM
I don't know if you have looked at it but the reason I picked Dr Haben is because of his detailed web page. With it I knew exactly what to expect. I didn't have the feeling with Dr. Kim. You will find the web page here
http://www.professionalvoice.org/feminization.aspx (http://www.professionalvoice.org/feminization.aspx)
His website is indeed very much detailed, however as a patient of Dr Kim, I don't think it is really accurate about him to say that their website is not detailed. The website does have details and pictures here. (http://www.yesonvc.net/disease/feminization_surgery.asp) Also, when I emailed Jessie she explained everything to me and gave me a lot of information. I had to ask about a number of things, namely my low CBC results, diabetes and other stuff, which I had also asked of Dr Haben by the way (and he did answer them to my satisfaction).
Either way I don't think you can go wrong with either surgeon and if you need a trach shave and/or CTA all in one package then Dr Haben may be a better choice. Dr Kim recommends against the trach shave and they used to do it at one time but I believe they stopped doing it. Thankfully my apple is not at all visible and is higher up so I did not need the trach shave.
The biggest stumbling block with Yeson I see is going to Korea and spending 9-10 days there. But I kind of looked forward to that. I had a great time and played tourist extensively. The only bad experience I had was with airport security roughing me up but I would go back, just to visit. However Dr Haben is just a short drive away for me, relatively speaking, so there is that.
Anyway I think it's a great thing we have these choices now. I know people who had voice surgery years ago and their voice is either a fake sounding falsetto or completely damaged beyond repair and all they can manage is a very breathy forced voice.
In the end, selecting a doctor is a personal personal decision and I was more comfortable with Dr Haben. Dr Kim is also doing some impressive work and has turned out good voices as well. We each made our own decision and this very well may be a case of no right and no wrong. I really don't know enough to comment on Dr Kim as I didn't call the office and I have tried not to say anything about Dr Kim other than I didn't have the information on him that I had on Dr Haben. Dr Kim seems to be doing something different with voices in altering the folds. That is something Dr Haven isn't routinely doing but Dr Haben is a very skilled surgeon and sees people for many reasons other than Feminization. He is well known around town and the woman seated next to me knew the name from my hospital arm band(airline restrictions, didn't have anything to cut the @$%$#% thing off).
It's hard to compare two doctors with so little information so as I said, it is a personal decision.
When I was there at Yeson, there were other patients who were there for other stuff, as in male patients who were obviously not there for feminization. Dr Kim also does a fair amount of medical charity work with kids.
I think he is definitely doing something different. The "AAC" portion of VFS-AAC is probably what makes the difference in his procedure. In an old CNN interview it was mentioned that he developed this procedure to treat cis women who had androphonia as a side effect of anemia (which I also suffer from).
Either way, yes, it is a personal choice. I did choose Dr Kim because of more published examples of good results, which is what really mattered to me, and is something Dr Haben explained why he would not provide. I did not find that explanation very comforting, but I can see his point of view.
In the end, we both will likely end up with good voices, no matter who we went to. :)
Today is two weeks after surgery. At this point light usage is permitted but damage is still possible so usage has to be watched carefully. When I first tested the voice on Friday, I thought I was in big trouble because the cords wouldn't vibrate at all and the voice was like a loud whisper. My usage monday through today have changed my opinion because the swelling has gone down enough that the cords are now vibrating. I now sound like a woman with a very bad head cold and the voice is all over the place. I am between 150hz and 210hz with limited control on pitch. The volume is above a whisper but no were near normal. I can get through a day pretty much without using the voice so at this point I giving it more time to heal. When I visit, I use paper and pen because I will be doing far more talking that would be good for the voice. I think I had more swelling that normal and may be a week or more behind the curve. Next Monday most of the restriction come off the voice and I will be allowed to use it more. The question is will it be clear enough that I want to use it more .
Quote from: Dena on July 29, 2015, 10:40:47 PM
Today is two weeks after surgery. At this point light usage is permitted but damage is still possible so usage has to be watched carefully. When I first tested the voice on Friday, I thought I was in big trouble because the cords wouldn't vibrate at all and the voice was like a loud whisper. My usage monday through today have changed my opinion because the swelling has gone down enough that the cords are now vibrating. I now sound like a woman with a very bad head cold and the voice is all over the place. I am between 150hz and 210hz with limited control on pitch. The volume is above a whisper but no were near normal. I can get through a day pretty much without using the voice so at this point I don't giving it more time to heal. When I visit, I use paper and pen because I will be doing far more talking that would be good for the voice. I think I had more swelling that normal and may be a week or more behind the curve. Next Monday most of the restriction come off the voice and I will be allowed to use it more. The question is will it be clear enough that I want to use it more .
I had the same experience with my recovery. I said a few words before the rest period was over and the pitch was all over the place.
Also I could feel an attempt to use the lower pitches and then something like my brain was searching for the ones that would work.
Now I can't use the lower pitches even if I tried. I just sound like a bad imitation of a man by a woman, and my brain doesn't even try the lower ones anymore.
I am at the three week point and as of Monday, I have some of the volume back and can speak on the phone. The down side is if I talk very much, the voice will give out and I am back to a whisper. Some of the control has come back to the voice and I am comfortably able to work with the voice over 200hz. This was the upper region of the falsetto voice but now I can comfortably reach it with the mouth voice. Just for kicks, I dropped into my chest voice and found my lower end of 80hz is now 140hz which is just above where my mouth voice was. I can't wait for more of the swelling to go down so I can see where this voice is going to settle down. As I still have a week of Prilosec left, I am pretty sure the sutures are still in place. As the swelling continues to go down and the numbness leaves there is a small burning sensation but it's no where near bad enough to take pain medication. The voice is changing so fast that there isn't any point in posting a voice sample at this time.
Quote from: iKate on July 30, 2015, 03:00:09 PM
Now I can't use the lower pitches even if I tried. I just sound like a bad imitation of a man by a woman, and my brain doesn't even try the lower ones anymore.
Thats fascinating - and must be really a cool experience :)
I funnily have two options when I lower pitch - I can try to sound male and then it usually sounds like a woman faking a male voice - or I can use my voice in a low pitch but just sound low pitched female. I have learned the latter in the past years as I had not choice, so now maybe its a problem, because if I drop in pitch it will not sound fake and my brainw ill not learn that I should stop doing this silly thing :P - but instead it will just sound ok and my brain thinks "ah well, thats fine then"... but then its not that problematic either - it will not sound male in any case and even "low pitch" is still usually in the lower female range, which is perfectly ok for Germany with its 20 Hz lower female average speaking pitch ;)
Quote from: anjaq on August 07, 2015, 03:55:19 AM
Thats fascinating - and must be really a cool experience :)
I funnily have two options when I lower pitch - I can try to sound male and then it usually sounds like a woman faking a male voice - or I can use my voice in a low pitch but just sound low pitched female. I have learned the latter in the past years as I had not choice, so now maybe its a problem, because if I drop in pitch it will not sound fake and my brainw ill not learn that I should stop doing this silly thing :P - but instead it will just sound ok and my brain thinks "ah well, thats fine then"... but then its not that problematic either - it will not sound male in any case and even "low pitch" is still usually in the lower female range, which is perfectly ok for Germany with its 20 Hz lower female average speaking pitch ;)
J-Mi (lovelyjmi) had that same issue when she got her VFS. She even made a video about it.
I remember J-Mi making a video about imitating a boy voice by going low in pitch, but her regular speaking pitch was always higher than that. Maybe I missed that video where she uses a low pitch and a feminine resonance? I had the impression unless she really wanted to go low in pitch and do a boy anime voice, her pitch was rather very high - above what Yeson predicts as average increase. If I missed a video, can you point me to it?
Quote from: anjaq on August 09, 2015, 03:08:55 AM
I remember J-Mi making a video about imitating a boy voice by going low in pitch, but her regular speaking pitch was always higher than that. Maybe I missed that video where she uses a low pitch and a feminine resonance? I had the impression unless she really wanted to go low in pitch and do a boy anime voice, her pitch was rather very high - above what Yeson predicts as average increase. If I missed a video, can you point me to it?
I can't because she deleted the videos she posted here.
It's Friday and I am two days late posting an update on the surgery. Not much to report yet because the voice starts out good and then after a few minutes of conversation, I lose flexibility and pitch. I can continue the conversation at reasonable volume but it's not really a nice sound voice once it goes down hill. The major improvement is recovery time is much faster. Now an hour or two will bring the voice back enough that can get the pitch back up again. The good thing is the sweet spot for the voice seems to have moved up a bit to just over 200hz. This is a major change because I could hit that with the falsetto voice but that was near the upper limit and I couldn't use it for normal speech, Now it appears I will be able to comfortably use that area of the voice. Maybe next week I will have more to report. One of the last questions I ask Dr Haben was how will I know when the voice is healed. Dr Haben's reply keeps echoing in my head "When your voice goes from very bad to very good". Well my voice isn't so bad any more but it is still a ways from very good.
For me with Dr Kim's procedure I did have the point where it went from very bad to very good. That happened almost exactly at 1 month. I'm above 200Hz on average now and with natural prosody I find myself between 200-270Hz varying like a see-saw.
But you got CTA right? So you did have a change in how your muscles tighten to even go to falsetto?
I still am not sure about the CTA and falsetto/head voice. Theoretically there should be no more break anymore after this, because one of the two muscles that cause that break is basically disabled by it and the break supposedly comes from the interaction of the two.
For me the voice improved dramatically between week 4 and 6 but then after that I got ups and downs all the time. Good voice days, bad voice days, it never has gotten really worse on average though, except at about 3.5 months when the Botox stopped working, my voice took a dip in quality. After that it is now (with ups and downs) steadily improving. Pitch did not change much since the 6 week point, after the Botox stopped. I think I lost some quality that I have not regained yet or maybe am just now at the 6 month point about to regain. So these things will have to do with the vocal tremor that is now active again :(. But volume and quality definitely have improved since that 3.5 month point and keep doing so. I guess it will take the full 12 months to really recover though.
I do realize the good/bad days now. My voice is clear as a bell now though and I've never not been outed because of it. But there are some days I notice my pitch lower and some higher. Maybe it's just mental or maybe it's real. I don't obsessively measure it.
No, I had he minimally invasive surgery which is pretty much like your surgery. I needed 40% of the cord tied which I think is 40% of the longer cord. The doctor said he could do what I needed without the triple, I was't happy about getting my neck cut again and I wanted to retain the flexibility in the voice. My male voice was so restricted I didn't want to place any limits on the post surgical voice. The small amount of testing I have done indicates this was wise because I have far more range than before. Post surgically I use the mouth voice to put me in the proper range. The chest voce takes me down to around 140hz to 150hz which is far to low. As far as the falsetto, I don't know where that voice is yet. I don't think I have entered it but my voice has gone over 500hz which indicates the cross over between the mouth and the falsetto may be very easy to make. There are still rough spots in the voice where I may be changing voices or they could be due to needing more healing time
I fully expected that I might need a little longer to reach the final voice because for some reason it takes longer for the swelling after an injury or surgery to go down.
Quote from: anjaq on August 15, 2015, 05:35:13 AM
I still am not sure about the CTA and falsetto/head voice. Theoretically there should be no more break anymore after this, because one of the two muscles that cause that break is basically disabled by it and the break supposedly comes from the interaction of the two.
The whole CTA surgery is a bit confusing. My take on it is you get a bit higher range out of it but you lose a good deal in flexibility. You may lose the breaks but you no longer have the range in the voice to use it for singing. If you are only interested in the speaking voice and you have a very low/smokers voice to start out with, it may be your only option. I may never sing but I do like to keep the options open so I was going with the doctors judgement on this. If he told me CTA was my only option, I had the plastic ready to run through the machine. So far, I think avoiding CTA was a good thing for me.
makes sense about the CTA. If you loose one of the two pitch controlling muscles, of course the vocal range is limited a good deal by that. Maybe you can trainthe remaining muscle to take over a lot of that, but it probably is hard. I wonder what happens to the voice break though...
I am really puzzled over this because of the following
From the Doctors Web site
QuoteThe vocal cords are stretched and thinned by making a small incision in a skin crease in your neck and tightening the cartilages that now allow you to go from a regular to a falsetto voice. A "CTA" mimics contraction of the "singer's muscles", the crico-thyroids. When contracted the cricothyroids raise the pitch the way you could now if you engage your falsetto or "mixed" voice.
Then I did a little search and found this http://tips.how2improvesinging.com/mixed-voice/ (http://tips.how2improvesinging.com/mixed-voice/)
The doctor seem to be calling the mouth voice and the falsetto voice a mixed voice but the link indicates it's between the chest and mouth voice. Maybe I should have asked a few more questions about this but I wasn't interested in it and I hadn't though about this aspect of it when I saw him. Otherwise I would have more information on it than this.
QuoteA "CTA" mimics contraction of the "singer's muscles", the crico-thyroids. When contracted the cricothyroids raise the pitch the way you could now if you engage your falsetto or "mixed" voice.
Yes - so basically the CTA will put you permanently in a mixed (head) voice or falsetto voice and you dont have a chest voice anymore, so you have no voice break anymore between chest voice and head voice - but you loose pitch range because it mimics the contraction of one of the two pitch regulating muscles and basically tightens that muscle permanently. So basically all it does is to take away the effort it takes to raise pitch by just permanently setting that muscle on "full contraction" with wires. The voice sounds the same as before when you make the effort to speak higher. I dont think this is desireable.
You then only have your vocalis muscle to control pitch and not your cricothyroid mucle, so you loose the ability to sing, too.
Quote from: anjaq on August 15, 2015, 11:36:49 AM
Yes - so basically the CTA will put you permanently in a mixed (head) voice or falsetto voice and you dont have a chest voice anymore, so you have no voice break anymore between chest voice and head voice - but you loose pitch range because it mimics the contraction of one of the two pitch regulating muscles and basically tightens that muscle permanently. So basically all it does is to take away the effort it takes to raise pitch by just permanently setting that muscle on "full contraction" with wires. The voice sounds the same as before when you make the effort to speak higher. I dont think this is desireable.
You then only have your vocalis muscle to control pitch and not your cricothyroid mucle, so you loose the ability to sing, too.
If you are only worried about your speaking voice or your voice is very low or you have problems keeping your voice in the proper range, then CTA is a consideration. If you don't fall into one or more of the above groups, I would consider CTA a disadvantage but it really is a personal decision.
Yeah - well if you are really having an extremely deep voice maybe. Surgeons in Germany recommend it more often because it causes less issues with healing and is not a problem later on when it comes to intubations - with glottoplasty, it is probably adviseable to mention this to the anaesthesist at any further surgery to not endanger the suture. Still, for me it was not an option. I may not sing pretty, but I want to be able to try - and I am proud of having a big vocal range, even if I have lost some, I like to still be able to cross about 3 octaves with my voice...
Quote from: anjaq on August 15, 2015, 03:01:54 PM
Yeah - well if you are really having an extremely deep voice maybe. Surgeons in Germany recommend it more often because it causes less issues with healing and is not a problem later on when it comes to intubations - with glottoplasty, it is probably adviseable to mention this to the anaesthesist at any further surgery to not endanger the suture. Still, for me it was not an option. I may not sing pretty, but I want to be able to try - and I am proud of having a big vocal range, even if I have lost some, I like to still be able to cross about 3 octaves with my voice...
I can't speak with much authority, not knowing anyone personally who has undergone a CTA, but my thoughts are that it would change the voice in the way you describe. If the CT muscles are permanently locked in then your head voice muscles would always be engaged or so it seems. This means you can use your chest voice normally, but the head voice qualities would also be active, resulting in a mixed voice for your normal range that turns into head voice whenever you run out of room and your chest voice has to drop off. One would think that the difference in quality would be much less jarring (less cracking at the end of your chest range) since the head voice tones were still semi-present even in the lower and mid range notes. This is all hypothetical however and it would be interesting to hear what Dr. Haben or other surgeons who perform a CTA think. Again, speaking hypothetically, but it is quite possible that the reason Dr. Haben's CTA results are so remarkable is because he combines them with a glottoplasty, which raises the chest voice into the range where it is better suited to blending with head and creates a sort of permanent mix.
Regarding mixed voice in general, it's a term that gets thrown around almost exclusively to singing technique. Basically, everyone has a degree of overlap between their head and chest voices where you can sing or speak the same pitch using either set of muscles/registers. It is possible to engage both sets of muscles simultaneously with practice (it's very difficult) and smooth out the break to avoid cracking or the yodel effect. It's what most pop artists do when they are belting high notes. The ones who have really mastered it can even vary the amount of each register to get the desired sound for a particular part of a song. If they need it to be very loud and powerful, they might do something like 70% chest and 30% head. If it needs to be more delicate but still project, they might do the opposite and so on and so forth.
There is a person on this site who underwent the CTA procedure with Dr Haben about 2 months ago but I don't know if her voice is to the point were she can judge the results. She isn't a regular here but I will have to watch her thread to see if she post an update. One of the warnings about CTA is that it takes longer for the voice to be comfortable to use and that could be as much as a month off for her.
Edit: Here is the post where she discusses it. https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,188034.msg1722453.html#msg1722453 (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,188034.msg1722453.html#msg1722453)
Quote from: Dena on August 16, 2015, 12:43:47 AM
There is a person on this site who underwent the CTA procedure with Dr Haben about 2 months ago but I don't know if her voice is to the point were she can judge the results. She isn't a regular here but I will have to watch her thread to see if she post an update.
Well if you are interested you might make a posting in her thread. Often members are notified if there is a new posting. It can be chosen in the settings.
Five weeks and and the voice was starting to sound good and I could speak with it for a while and then last week end happened. Nothing bad, I just spent both days around the house not speaking to anybody and thinking it might be about time I put up my first voice sample. Monday morning I crawled out of bed, went to work, opened my mouth and I lost my voice again. I think my body is in the process of getting rid of the sutures as the voice is a bit sore when I try to use it. That was something nobody warned me about so I am going to watch it and if it doesn't start getting better soon, I will be firing off an email to Dr Haben. I really didn't want permanent sutures but I am starting to see that there could be an advantage to using them depending on how long my voice remain mess up cleaning up the sutures.
The 30 day supply of Prilosec that was to prevent stomach acid from dissolving the sutures ran out last week so I guess Dr Haben was fine with the fact the suture can come out after a month. He did say if I had acid reflux that I would have been given more Prilosec but I suspect that was to keep the stomach acid off the still healing vocal cords and not to protect the suture.
Sorry I don't have have a voice sample, I know I owe everybody one but I sound really bad, almost as bad as three weeks after surgery.
IMHO... Janis Joplin had quite a unique sounding voice and it was undeniably female in its quality, however a few less bottles of Jacks and a few less cigs might have done it the world of good, but hey it worked for her ...maybe even a new career for you? Have you ever seen yourself in lights? Stranger things have happened...Just playing around :) ;) I hope it works out great and you get a voice you are happy with.
Sarah T
Well I don't drink because I never acquired a taste for it and I have allergies to tobacco smoke so I fear I am destine to live my life away from the bright light. In addition, all thoughts of singing left my poor little head when my voice changed and I turned into a bull frog. If this voice works out, my ear sure isn't trained to sing so I may emit sound that send people running. While there is good possibility I might not be able to sing, I do question if some of the modern artist can.
Before my voice went sour agin, I learned enough about it that the surgery already has far exceeded what I expected it to deliver. I thought it would just shove my range up a bit and I would still be working in a confined part of my range. Instead, it has opened up the entire female range and more. I have lived many years with such a confined area of my voice and now have the tool I have always been looking for to use all I have learned over the years. It may not be the perfect voice but it will still be far better than what I had.
I figure I better put up a 6 week update. I think I am a card carrying member of the voice of the day club. The sore throat I had in week 5 cleared up and I could speak for a few minutes and then my voice would enter the I have a cold mode where it would flatten out. I could still speak with it but pitch was limited and tonal quality was pretty sad. Yesterday, Saturday I had a head ache so I stayed home and caught up on my sleeping. Today, Sunday the I used the voice as I went over to my mom's house for cards and food. The voice has sort of returned and isn't fading but now it sounds like I need to clear my throat but there is nothing to clear. I need to play with it more but either the healing is uneven or I am dealing with the issue of different length vocal cords. When I went through puberty I spent a long time getting the male voice down and the change in cord configuration may mean I need to learn how the different cord length functions in the female range. I am beginning to think it might almost be worth it to have a doctor take a peek at the surgery to see what's going on in there. I have heard people with great sounding voices at 6 weeks and mine isn't sounding the same from day to day. I really can't say I wasn't warned on this because Dr Haben indicated it might take longer for me to get my voice back.
Dena, I hope you continue to recover well and continue to see improvement. I read thru this thread and wanted to mention that I posted an example of what is "chest" voice for me now and what is falsetto for me now. I am by no means a singer, so this is me attempting these things. I don't know if they are technically what I am describing them as. I hope it's helpful to some of the earlier discussion around the CTA.
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,188034.msg1739389.html#msg1739389
Wow I guess I am pretty lucky here. I sing, been singin since I was a kid in church and school and garage bands. I am alto c-4, but I can push. higher is easy if i speak from the mouth softly. It's more proper pitch to sound feminine. If you put emotion in it is always gonna drop. I just have to remember, like acting ya know your part. I ain't no freddy mercury, but I can pull off woman without even tryin. Sorry you all have gone thru so much pain. I am a poor desert girl who can't even afford ffs< and I make decent money too! @ divorces 2 kids my credits a rap. I still got the house n the crappy truck an were doing allright 8) :-*
It has been 9 1/2 weeks and my voice is still all over the place. The problem seems to be it is still weak and if I attempt to use anywhere near normal volume, the voice fails like it would if you yell to loud. There is still a little soreness so I think there is some healing going on and I may be well past 3 months before I can use the voice at regular volume and maintain the quality. The voice may sound rough and unpolished because it won't last long enough for me to practice with. Just a minute or two is enough chop the high end of the voice off pushing me into the lower range. I can use it to communicate with and it's higher than the falsetto but it's probably not passable when it gets like that. I am providing two samples. The first was where a while back and it's my pre surgical trained voice. I don't have a sample of my male voice but it was much lower. The second sample was taken yesterday morning and should be a bit over 200Hz. If your ears are sharp, you will hear the voice start to fail about half way through the recording. Also the recording is at the sweet spot where it projects well. My relaxed voice is in the 180-190 Hz range. To produce this voice, I still have to use the trained voice method and if I return to the chest voice I am around 130-140 Hz. I am not really upset that I still have to use a trained voice as I expected it even before I put the deposit down. My old voice was so low I need to use the combination of both trained and surgery to reach the lower feminine range and be comfortable when I use it. The total frequency gain would be about 120-130 Hz off my old chest voice. Now the good side of it is I can work the range of 160Hz to almost 400Hz without entering the falsetto. I expected my voice just to be moved up and it was. I didn't expect to have such a large range. Working that range is just something I tested and because of the breaking up of the voice I can't slide through the entire range, but I think I will be able to.
Old trained
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1pcm9z3Gk9J
Current
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1z8x2Mh9d4e
Quote from: Dena on September 21, 2015, 04:21:45 PM
It has been 9 1/2 weeks and my voice is still all over the place. The problem seems to be it is still weak and if I attempt to use anywhere near normal volume, the voice fails like it would if you yell to loud. There is still a little soreness so I think there is some healing going on and I may be well past 3 months before I can use the voice at regular volume and maintain the quality. The voice may sound rough and unpolished because it won't last long enough for me to practice with. Just a minute or two is enough chop the high end of the voice off pushing me into the lower range. I can use it to communicate with and it's higher than the falsetto but it's probably not passable when it gets like that. I am providing two samples. The first was where a while back and it's my pre surgical trained voice. I don't have a sample of my male voice but it was much lower. The second sample was taken yesterday morning and should be a bit over 200Hz. If your ears are sharp, you will hear the voice start to fail about half way through the recording. Also the recording is at the sweet spot where it projects well. My relaxed voice is in the 180-190 Hz range. To produce this voice, I still have to use the trained voice method and if I return to the chest voice I am around 130-140 Hz. I am not really upset that I still have to use a trained voice as I expected it even before I put the deposit down. My old voice was so low I need to use the combination of both trained and surgery to reach the lower feminine range and be comfortable when I use it. The total frequency gain would be about 120-130 Hz off my old chest voice. Now the good side of it is I can work the range of 160Hz to almost 400Hz without entering the falsetto. I expected my voice just to be moved up and it was. I didn't expect to have such a large range. Working that range is just something I tested and because of the breaking up of the voice I can't slide through the entire range, but I think I will be able to.
Old trained
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1pcm9z3Gk9J
Current
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1z8x2Mh9d4e
Thanks for sharing and glad to hear your strength is coming back.
Hey Dena!
Thank you for sharing that voice sample, I can already hear the changes! :) I guess at this point, all the rest of the feminine voice will manifest around the 6 month mark. Glad you're recovering--and again thanks for putting this up, it is reassuring that you're making progress.
A question for you: with the surgery you received, how do you feel about your singing voice at this point? By all means, I am not a singer myself, I just enjoy doing it from time to time (chiefly for fun) and wonder how a surgery like this has its effects on those who undergo the procedure.
Audree
I stopped singing at puberty because my ranges was restricted and low. Voice therapy was limited as to what they could do with my voice as you can hear from the old trained voice. I thought the surgery would move my voice up a bit but it greatly extended the range. The old trained voice ranged from 130 to 196 Hz and the new trained voice ranges from around 170 to nearly 400 Hz so far. I didn't expect that to happen and nobody ever talked about it. An additional feature is with the old voice, the higher pitches were hard to hit. The new voice, most of the range is easy to access. For a singing voice the triple is best avoided and if you just do VFS, then Dr Kim or Dr Haben are both able to do the job. Both surgeries are pretty much the same as far as results, but with a voice as low as yours, you should questions the doctors as far as how much tie they will offer. You should also get some speech therapy to learn how to control you voice because I think you will need to use a trained voice combined with the surgery. The difference between the two surgeries is Dr Kim uses a micro scalpel and permeate sutures where as Dr Haben uses laser and sutures that dissolve. You will get the basic idea of the procedure form the link
http://www.professionalvoice.org/feminization.aspx
Yes, I think I might just get the CTA--on the website it says it restricts the lower octaves--however passing is more important to me. Also... I'm a terrible singer anyhow, so I don't stand to lose an amazing singing voice.
I think I may just be joining Team Haben! Thanks for the insights, Dena :)
I was a terrible singer because my old voice would only handle the very low parts and it's range was so limited. The new voice opens up some interesting possibilities. I figured that the small gain CTA would give me wasn't worth restricting my future options. You should also consider to speech therapy now in order to learn more about your voice. If you are correct about how low it is, you will need to use the trained voice like I do and it will help Dr Haben get a correct reading before the surgery. The trained voice is something that takes some time to become comfortable with.
Feel free to ask anymore questions you might have as I am just passing along knowledge given to me by others and welcome to team Haben.
i am still puzzled at how low your voice must have been to still need a trained pitch elevated voice post op. I mean it must have been as low as the most low bass voices that exist - Barry White or something like that ;)
But one thing should be considered always before surgery: Get a clear picture of where your voice realistically is. Some people claimed they have super low voices but the readings showed they are just in the average "male range" or even at the upper end of that - but of course, a woman will feel that it is super low - however in light of these surgeries and of voice training one had to work with objective numbers and the perception of others more than with ones own impression. So always let someone check up your voice before planning surgery
I never understood how low my voice was ether until I started working with it. In addition there was something different about it where it had a very confined range. Training my voce only gave me about a 40 Hz improvement. I never measured my male voice as I have forgot how to use it but I did get a pitch check for the lower usable pitch.
Lowest usable note 80Hz, male speaking voice was above that.
Mouth voice 130-196Hz
Falsetto voice 155-237Hz
Whistler voice 250-490Hz
That is my voice before surgery. There is no doubt about it. When they were passing out voices I was standing in the wrong line. I think I got this voice from my mothers father as he had one of the lowest voices I have heard. Post surgical my chest voice is around where my mouth voice used to be so while not great, I have something that is usable and far better than what I had before. I am happy your voices turned out so well, just a little disappointed that my options were so limited. Dr Haben did all that was possible with what he had to work with.
Back when I was in speech therapy, I worked with magnetic tape and I don't know if I ever recorded a before voice but I may have to see if I have one I didn't record over.
Edit I didn't remember who Barry White was so I listened to him sing. I think my voice was lower than that.
Quote from: Dena on September 25, 2015, 02:54:45 PM
Lowest usable note 80Hz, male speaking voice was above that.
Mouth voice 130-196Hz
Thats about the same stats that I had before the VFS actually! My lowest possible was 82 Hz and my by then regular voice was my mouth voice which Dr Kim measured to be 134 Hz.
I tried to do a male voice recording once and I believe it came close, the average frequency on it was 110 Hz.
This is low - very low, basically a bass or bass-baritone voice, but it is not extreme. So I would imagine that your voice is in that sense similar to mine, maybe a 100-110 Hz chest voice, (male range is 100-150 Hz, so its really the lower end, but not outside of it).
post op, I guess my normal (mouth) voice is about 180 Hz now - sometimes 175, sometimes 195 on average. I believe chest voice is rather broken - but I believe if I go to 130-150 Hz I still can do some chest voice and if I go down to 115 Hz there is probably chest resonance involved some more - but I kind of tried to unlearn doing chest resonance such a long time ago that I dont think I can do it properly and rather not do it, not to wake sleeping dogs...
QuoteBack when I was in speech therapy, I worked with magnetic tape and I don't know if I ever recorded a before voice but I may have to see if I have one I didn't record over.
That would be cool. I also have no recordings of a "male voice" of mine. I remember it was one of the lowest in school - comparing it to boys... To me this kind of justifies me getting the surgery since with it I am now at least in an alto female range, which is still low, but ok...
With voice therapy however, I managed to get a pretty great pitch range, so at least that was not an issue in my case, more a mental one of using the range I was able to access .
When I started voice therapy, my really bad mouth voice sounded incredibly high. One of the ways I fooled myself into thinking I had a passable voice all those years. If I had my grandfathers voice, it would have been 90 to 100 Hz because my grand fathers had one of the deepest male voices I have ever heard. My fathers voice what much higher, possibly in the 120-140hz range. My brothers voice was higher than my fathers voice and I sometimes suspected my brother wasn't speaking with a chest voice.
I suspect my voice was so different it is going to violate some of the rules of voice surgery because the last few days the pitch seems to be coming up. I am feeling a bit more pain and I thing the numbness is leaving the cords making it possible for the nerves to complain. Dr Haben said I would get 60Hz and might get 80Hz. Be nice if I got a little bit more :angel:
I have hit the 3 month mark and the @$%$#@% iPhone software broke so I couldn't email or text my voice sample off the thing. Finally found a way so before Dr Haben gets it, you get a shot at The Rainbow passage. The voice isn't breaking up as fast or bad but it is still breaking up as I use it. Healing has become noticeable in the last couple of weeks and it is getting better. I expected healing would be slower so I can't say I wasn't warned. My relaxed voice is a bit above 190 Hz and the sweet spot voice is 200 to 210. The sample is the sweet spot voice as that would be the voice I would use in public. The voice was fully rested at the start and goes down hill as the passage progresses.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s12MbLASk0nM
Dena, sounds quite good and clear to me. Around what time did the raspiness and breathiness go away for you?
I'm hearing some major improvements, Dena. Good for you!
In the recording the voice was going down hill as I was speaking. You may not have heard it but I could sure feel it and I heard it through bone conduction. It's like your voice feels if you yell to much and then try to speak normally. It's a little like your voice needs to be cleared but there is nothing to clear. As for breathiness, my cords fit together pretty well and the voice was never breathy. Also the voice will hold up much better if I turn the volume way down which isn't an option for me in day to day life. A bit to much noise and far to many hearing aids in my life. I can get by with normal conversation volume levels but I keep water handy, try not to talk to much and the voice quality isn't the best yet. I suspect Dr Haben is going to want another sample at 6 months as I also haven't been able to work with the voice much. I can only hit the higher notes when the voice is fresh and at lower volume. You just can't get used to a new voice when you get less than a minute of practice every few hours.