Voice Update: I tried saying a word today and I actually heard sound this time! It was super quiet and not easy to tell, but it definitely sounded higher! I'm so excited to hear the progression over the next few weeks. This is going to be fun!

Grats Sarah! I can imagine you are just a ball of excitement right now!

I can't believe the changes in mine either...we have just returned from the beach and I was saying things in my car...it wasn't my old voice, not at all.  Last night I spoke to a male friend on the phone and he was excitedly telling me that I didn't sound the same anymore, that my voice sounded softer.

Loving this journey

That's great Kiwi! Your voice does sound really soft. And that is one of the things they address.

The main difference I noticed between Yeson and say Dr Thomas for example was the voice quality. Absolutely no hoarseness coming out of Yeson. It's a huge bonus that voice quality gets softer. It only gets better over time, too, as your vocal cords strengthen and adjust to their new shape.

So I said my few words for today. And here they are:

https://soundcloud.com/theartoflogic/just-a-few-words/s-h1sco

To me it definitely sounds higher, but let me know what you guys think. I tried putting it into Praat but interestingly the actual areas with sound don't have a measurement so I couldn't tell what the frequency was. That may be because it's so low. Obviously It's still really hoarse and low and still hard for me to get sound out, but I think it's coming along nicely so far. Also, as far as I can tell this was without any effort with regard to trying to raise my pitch or anything. It's a little hard to tell since I have to focus so much on just getting sound to come out.

The pitch definitely sounds higher! And while it is very quiet and as you said a bit hoarse it sounds very feminine.

You will very quickly notice the strength coming back to your voice - when I was at  your stage I would say I was about 3 weeks or so from having a lot of my strength come back.

Keep us updated!!

Sounds exactly like mine did when I first tried to say something The pitch I can baaaarely make out when you say "a few" sounds like a C4 / 260hz although I dunno how significant that is right now. The botox injection has pretty much rendered your voice useless for at least a week, and they will slowly regain strength enough to phonate sometime soon after that... Mine didn't come back to a useable level until the middle of week 2 post op (1.5 weeks after the botox injection). Just keep takin er easy girl!

It makes a lot of sense to me why Dr. Kim recommends it in most cases. It immediately blocks the vocal cord from contracting/tensioning at all. That makes for a really good heal at first, and then it starts treating vocal tremor spasm as you start to regain strength. I definitely don't notice any kind of tremory stuff now and I didn't take any of the klonopins (gave them to a friend haha).

It's annoying at first because you want to be able to say a word and hear any pitch at all in your voice, but you can't and it's because of the botox. I know the feeling Give it time and it will come right on back!

Thanks guys! I'm really excited to start hearing it more and working on it, however, I think I'm going to stay completely silent for at least another 5 days (when I'll be 2 weeks post-op) so I don't injure anything. I had the Botox and I'm not sure why Dr. Kim said I could talk right away when he usually says to stay quiet for another week, but I'm going to wait just in case. It'll be hard though, so no guarantees, lol! I mean, either way it'd only be 2-3 words a day anyways, but I don't want to risk it.

Oh and it's probably not good for the vocal folds and healing, but I sneezed (couldn't hold it back!) earlier this morning and at the end there was a definite feminine raised pitch! It really surprised me to hear a girl sneeze, but was so amazing!

I'll post more once I start talking again in the coming weeks. Excitement is abound today

I'm very excited for you! Sounds like the sneeze is a good sign of things to come - but stay away from the dust, cat hairs and pepper!

Quote from: Ms Grace on November 21, 2013, 04:37:46 PM
I'm very excited for you! Sounds like the sneeze is a good sign of things to come - but stay away from the dust, cat hairs and pepper!

Thanks Grace! I'm optimistic about it

Very cool - I agree that that tiny voice of yours there at this stage already sound clearly female. Very neat - Hope you gain it back soon and can tell us.

But can someone explain to me what this whole issue about the vocal tremor is- what is it, does one have it before surgery already, is it caused by the surgery, what if the botox completely wears off - will it return afterwards? What is the effect and risk of having such a tremor anyways?

Thank you

I regret posting here

voodle, maybe make a new thread on that?
Because it sounds interesting to hear about VFS at Yesons that did not turn out perfect but had some issues with it as well, so we can get a clear picture on the bandwidth of results. As i understand it the risk is to tear the suture with coughing and that you obviously did not do. What was that with the blood clot - how did it affect healing and what did Yeson say about it? To not speak for 8 weeks as they said is a major complication I would say - this is quite severe and impairing. If this is what really was needed for you to heal from this. Probably few people could follow this advice, a week or two is hard already... Does he say that with that healing period you would have gotten a better result? What does your local doc say there?
Did i get this right that you are having some sort of weird feeling in the area or while breathing or talking because of the smaller opening? My doc here said that it might be harder to breathe after this surgery...

Re the botox - i wonder what the benefit of it really is - where does the tremor come from, how does botox affect healing and once it wears off is the tremor not back then plus the other resonance issues that lead in part to a worsening of the voice? The post op videos are all at 2 months , so the are all botoxed voices that sound softer than they might after 6 or 8 months - is this maybe why he uses this time period for his videos for youtube and website? That may give a distorted picture then - I would like to see a pre op, 2 month post op and then 6/8 and 12 month post op video of some of his patients to see what changes long term...

I regret posting here

Voodle what is your full frequency range at volume (lowest/highest)?

Voodle I can understand your concerns in that Youtube video.  You sound a bit like me...It sounded like it was me singing/talking.  OK I know we don't sound the same, but I could really relate to your breathing and what was happening.  I still haven't started voice exercises and God help me if when I do nothing changes.

The blood clot, blood sounds awful.  I never had anything like that and your vocal chords don't look the same as mine either, but maybe that's because you had a different procedure by someone different (looking down your throat).

That's the trouble, none of us know, we're all just guessing and comparing different situations and other's results.

I still think we get ripped off because of who we are...The medical profession are so quick to offer us procedures but they don't always give us all the facts.  As I am 55, I'm finding there are worrying downsides to many of these miraculous procedures.  I have to wait a year before I will get the benefit of my VFS.

A year (at my age) is a very valuable year  I can't put a price on it, on living, of just being...

Quote from: voodle on November 21, 2013, 07:30:05 PM
Regarding the botox, check out Maja's interview #1 and compare it with interview #2 on the yesonvoicecenter youtube page, I don't think I'm the only one to experience a pitch drop.

Ok, I need to find that - I have trouble finding the videos of Yesons girls on youtube as there are quite many and they are named weirdly and sorted weirdly and most of the videos are from Koreans which I cannot evaluate.

QuoteBut I'm also not the only person to have a good result several months after the surgery, there's also a patient's experiences compilation video on there and there's some from 6 months or longer after the surgery.

Ok, I would be interested in that - do you have a link?. You mean that for many the good experiences only come after 6 months as it is the case with you? Did I understand that right?

What I want to exclude from all of this is that improvements in the voice are mainly from the voice training and exercises later on as well as the botox - if these are helping so much, is there a need to do the surgery at all or is the surgery for a percentage of the patients mostly a focal point to really concentrate on the voice exercises and thus get a better voice? That whole talk about deliberately speaking at a higher pitch to get the effects of the VFS is kind of weird, as I thought that the whole point of this was that you actually do not have to concentrate on pitch anymore, that you can just start talking and the pitch is right - it seems for some this is not the case :S - But I also saw on Yesons page that 9% of the patients think their voice is worse and another 12% think it needs improvement, so there seems to be a 20% risk that the procedure is not successful, another 20% that it is not as good as thought but a 60% chance that it is really good - according to Yesons...
So maybe for these 20%, voice training will bring more benefits than the actual surgery?

I understand what you are saying here...I too thought that the surgery would give me a female voice.  End of story

I just read this thread today.
I am Korean, and if any of you are or will be here, I can help you to stay here

I did my voice change surgery in Yanhee.
Because I just wonder about the doctor's skill of Yesong. I think they started the surgery about 10 years ago, Yanhee is longer than Yesong. My result is not too bad. I have to wait more time I know.

It's very good, if you satisfied with your result I didn't meet a person who get a surgery in Yesong.

Anyway, if you want to ask about Korea, just tell me

Yes it's true, you still have to accompany this surgery with some kind of voice training. Correct me if I'm wrong but the same goes with any VFS procedure. And about the pitch thing, Dr. Kim did tell me verbatim that I would still have to train my brain to use the new higher pitch of the vocal cords for a full result (implying that my fundamental pitch would not change as much if I did no training)... that is the same thing Jessie mentioned to Sarah. And while I do consider that voice training, it was much easier to integrate than if I were to still have those lower pitches and longer vocal cords to fall back on what felt normal/comfortable. I've definitely gone through trials and tribulations with training my new voice, and parts were hard... but like I said: nowhere near as hard as trying to break into my practiced voice pre op. By the end of the third month was when things really started to improve drastically as I got used to being at a higher pitch and not feeling somewhat self conscious about it.

As for the percentage numbers, I asked Jessie in an email about it well before I was even scheduled and this was her response:

QuoteThe successful rate consists of 80% of the highly satisfied, 12% of the moderate and 8% of the unsatisfied or the group which improvement were in need.
The 8% of the dissatisfied group had no voice improvement mostly because they've failed to stick to the post-operative instructions like minimizing conversation for 2 months, quit drinking and smoking, no shouting and etc.

Quote from: Kiwi4Eva on November 22, 2013, 03:27:03 AM
I still think we get ripped off because of who we are...The medical profession are so quick to offer us procedures but they don't always give us all the facts.  As I am 55, I'm finding there are worrying downsides to many of these miraculous procedures.  I have to wait a year before I will get the benefit of my VFS.

I think you are probably doing just fine, you are just still very early on in recovery. Let's not get hasty now!

Yeson gives you the platform and the instrument- you still have to pick it up, learn how to play it, and tend to its upkeep. It clearly states that recovery can take up to a year- did you do much research before going through with it? I'm not really getting that impression, and I don't think you should consider yourself being ripped off