Here is my 6 month recording, you can really tell the difference voice training makes in controlling resonance.  The surgery has continued to heal and every month I have a stronger and clearer voice, but I still tire quickly and start the day a bit weakly until I've warmed up a bit.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0oFY7BhEiJu


I hope these recordings give you all a bit of insight into how the voice surgery can help an older woman with a lot of bad habits and patterns to correct.  My goal is to give a straight up recording without any attempt to pretty things up.  In this recording I'm deliberately trying to control the resonance this surgery won't fix through simple techniques taught in the 'Resonant Voice Therapy' approach.  I'm trying to stay with chest voice 100% and not slip into head voice when raising my pitch, though that has been a challenge so far as the break between head and chest has steadily changed over the past 6 months.  In this recording, I managed to stay under the break pretty well, and think my voice is improving quite a bit from the original recordings I've posted at the beginning of this thread.

Thoughts?   

Is this at all valuable?

That's interesting. You sound good, pitch wise but it clearly sounds like you're struggling a bit.

The stamina part is interesting. At month 1 and almost 2 weeks I have all the stamina I had pre-op, as long as I don't talk too loudly. Too loudly means more than 60dB measured at 3 feet.  I still try not to push it though.

However I was at a loud indoor gun range yesterday shooting with the women's group (I'm a member) and I was able to talk no problem but I had to talk closer than I usually do.

At month 2 I will probably be doing longer talking and maybe a bit louder as I can.

Also, are you taking the clonazepam? I'm scared to take it due to side effects.

Thanks for sharing. Your experience has certainly swung me in the direction of Yeson, and it is one of the reasons why I chose to go there. I am almost 37 so I'm no spring chicken either but it is good to hear good results from people.

Quote from: iKate on August 04, 2015, 11:34:03 AM
That's interesting. You sound good, pitch wise but it clearly sounds like you're struggling a bit.

The stamina part is interesting. At month 1 and almost 2 weeks I have all the stamina I had pre-op, as long as I don't talk too loudly. Too loudly means more than 60dB measured at 3 feet.  I still try not to push it though.

However I was at a loud indoor gun range yesterday shooting with the women's group (I'm a member) and I was able to talk no problem but I had to talk closer than I usually do.

At month 2 I will probably be doing longer talking and maybe a bit louder as I can.

Also, are you taking the clonazepam? I'm scared to take it due to side effects.

Thanks for sharing. Your experience has certainly swung me in the direction of Yeson, and it is one of the reasons why I chose to go there. I am almost 37 so I'm no spring chicken either but it is good to hear good results from people.

Thanks iKate, I'm sure 37 feels old, I'm 20 years older than you so to me you're still a youngster  

I stopped the clonazepam after a couple weeks because 1) I was trying to do expensive vocal therapy while my voice was partially disabled by the Botox / clonazepam, and 2) I got a blast of really low emotions, depressed feelings, and it scared me.  I have never experienced depression / hopelessness that intense, and there was no reason for me to feel that way.  I was back to normal in 24 hours.

I'm not struggling at all, in fact it was easy and calm to speak this morning.  I do have some diplophonia still and huskiness, I think the struggle you heard was just some morning hoarseness and the fact that vocoroo blasts the volume at you.  When I listen at 1/2 volume it sounds a lot less struggling to me.  That said, I can't make it through a whole day without getting tired sounding and hoarse... I think I talk too loud when I do talk

Yeah, that depression scares me. Dr Kim said take it at night, but... I'm wondering if I could get more botox instead.

Quote from: iKate on August 04, 2015, 11:47:20 AM
Yeah, that depression scares me. Dr Kim said take it at night, but... I'm wondering if I could get more botox instead.

I did switch to daytime as I take all my vitamins and such in the morning.... taking at bedtime may be a way around it.

Thats interesting. My voice break between head and chest voice has not changed and is not changing. Its rather low, around C4/D4 , so I do have to work with it and get used to go over it while using my voice in regular speech
I wish I would know how to shift it up a bit so I could stay in chest voice more.

I am also closing in on the month 6 time point. I only get hoarse when I really talk a lot, but my voice still has a permanent huskiness and some diplophonia and "noise" in it.

I do take the clonazepam though - I wonder if this is making it better or if it also causes problems. I am in month 2 of taking it now, so I have only about a month of it left. For me it did not cause any depression or other issues. In fact it seems to make me sleep better when I take it in the evenings and it relaxes some other muscles as well, like muscles in my back that used to cause me pain, they are less active now and so I actually have less back pain.

Does anyone know how the difference is between having clonazepam and being without it in terms of voice control and voice training? Is it harder or easiert to speak and have voice training without the pills - or is it the other way around?

Greetings

What did Dr. Kim said the clonazepam was for. That is a pretty powerful drug and taking it that far after surgery makes me wonder what the reason could be.

Dr Habens drug list was a good deal different.
Cough medicine for coughs and pain control - 7 day supply. I used one round of it and it knocked me out so bad, I am reserving it in case I come down with something that might destroy my voice.

Steroids give for a few days after surgery to reduce swelling. The tapering off period was far longer that full dose.

Prilosec given for 30 days to slow the dissolving of the suture. It would have been longer if I had Acid reflux.

Quote from: Dena on August 05, 2015, 10:05:31 PM
What did Dr. Kim said the clonazepam was for. That is a pretty powerful drug and taking it that far after surgery makes me wonder what the reason could be.

Muscle relaxant to mimic the effect of botox after it has worn off. It's a lower dose than for its other uses.

Quote
Dr Habens drug list was a good deal different.
Cough medicine for coughs and pain control - 7 day supply. I used one round of it and it knocked me out so bad, I am reserving it in case I come down with something that might destroy my voice.

Steroids give for a few days after surgery to reduce swelling. The tapering off period was far longer that full dose.

Prilosec given for 30 days to slow the dissolving of the suture. It would have been longer if I had Acid reflux.

We got almost the same. Immediately postop we got antibiotics, digestant and something else. We also got synatura which is a pretty powerful Korean cough medicine. Works better than anything I've tried in the USA. We wouldn't get anything for dissolving sutures since Dr Kim does not use them.

Quote from: iKate on August 05, 2015, 10:11:03 PM
Muscle relaxant to mimic the effect of botox after it has worn off. It's a lower dose than for its other uses.

Botox is also something that is puzzling because while Dr. Haben uses it in some procedures, I don't think it was used for this. If he used it, it would have been while I was still out of it.

The Botox and Clonazepam is given to everone who is diagnosed with a "vocal tremor", which however basically is almost everyone. Its effect is to dampen the contractions of some side-muscles (not the CT muscle or the vocalis muscle themselves!), which could interfere with a clean vocalization pattern. The muscle that is botoxed is called thyroarytenoid muscle. This is how I understood it, I am not sure if this is correct. The clonazepam of course relaxes all muscles, not just this one, so I somehow always had the impression that botox is better than the clonazepam.

I can't believe that vocal tremors are that common in the population or I would have noticed it more in other peoples voices. What I think might be possible is some of the work Dr Kim is doing could up the probability that you develop vocal tremors after surgery. Possibility the Botox allows the cord muscles to build up enough to control the tremors when the drugs wear off. I am only guessing because I still don't really understand Dr Kims surgery. I understand the cord shorting part but is he is doing additional work as well and that's the part I don't understand.

I am not sure he is doing so much additional work except placing the sutures in a way that allows correction of asymmetries and therelike.
From what I understand it, vocal tremors are rather common, but usually not required to be treated - in people seeking this surgery they are more common because often the voice has been used in a different, often unnatural or forced way for years. My guess is that the surgery makes these tremors happen stronger and be more noticeable, so they supress them in the first months until the surgery site has healed and the tremors subside (hopefully) once the body and brain has gotten used to the new configuration.

By the way we found out which muscle he probably uses botox on - its the musles left and right of the m vocalis, which bascically is the muscle that runs through the vocal folds. That outer muscle controls closure of the vocal folds and can add additional tension to the vocal folds and thus fine tune pitch. So as long as it is knocked out, it is pretty clear that the voice has to be more breathy (not enough closure) and that pitch control may be difficult.

I definitely had a tremor. You could hear it, in fact. I should dig up the file and you can hear it.

I remember Jenny saying that the tremor made the voice sound less feminine, or something like that (please correct me if I'm wrong!) which is why Dr Kim treats it.