Quote from: kwala on December 13, 2015, 02:32:34 AM
Hi, Andromeda.  Sorry I didn't see this sooner.  I'm 7 and a half weeks post op and my improvement has been really, really slow.  At this point I find that during a few random moments during the day I will have a somewhat audible, but still breathy, voice.  It still isn't enough to really project in a social setting, and even my weak voice seems to disappear after a sentence or two. I've been taking ibuprofen and went back on generic prilosec (just in case) last week.  I'll be at the 2 month mark this coming Wednesday and being voiceless is turning into a nightmare.  I did zero talking the first week, only a few words a day for weeks 2-3.  At week 4 I returned to work where I unfortunately have to whisper a little bit, but always try to minimize as much as possible.  I'm going home for the holidays in 2 weeks and am desperate to have a voice with which to communicate with my family.  Anyway, I wish I had better news for you and I sincerely hope your recovery is much better and faster than mine.  Until Lunarain's thread I had never heard of anyone losing their voice for this long.  I thought the worst that could happen was not seeing a gain in pitch.  Now all I want is ANY pitch. 

PS I sent lunarain a private message a while ago but haven't heard back.  Seems she doesn't check the forum very often but she must be about 6 months by now and if her voice is normal it would be a tremendous relief to hear about it 

Whoops, I just saw this minutes after posting my own thread with concerns. Oh well, that's fine I guess, because I don't want to sidetrack these ones! I am not "glad" to hear about your healing, lol, but I am comforted by the fact that I'm not alone in this. I guess 2 weeks is still nothing and I *shouldn't* be discouraged, but I'm still incapable of forming a single word. I totally agree with your sentiment - all I want is *any* pitch. I am so, so thankful that I don't hold a service job that requires constant voice use, or I'd literally be screwed.

Everyone, I apologize that I've been absent lately. I know some of you were in need to share your own voice concerns with me and from what I can tell in my own experience, the recovery is a bumpy road to trek on to say the least. If you listen to my latest recording here, you'll know what I mean.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s180TQX4g4As

I don't know if I'll ever speak with ease in a normal voice at this point but I could hope. I wish you all the best of luck! And I promise I'll check back on this tread more often than I did. 

Your voice sounds much better in the recording and is clearly feminine with the proper feminine speech patterns. I am not sure how much sound you are attempting to speak over in public but a feminine voice isn't as powerful as a masculine voice so I don't expect the same power I once had. In public, if I don't have the option, I don't play the volume game. If I have the option, I will wait till I can be heard or I will move closer. I suspect for some of us including me, the healing time could range between a year or two. My recovery was very slow and it took the better part of 6 month before regular conversation was possible so I expect it will take longer for the finishing touches.

Happy you got your voice back, after the longer recovery. Nice voice.

Quote from: Dena on March 31, 2016, 06:13:23 PM
Your voice sounds much better in the recording and is clearly feminine with the proper feminine speech patterns. I am not sure how much sound you are attempting to speak over in public but a feminine voice isn't as powerful as a masculine voice so I don't expect the same power I once had. In public, if I don't have the option, I don't play the volume game. If I have the option, I will wait till I can be heard or I will move closer. I suspect for some of us including me, the healing time could range between a year or two. My recovery was very slow and it took the better part of 6 month before regular conversation was possible so I expect it will take longer for the finishing touches.

It sounds like she has the same problems I've been experiencing and the idea that "women aren't as powerful sounding as men" is frankly a ridiculous excuse.  Women aren't typically drowned out by ambient noises and can be heard in public.  I asked Dr. Haben point blank in an email (prior to surgery) if there would be a loss of volume and he said any loss was "negligible." The idea that the voice could take up to 2 years to heal and sound normal is also not supported by any of the precautions laid out by Dr. Haben.  What I was told in my emails is that by 6 months your voice should be absolutely normal and usable and that any extra effects after that are just from you getting used to your new voice. 

Lunarain, have you contacted Dr. Haben recently?  I am curious as to what he thinks.  Sorry things haven't been better for you.  At six months, I'm pretty much in the same boat except even more hoarse sounding.  I know exactly what you mean about sounding decent on a recording in a quiet home setting but not being able to project in a public setting.

Thanks so much for coming back and sharing your story, lunarain.  It has pretty much convinced me that I need to have another surgery to fix the mess that is my current voice.

Quote from: kwala on March 31, 2016, 11:30:36 PM

Lunarain, have you contacted Dr. Haben recently?  I am curious as to what he thinks.  Sorry things haven't been better for you.  At six months, I'm pretty much in the same boat except even more hoarse sounding.  I know exactly what you mean about sounding decent on a recording in a quiet home setting but not being able to project in a public setting.

Thanks so much for coming back and sharing your story, lunarain.  It has pretty much convinced me that I need to have another surgery to fix the mess that is my current voice.

Hi Kwala,

No, I have not contacted Dr. Haben about this recently because, realistically, there really isn't anything he could do for me at this point. I'm banking on the fact that I'm an extremely slow healer, it took my breasts 3 years to drop after breast augmentation surgery! Another fact is that I have never had problem passing even before any surgeries. Even now, I'm just a girl with a raspy voice.  There's no perfection in life. I'll just have to make do with what I have.    I will have Dr Haben analyze my voice on my 1 year mark to see where I'm with the pitch and all and I will share his findings with y'all.

P.S. If I were you, I would not even consider having a corrective surgery until I had reached the 2 year mark.

Thanks for the reply.  I am considering the surgery because I sent videos of my vocal cords to Dr. Haben and he feels that the web over-developed and for whatever reason came out larger than he intended.  He is proposing to cut a small portion of it out and claims that this will fix my issues.  I can't say I'm thrilled about it (and definitely not thrilled about paying full price for a second operation) but I need to have a usable voice and I really don't think it's going to normalize on its own

Quote from: kwala on April 01, 2016, 12:15:06 PM
Thanks for the reply.  I am considering the surgery because I sent videos of my vocal cords to Dr. Haben and he feels that the web over-developed and for whatever reason came out larger than he intended.  He is proposing to cut a small portion of it out and claims that this will fix my issues.  I can't say I'm thrilled about it (and definitely not thrilled about paying full price for a second operation) but I need to have a usable voice and I really don't think it's going to normalize on its own

I am so sorry for you if this is your only option! Sorry I haven't tracked everyone's recovery progress on here. Just how long has it been since your VFS? It seems that some will have a harder time to recover (like you and I) than others. The girl who had the surgery right before me bounced right back and started chirping in a week while I was completely mute and dumbstruck for months! Imagine my despair and panic! In all fairness, I feel that my voice is slowly getting stronger, so slowly that it's virtually imperceptible. I hope I'm not dilution about this because I really really don't want to shell out another $5K for this.  I'll give myself 2 years for the recovery. Maybe by then I wouldn't even care anymore...

Sorry to hear that your outcomes are not as you wanted them.

Lunarain - I think your voice sounds clear and not that hoarse in the recording and it sounds clearly female. But what strikes me is that you have a bit of an artificial intonation pattern. I am not sure if this is because you have trained it to be like this or if this is because you have to control the issues you have from surgery so much. My impression is that you use a LOT of air to speak , so you have to take breaths afer just a couple of words. This would of course change your intonation patterns and add frequent breaks to it. This would go along with your hoarseness as you describe it , as this basically means that the vocal folds are not coming together properly and too much air rushes through them.

Usually speech therapy has some ways to correct this, but if the reason is a physiological one resulting from surgery it may be harder. Also volume/loudness is directly correlated to that - if you loose too much air, your voice cannot really be loud at all. You need to find a way to have your vocal folds come in closer contact while speaking. I found a video that has english subtitles and shows a voice rehab method that is a bit spreading in Germany now. Basically all you need is a piece of tube with about 1cm diameter and a 1/3 filled bottle of water. Of course they also sell silicone tubes for that method at a higher price



You could try that method, maybe it improves your voice health.

Quote from: anjaq on April 01, 2016, 04:10:16 PM
Sorry to hear that your outcomes are not as you wanted them.

Lunarain - I think your voice sounds clear and not that hoarse in the recording and it sounds clearly female. But what strikes me is that you have a bit of an artificial intonation pattern. I am not sure if this is because you have trained it to be like this or if this is because you have to control the issues you have from surgery so much. My impression is that you use a LOT of air to speak , so you have to take breaths afer just a couple of words. This would of course change your intonation patterns and add frequent breaks to it. This would go along with your hoarseness as you describe it , as this basically means that the vocal folds are not coming together properly and too much air rushes through them.

anjaq, my speech pattern you pointed out here may be a combination of my accent, small lungs, and the inability to control my voice after the surgery. One thing I notice now is that I can hear this "screeching" sound produced by my vocal chords as I speak and the nervousness that my voice will break in any given moment! And it affects me psychologically which prevents me from pronounce words clearly. A vicious circle?

Thanks for the video! I'm excited about practicing the technique as soon as I can find that silicone tube!

You should be able to find a tube like that at home depot. I have another thought. You said small lungs. Have you ever been taught how to breath through you diaphragm. That is something that is taught in speech therapy and singing that allows you to take in far more air. If you are only using your lungs, your air supply will be very limited.

Quote from: Lunarain on April 01, 2016, 01:42:18 PM
I am so sorry for you if this is your only option! Sorry I haven't tracked everyone's recovery progress on here. Just how long has it been since your VFS? It seems that some will have a harder time to recover (like you and I) than others. The girl who had the surgery right before me bounced right back and started chirping in a week while I was completely mute and dumbstruck for months! Imagine my despair and panic! In all fairness, I feel that my voice is slowly getting stronger, so slowly that it's virtually imperceptible. I hope I'm not dilution about this because I really really don't want to shell out another $5K for this.  I'll give myself 2 years for the recovery. Maybe by then I wouldn't even care anymore...

It's been 6 months and I'm pretty sure that I've hit a plateau.  I've sent Dr. Haben several voice clips along the way and something is wrong.  I'm scared to have another surgery and I certainly didn't budget an extra 3k to have a revision but I don't really see any other way out.  I'm even more scared that downsizing the web could cause more damage.   This isn't exactly the kind of surgery one can do research on.  According to Dr. Haben, I am the only patient he's ever had who developed a web over the 50% mark.   

Quote from: kwala on April 03, 2016, 04:21:40 AM
It's been 6 months and I'm pretty sure that I've hit a plateau.  I've sent Dr. Haben several voice clips along the way and something is wrong.  I'm scared to have another surgery and I certainly didn't budget an extra 3k to have a revision but I don't really see any other way out.  I'm even more scared that downsizing the web could cause more damage.   This isn't exactly the kind of surgery one can do research on.  According to Dr. Haben, I am the only patient he's ever had who developed a web over the 50% mark.   

You are in good company then, because I am basically the only patient of Dr. Haben's in which the surgery flat out failed. My web didn't develop at all. The good that came out of it was the trachea shave. Hopefully, the results will be better on my next surgery in July.

Quote from: GeekGirl on April 03, 2016, 07:44:55 PM
You are in good company then, because I am basically the only patient of Dr. Haben's in which the surgery flat out failed. My web didn't develop at all. The good that came out of it was the trachea shave. Hopefully, the results will be better on my next surgery in July.

I remember your post well and I'm so happy for you thay he agreed to try again with only hospital costs.  He certainly didn't give me that option :/ But then again we have completely opposite issues.  Your web never developed and mine OVER developed.  Wishing you much success this time around!

Hello all,

It's my one year anniversary on May 14th and I'm excited to share my final results with you! With all my post-op trials and tribulations, not only have I slowly regained the strength in my voice (not 100% yet) but also an almost a full 100 hertz of pitch elevation (don't really know what it means;)! Here's what Dr. Haben said:

You sound amazing!  You got almost a full 100 hertz of pitch elevation, which is far above average for an endoscopic only approach.  Its sounds very natural and I am certain that you are not being misgendered.

If you read my previous posts you'll know that I couldn't talk at all post-op for about 3 months. As soon as I could get some sound out of my mouth, I started talking as much as I could even though it was extremely difficult and it strained my vocal chords and hurt my throat! It was because everytime I pushed it, the quality of my voice would improve after a little rest. It gave me a glimmer of hope even though the improvement was fleeting.

My voice started to really improve after my last post. I don't fully understand why or how but I suspect that it helped me leaping over a psychological hurdle by talking about it. I know I still have some ways to go before achieving the final results but I'm much more confident now and it has changed the way I pronounce words because there's no more stress from having to control and maintain the pitch. Of course, I only came to this realization after listening to my pre and post-op voice comparison.

So if I may offer a word of advice to those of you who have difficulty speaking post-op due to lack of volume, PUSH IT as if you were giving birth! It has work for me! 

https://flic.kr/p/GQyyiX
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1i4IyQ5fewp

Glad you seem to be recovering at least, Luna.   Very happy for you!  Unfortunately the dropbox files are locked down, so I think you need to adjust your permissions.  However, if it sounds even better than your March posting it must be amazing.  I hope I have as good a result as you.

wow so much improvement from your last recording, your voice sounds great! There's so much more clarity now and the hoarseness you had seems to be gone now. Do you find that your voice is hoarse initially in the morning and gets better through out the day? And are you able to talk loudly without getting hoarse? These are two things that I'm currently experiencing and I'm hoping by the 1 year mark it will be resolved.

Quote from: jollyjoy on May 07, 2016, 10:57:03 PM
Do you find that your voice is hoarse initially in the morning and gets better through out the day? And are you able to talk loudly without getting hoarse? These are two things that I'm currently experiencing and I'm hoping by the 1 year mark it will be resolved.

It varies. The "good voice" sometimes comes in the morning and other times in the evening. Yes, my voice is getting louder! But knowing my body, I don't foresee a full range before the 2 year mark. It's better late than never, right?

I find this interesting... It sounds like this technique might be a relatively reliable voice sugary.

I have not looked into voce surgeries for many years... Back in my day late 90's - early 2000s) AFAIK there were no reliable voice surgeries... those that I met in person that had some form had what I thought were bad results ( obviously damaged voice, very low volume etc)

But I was desperate, not because my voice was that terrible (i was told the I had a voice that could be taken either way naturally), but to make up for other deficiencies (underwhelming HRT results with a big male bone structure) I felt I had to do anything I could to help blending.

So after listening to the before and after on this web page:

http://members.tripod.com/anony_mous_ts/

I gambled on an experimental technique called LAVA - Laser Assisted Voice Adjustment.

I wound up with a  but very measurable slight frequency increase - but it was no really noticeable. Ok so it sounds like no harm at least ... but it also lowered the top of my range and I could no longer sing nearly was well as I could before... my voice was less flexible... an I got frequent sore throats

Over time (and unrelated) I developed chronic GERD which seems to have has lowered my voice a bit (or maybe my vocal cords healed some?)

I wish I had not dome it and  had the money back I spent on it... Oh well, just as with everything else in life,  you do the best you know how and then need to deal with the results, be they good bad or indifferent.

If there is a now a relatively safe and reliable voice sugary for those that need it, that is great!

- Karen