Hey everyone. I had VFS 3 weeks ago and have started talking and did notice a difference in my voice but now it just seems to sound the same as pre op. Can someone please point me in the right direction or tell me that I'm over thing it and that it will still change over time?  Thanking yous in advance 😊

I'm no expert, but (I think) the three main things that effect voice are pitch, volume and resonance, a lot of trans women train themselves to speak differently.

From what I've seen, speaking quieter and in a soften tone can come across as more feminine, and also not speaking from the chest.

There's a voice training app available, it looks pretty useful. With training you should be able to get your voice to sound how you want it to.



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Welcome!

Hi

First of all, 3 weeks is still in the no-speak phase of Yeson - you should rest your voice a bit more. Yeson recommends 4 weeks of total voice rest and then another 4 weeks of limited use. Within the first 4-6 weeks the tissue is often swollen and thus the pitch is lower, that is why Dr Kim provides those neat graphs showing pitch increase taking some time after surgery.

In any case - what are you comparing - you need to compare your pre transition voice with now, not your trained feminized voice pre-op with now, as those are different things. Many patients sound similar to their pre op trained feminized voice after the surgery, but with some changes in the way it sounds and most of all without putting any effort into it or straining the voice to do this.

Maybe if you have recordings of your pre-transition voice, your pre-op feminized voice and your voice now, we can check it and give an opinion, but as I said, be careful and rather do only speak normally after at least 4 week post OP - I took actually 5 weeks to just be sure.

You really shouldn't be speaking until week four.  I spoke a few words during week three, but as of week four (today), it's quite a bit easier and sounds a little different.  It's also hard to tell how your voice will be this early.  I don't have a lot of range yet so when I record my voice it only is coming out on average like 10hz higher than my pre-op trained voice.  However, I used a lot of prosody before and since that is hard, it is making the F0 lower.

Be patient.   However, I'd recommend waiting until after four weeks and perhaps posting a before and after for an honest opinion from others.

As many have realized in the past year or so, voice surgery is probably the one with the longest noticeable recovery time. It takes many weeks to just have a voice that is fit for daily use and several months for that voice to become a normal voice again in terms of hoarseness and loudness and it takes over a year to really heal and mainly for the brain to adapt to the new configuration and use it properly. Pitch is also highly variable in all that time - sometimes it is low than up again - ups and downs are common, this surgery is the one that takes the most patience - more than healing from FFS or breast surgery and depending on your choice of SRS surgeon even longer than SRS recovery - at least when it comes to the noticeable effects - a little bit of swelling and ongoing nerve recovery in FFS is not really noticeable by others after a few weeks, but a missing, hoarse, or somehow not yet properly working voice is noticceable for many weeks.

But it will get better eventually - it almost always did with others.

The only thing I'm comparing it to is my pre op voice. I can't compare it to a pre tlrained voice. I did not train my voice pre op. I'm just wanting advice and direction. Thank you all for the welcome 😊 and for the advice Givin I will take it and use it. Thank you again everyone 😊

Has it gotten better now, as I believe it's been over four weeks for you?   Definitely hang in there!  I'm a bit over five weeks myself now and my voice is still unstable.

This was me at 3 weeks doing my allowed two words a day. I thought that it was really bad as it was not that much different from pre op.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0PkrT7XK6Tv

Now this is over a year ago. Now I am usually like this: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1RK3GjuvYPI, sometimes a bit lower if I am tired or talking about something boring.

So give it some time and rest your voice a lot in the first 8 weeks, then start the exercises regularly, they strengthen the voice again and should also help using the voice in a different way.