Izzy

Hello all,

I have only just come across TMS from reading about it on this website, it does sound similar to problems I have had.
I suffer from Muscle tension dysphonia and Spasmodic dysphonia.

It actually happened quite suddenly. I was working in a very noisy office as a receptionist and on one particularly busy day trying to continuously talk over surrounding noise - I lost my voice.

When my voice did come back it only came out in short bursts which I couldn't really control - and did not sound like me. Also it felt like something incredibly tight was around my neck and talking just made it even tighter.

Around 2 years of voice therapy helped slightly - but no significant difference except I taught myself to talk through the pain. Although it sounded terrible, similar to how a dalek sounds!

It all started to improve when I was referred to a new Speech therapist who offered throat manipulation as part of the therapy (similar to a neck muscle massage but more specialised) it took away the tightness around the neck.
This helped relieve muscle tension temporarily although over time the results did in fact last longer and longer.

After a year of this type of therapy, it did relieve pain - but not completely and my voice still didn't sound great.
I actually decided to try getting botox injections which they inject directly into your vocal chords. It's quite a big decision to make, but for me nothing else had really worked.

Not to go into too much detail, but it did make a big difference for me. The results only work for about 4-5 weeks, and you have to wait 4 months in between injections - so you do have 2 months bad voice again. But for me it has been so nice just having my normal voice back for a little bit.

Anyway, I thought I would share this just in case anyone suffers from a similar problem. I would love to talk to any of you about how you get through day to day things that are now more difficult.