How to Get Your Voice Back After Losing It Many Times

Why do you lose your voice over and over again and how to get your voice back after losing it many times? In this post, I am going to share three steps you need to take to get your voice in order and maintain good vocal health.  

Can you relate to this scenario?

You lose your voice once. Not a big deal. It happens to everyone. You get your voice back after a few days. A few months later, you lose your voice again. You notice but still don’t give it a big thought. Your voice comes back again even though it takes a little bit longer. A few weeks later, you lose your voice again and you start wondering what is going on. You continue using your voice because you don’t know what else to do.

And this pattern repeats and repeats until it takes a lot of effort and vocal rest to get your voice back. You are almost afraid to use it again because it seems that you are doing all the right things. You even improve your hydration - you keep drinking a lot of water. You give yourself a few days without speaking or using your voice at all. But as soon as you start using it again, it’s gone in a few days. It’s frustrating because you need your voice for work and talking to your family and friends. And they don’t understand why you talk less or why you keep more to yourself. 

This is a very common scenario for many people who approach me for help. The timeline or the details can differ from person to person but it follows the same pattern. When you lose your voice the first few times, you take notice but it does not feel unusual. After losing your voice several times, it is harder to get it back even though you follow all the right vocal hygiene recommendations - good hydration and vocal rest. And your voice becomes more unpredictable and less reliable, which makes you more anxious. 

Losing Your Voice

What really happens inside your throat when you lose your voice? When you are healthy and you make a sound or speak, your vocal folds come together and they start vibrating. When you lose your voice, the vocal folds either do not come together or there are no vibrations happening. In both cases, you hear a breathy and airy sound coming out of your mouth. Or your voice may be hoarse, raspy or croaky, which means that the vocal folds are swollen or thickened. You may need to exert more vocal effort to make a sound and speaking starts feeling effortful. 

How to Get Your Voice Back?

So, what else could you or should you do to get your voice back after losing it many times? How do you get your voice back for good? Here are three steps that you need to take to avoid losing your voice again.

Step 1: Have your voice properly evaluated

If you’ve lost your voice several times without an obvious cause such as common cold or flu, go and visit a voice specialist to have your voice properly evaluated. The voice specialist you want to see is an ENT doctor - ear, nose and throat doctor. But there are many different types of ENT doctors, some of them specialize in ear problems, some of them in nose problems and some of them really understand the throat. That is the doctor you want to visit - a laryngologist. 

Why do you need to have your voice properly evaluated? If you know the cause of your problem, you can then start an appropriate chain of actions to find a solution. There may be different causes for losing your voice repeatedly. But the main two buckets are structural and functional causes. 

Videostroboscopy

If possible at all, you want to visit a laryngologist who can do a videostroboscopy examination. This is an exam during which the doctor can evaluate the structures in your throat as well as the function of the vocal folds - how they vibrate, how long they are closed or open during vibrations, how they move and more. The more basic endoscopic evaluation will only be able to tell you if there are any structural changes on the vocal folds or not. Structural changes may range from swelling of the vocal folds, vocal nodules, cysts or polyps, to vocal atrophy or other changes that can be observed on the vocal folds.   

And maybe you had your voice properly evaluated and the doctor said that your vocal folds look fine but you still keep losing your voice. This is very very common, more common than you think. This scenario most likely points to a functional problem.

Functional Vocal Issues

Functional problems are vocal issues that are caused by altered function, for example using your voice in high intensity vocal tasks without proper technique, or too much muscle action in some of the muscles around the voice box that results in a hoarse or breathy voice, or increased vocal effort over a period of time. It is more challenging to diagnose functional vocal issues because they are not readily observed during the examination. But if you have persistent vocal issues and the doctor does not see any structural differences, we can assume that the function is somewhat altered, which then leads to vocal problems and losing your voice repeatedly. 

Step 2: Eliminate underlying causes

As I said, there may be many different causes of losing your voice on a regular basis. Sometimes, these causes are medical in nature - for example acid reflux may cause voice problems. Other examples are allergies or asthma or any other conditions that affect your respiratory system, your breathing. In cases like this, you need to speak to your doctor and figure out how to manage the medical condition. For example, to manage acid reflux, you may need to change your diet or follow some behavioural lifestyle changes to avoid the spillage of gastric juices into your throat.

Sometimes, the underlying causes are vocal behaviours that cause collision of the vocal folds with high impact. The most recognized are behaviours such as yelling and screaming. Less known behaviours are constant throat clearing or coughing. Or using your voice with increased breath pressures under the vocal folds, which put a lot of stress on the vocal folds. The problem with these types of behaviours is that we are often not aware of them. So, it is important to pay attention to your voice and how it feels when you speak. If your voice feels itchy or scratchy or if you feel vocally tired only after a short period of time, you are probably using too much vocal effort and putting stress on the vocal folds. Listen to your voice and the signs that it gives you.

If you are experiencing vocal strain, tension or even pain when speaking, and you are ready to work towards a free, strong and confident voice, you can apply to our Vocal Freedom System coaching program. Click here to schedule a chat with me! 

 Step 3: Change the way you use your voice

In many people who experience repeated loss of voice without structural changes on the vocal folds, vocal technique has been altered for whatever reason. It may start with acid reflux or a common cold, during which a person pushes their voice to produce a clear voice. Over time this altered technique becomes “normal” and even though you may not have a cold any more or you may be managing your acid reflux successfully, you still push your voice because your muscles simply adopted this new way of sound making. You may even experience occasional discomfort or pain when talking from too much muscle and vocal effort. But because this develops over time, you only notice it after it becomes a real problem - changes in your voice or losing your voice repeatedly.

The only way to change these vocal patterns is to re-learn how to use your voice in a healthy way. Learn how to use your voice without putting stress on the vocal folds, without pushing your voice or without increased breath pressures under the vocal folds. This step usually requires help from a professional, such as a speech-language pathologist, voice therapist or voice coach. It usually takes some time to change the unhealthy default patterns into more efficient ways of sound production. But it is all possible.

This is how you avoid losing your voice again. There are no quick fixes. Vocal rest will not help you because as soon as you start using your voice, you will create the same unhealthy patterns that will lead to stress on the vocal folds. So, if you’ve tried to take a rest and you still end up with vocal problems, it’s time to consider voice therapy or voice optimizing to find better ways of using your voice. 

Link to the video: https://youtu.be/Svs2hPTC5Ds