First of all, what a great forum. This is just the place I have been looking for.
My name is Jens, I'm 23 and I live in Denmark, Copenhagen.
My problem is that I constantly have a burning sensation in my throat. This interferes in my every day life. I used to sing and talk at a regular basis - but now I can't do those things anymore. I don't know what to do, and the experts cannot give me any clear advise of what needs to be done in order to overcome my throat condition.
My background story;
It started 2 years back. I was a smoker - 20 a day. But suddenly I was diagnosed with faryngit. Which meant that I had to stop smoking. So back then my throat showed signs of weakness. But it didn't interfere with my singing nor my speaking. The faryngit went way when I hadn't smoked for a couple of days. So not that big a problem.
I used to sing at a regular basis in my rock band. I'd never received any form of singing lessons. But I managed to sing a lot anyways. And I loved it. Then one year after the faryngit it slowly started to hurt a little bit in my throat, when I recorded in the studio. This pain worsened as the months went by. Then the pain started to come when I had to raise my voice (as an elementary-school teacher) in the classroom.
Six months ago, I started to feel so troubled by this pain, just by speaking, that I went to see en ENT. She told me that I had small "dots" on my vocal cords. It was a pre-stadium to nodules. So she put me on a lot of medication to stop my mucous membrane from being so inflamed. I both took pills and used inhalers. But none of this medication did anything to the still growing pain in my throat. It only got worse. I was sent to a doctor that stuck a tube down my throat, just to tell me that it had nothing to do with "reflux". My stomach was working fine.
So I was sent to a speech teacher, and her I have seen for 4 months now. She discovered that my speech technique was very much damaging to my vocal cords. But since then I have improved a lot by learning using my support. I haven't mastered it at all yet - but i'm getting better still, stretching and exercising two times a day with lip trills and so on.
But recently, as I still felt no improvement to the still growing burning in my throat, I tried taking a total silent period of 9 days. No taking or speaking or even laughing! I was told by a professionel singing teacher that that would remove the small nodules on my vocal chords, which probably was causing my throat-problem. BUT after the 9 days I'm still feeling a burning sensation + a significant "lump" sitting in my throat. It is worsened when singing or speaking, but not bettered when taking a silent break. This fact frustrates the hell out of me!
I have started running 2 times a week, and I'm now eating food which is mainly "base" based and i'm trying to stay away from very acid filled food, such as meat and eggs and so on. I take vitamin pills and fish-oil pills every day.
But i'm starting to get very frustrated and depressed. I am scared that there is something fundamentally broken in my throat, perhaps caused by me smoking. I really could use some advice! I play in a band, as the lead singer and we're about to really make it. So that stresses me a lot! If I can't do this, my whole life is in ruins. It's my whole future... I can't even work a day job right now, because the pain is there constantly and is unbearable when I have spent a whole day speaking!
What can I do, when silence and "support-exercises" does not seem to do the trick alone?
I really hope someone will take the time to read this! It would mean a lot to me. And excuse my english!
Thanks in advance,
Jens Høy, Denmark