Although I have enticed some miracles involving my weak voice too (please see my post Hope Erupted in the ‘Pop-a-wheelies’ category), a partially paralyzed vocal cord is a tough problem to alleviate. It just isn’t common–I think I’ve met three other people in my life with the problem who also have soft voices. Consequently, public awareness staggers, and speech enhancement devices are incredibly impractical and hard to find. I did find one device–a Chattervox from Luminaud that suited me for working with my students, and a JUSTamp from JustMed after my Chattervox lived out its life.  Neither amplifier was very practical for my unique needs. So with scattered luck and hope that alternates with dismay, I find myself here and now (2014) sitting, researching, and once again feeling the hope that so often has laid dormant through the years. Digging deep, I was able to unearth some long-term solutions.

I finally landed on The New York University Voice Center’s helpful site including information about laryngoplasty, surgery on the voice box most commonly used to treat weak or paralyzed vocal cords. (Who knows why none of the speech pathologists I have seen over the years mentioned it, but the set of procedures has only been perfected in the last two decades.) The most common reason for performing laryngoplasty is to treat weak or paralyzed vocal cords which don’t meet all the way during speech, I read, and assuming my one partially-paralyzed vocal cord didn’t disqualify me, I read on. The inability to bring my left vocal cord inward to meet the right is indeed my problem.

There are two categories of laryngoplasty procedures to treat this vocal cord shortcoming: medialization laryngoplasty and injection augmentation laryngoplasty. The medialization route involves a small incision in the neck to place plastic or another material onto the vocal cords. It can be performed while the patient is awake, and the surgeon can fine-tune the results.  Although it offers the best results, it may require a separate procedure,  called Arytenoid  Adduction, to close the back portion of the vocal cord opening, and recovery time is longer and more painful than the  injection augmentation route. Like medialization, the injection augmentation laryngoplasty’s purpose is to increase the size of vocal cords so that they can meet, but it  involves anesthesia and injecting the patient’s own belly fat into the vocal cords. This may be the procedure most suited for me since it can be performed on one or both vocal cords. The disadvantage is that it may have to be repeated about each year or whenever the body absorbs its own fat.

Then I saw a recommendation tucked away in the promotional format that it’s best to do this surgery without delay after the onset of the problem and before trying to improve the voice box. I don’t know what this implies exactly, but it’s enough to discourage me. They might laugh in my face when they hear “38 years.”