Judy L from Chicago, USA - Case study:
From Laryngitis to strained vocal cords and finally, and unfortunately… to Muscle Tension Dysphonia (MTD).
A few years ago, Judy arrived to us with her husband from Chicago, speaking with a pretty raspy and hoarse voice.
This is her story:
Judy and her husband, Bill, being in their early 60’s, had two grown children who, unfortunately, had never been married - and thus, did not produce any grandchildren for this very nice couple. They, however, were hoping to become grandparents for sometime…
From their words, their son had never introduced any of his relationships to his parents, and therefore, they didn’t even know if he actually was ever involved with anyone at all. According to them, they only saw their son, at best, a couple of times a month with his dirty laundry brought by him to his parents’ place.
As for their daughter, who happened to be a child star of a very well-known TV show, and mainly lived on the residuals derived from that show, who also had not been involved in any meaningful relationship - but on the contrary, was attracting so to speak “bad boys” - primarily poor musicians (Rockstar wannabes). Primarily the latter individuals had nothing to offer to such a talented woman, but actually, mainly lived off of her.
Before coming to our place for instruction and treatment, Judy, Bill and their daughter, accompanied by one of her, so to speak, “Rockstar boyfriends”, went on vacation to one of the Caribbean islands. Apparently, in front of the parents’ eyes, the so-called boyfriend was quite abusive towards their daughter.
On this premise, being very emotionally distraught, Judy first acquired what she thought was a cold, but it happened to be a virus.
To bring her voice back onto the surface and trying to sound clearer, she was constantly clearing her throat while concurrently pushing and pulling her voice to extract the volume of the sound.
With all of the above, she ended up straining the vocal cords. She continuously was trying to come out from that dark and low-energy place where her voice was now positioned. Unfortunately, with all of her manipulations, obviously not knowing what she was doing, her voice, on the final analysis, got stuck in her neck muscles.
So coming back to Chicago and visiting her ENT specialist, she got officially diagnosed with Muscle Tension Dysphonia (MTD).
So the moral of this story is such:
The beginning of the voice trouble was emotionally induced for some time - and, nonetheless, much before the vacation…
The time spent on vacation witnessing and fully understanding the situation her daughter was involved in (which seemed like a pattern of the daughter’s life), happened to be the last “straw which broke the Camel’s back"…
Judy desperately tried to rectify her voice and her health problems on her own; but unfortunately, she self-inflicted more serious disorder upon herself (MTD), along with everything else described above.
The protocol to treat something like that would be a minimum of 30 hours of instruction, coupled with natural herbal treatment. Unfortunately, Judy and her husband allocated only 20 hours for our very unique instruction and specialized natural treatment.
And even though, at the end of the 20 hours spent together on this endeavour, a great result had been accomplished, in my opinion, the “Full Monty” had not been fully completed.
Three weeks after they left, Judy had e-mailed me and said that she was doing much better - but sometimes, still experiencing some pain in the throat.
At that time, I mentioned to her that at some point in time, she would have to return to complete her sessions (for at least 10 additional hours). I, however, haven’t heard anything ever since and thus presumed that she is doing well, or at least as good as it could be expected.
So, my reader, as you could perceive reading this story, the roots of Judy’s voice disorder had been sitting in a very “deep zone” in a manner of speaking…
I had definitely brought her voice up to par within only 5 consecutive days, but I am sure Judy would require more work on her mental, physical and emotional makeup in order to fully recover and restore not only her voice but assure her well-being overall.
Ms. Yampolsky is one of the world's foremost specialists on the topic of the human voice and is the creator of Vocal Science(TM), a unique and truly revolutionary accelerated vocal development technique. It is a holistic and scientific approach to voice mechanics that enables all singers and speakers to reach their full potential in an extremely short period of time. Based in Ontario, Canada, Diana works with a worldwide spectrum of clientele as a Vocal Coach/Consultant, In-Studio Vocal Production Expert, and Non-Surgical Voice Repair Specialist.
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