Losing a husband, and your voice?

I was chatting to a lady on the phone today who seemed to be suffering from a particularly nasty dose of laryngitis. When I commented that I hoped she recovered from her lurgy post-haste, she told me (with great difficulty) that it was not an infection, but that the day her husband died three years ago, she had also lost her voice. :eek:

She further told me that it was some sort of emotional reaction to his death, but was being treated by botox injections every five months or so…the botox tends to keep her voice at a vaguely audible level, but of course wears off in the passage of time.

Anybody heard of such a thing?

Yeah, I’ve heard of that treatment. The brain is sending signals to the voice box causing it to malfunction, and the botulism disrupts those signals.

http://www.voicedoctor.net/therapy/dystonia.html#cause

Just a nitpick, I believe it’s spelled “lurgi” (Goon Show fans, back me up here). Sorry for the sidetrack.

Roddy

Um, s’cuse me, but if you heard it on the Goon Show, how the hell would you know HOW it was spelled?

:smiley:

Oh, and thanks Snoooopy…the lady did call it ‘Spasmodic Dysphonia’, but her voice was so croaky and hushed that I wasn’t sure I’d heard it correctly. Thanks for the link.

At least she told you what the problem was kambuckta. A friend of mine, Pete, suffered serious throat injuries in a helicopter accident. He had a tracheotomy but could talk slightly, every now and then he would go for an operation to try and improve the function of his vocal chords.

He had a good sense of humour about it, always joking that he has won several “how long can you hold your head in a bucket of water” competitions, and that his wife is grateful for the ability for extended oral sex.

There was a fairly old chap who he used to see occasionally. When they first met, the old chap said something like, “by jove! that’s a nasty cold you’ve got there, hope you get over it soon”. Unfortunately my friend didn’t have the heart to tell him what the real problem was. Next time they saw each other, the old chap was quite astonished to hear that Pete’s voice hadn’t improved at all and was quite adamant that he should get to a doctor. Once again Pete neglected to set him straight. From then it just got harder and harder, each time he saw him, to come clean and explain the situation. Pete just went along with it, croaking out, “yeah, it’s a hell of a cough, must see the doctor again.”

As far as I know, the old chap was puzzled about Pete’s cold-that-couldn’t-be-cured till he died. He was quite old.

Nit-- Vocal cords

The whole mind-body business is amazing. A woman I know experienced a childhood emotional trauma and lost most of her eyesight. Her eyeballs were normally-shaped and didn’t show any physical problems so she was sent to a psych doc. Years later her eyes were in fact grape-shaped and she is legally blind without glasses, but unless there was a massive screw-up at the first diagnosis, her initial sight issues were from her mind.

I had hysterical blindness for about an hour after Sept 11. I was freaked out so badly because I had seen the television footage of the second plane, and I just got hysterical. I was in the shower, and literally seeing it over and over again (but not on TV - just seeing it). I remember begging god/dess to let me not see it anymore. My vision went completely away, everything turned black - deep in a cave, no light or shadows whatsoever black. I couldn’t do anything but crawl out of the shower I was in and make my way to my bed, where I spent an hour or so blind.

That must have been horrible. When I am having an anxiety or panic attack I often obsess on that possibility which makes me more anxious/panicked! Once I brought up the possibility in front of my parents, hoping they would dismiss it an only vanishingly possible, but instead my mom pipes up, “I had that once!” :frowning: And my father went on about how “fascinating” it is. :rolleyes:

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, recently wrote about losing his voice and having a similar treatment. Apparently, public speaking in front of groups wasn’t affected, but he had lost the ability to have regular conversations. Odd.

This sounds like something out of an Oliver Saks book. The human mind can do some very strange things.

The name of one of the episodes is “Lurgi Strikes Again” (aka “Lurgi Strikes Britain”) and you can see that at the U.S. Goon Show archives web site .

Needle noddle noo!

Roddy