Case Study #1 - Voice Actor with Voice Loss
THE STORY
A 24-year-old voice actor loses her voice when she performs. She saw a laryngologist and was put on vocal rest on and off for three months due to vocal hemorrhage/bruising. This cost her income and career opportunities. She came for a second opinion after being told that she would need more rest and that her voice would not recover fully because of the bruising.
Videostroboscopy
Bruising of right vocal cord.
Important Points
Voice loss after performance needs to be evaluated within 1-2 days
A laryngologist, not an ENT or “voice doctor”, should care for professional voice care
Frequent, prolonged voice rest rarely is required
1-3 weeks of voice rest is the average for injury or surgery
Repeated bruising requires advanced treatment, not repeated voice rest
This actor uses her voice for her career. She cannot go on voice rest every time she bruises. Voice rest takes her out of work, costs her income and work, and makes her less vocally agile. She needs a solution that allows her to use her voice professionally and without fear of injury and bruising.*
She needs a sustainable approach to her vocal care, not repeated periods of voice rest.
*Read more about vocal bruising and how it affects the voice here.
THE RESOLUTION
This actor was in a cycle of bruising, resting, working, and then bruising again. She was doing one show and then having to cancel everything for 2 weeks. Dr. Gupta recognized she had a complex injury and that bruising would not stop with voice rest. She took the patient to surgery and identified the underlying injury.
The patient was able to return to voice acting and has not had a bruise since surgery. She has not had to go on vocal rest and just landed a voiceover role in a major network series.
Surgical footage shows a large vascular abnormality (*surgical footage is not reversed as office footage is - this is still the patient’s right vocal cord)
BEFORE SURGERY
AFTER SURGERY
CHALLENGES AND CONSIDERATIONS
FEAR OF SURGERY
Surgery can be seen as a risky choice. Here, we weighed the risk of surgery against the risk of her continuing on her current path. Without surgery, she was missing weeks of work at a time, her voice was unreliable when she worked, and she was in constant fear of a bruise, which impacted her emotional performance. She was in pain from compensating.
This was not sustainable and, for her, surgery was the right decision.
REHABILITATION
This patient went through months of injury and rest before coming to CVH and finding a long-term solution. That delay prolonged her recovery after surgery. She had to overcome pain from compensating for her injury, her fear of injury, and the loss of endurance from voice rest. When a voice problem is identified early and treated, a voice athlete can return to work faster.
SECOND OPINION
For a professional voice user, every month lost has impacts the momentum of their career. If there is not a strategy beyond weeks of voice rest, a second opinion from a laryngologist is important.