Kastasia

Speech Therapy Update #2

Added 2024-07-20 21:06:02 +0000 UTC

Things have been all over the place the past week since my birthday was on the 17th so I forgot to post this the night of my birthday! But hello, just wanted to give another update on how my speech therapy is going~ This is gonna be a short and quick one!

I've been going to speech therapy and doing my exercises for the past month, and like I mentioned in my last post, we checked my nodules again on July 11th. My speech therapist also mentioned this was a halfway checkup since I'm about halfway through my therapy (from what I know, I'm due to be done sometime in mid to late August).

Good news: she showed me the first video of my nodules and folds at my initial examination versus now, and there is improvement! My vocal folds aren't stiff anymore and actually move more and are in-sync. I also no longer feel the tension/pressure in my throat or neck anymore when I speak since I learned to speak "forward" and take the tension off.

Bad news: my voice quality has not changed at all and I still sound the same. My nodules also haven't really shrinked at all, either. Therapist said it's reduced a bit but not much.

Even though I'm making good progress, my therapist said sometimes nodules are stubborn and still have to get surgically removed anyway. She also said that if my voice isn't any better/I'm not satisfied with it by the end of my therapy that it'll be up to me if I want to go the medical route with the doctor.

I did want to go the natural route if possible, but I think I have to just do what'll have the better outcome for my voice. This has been an ongoing issue for almost a year, which is probably why the nodules are refusing to go down despite me doing my exercises 5 times a day which is the max. So if my voice isn't better when I'm done, then I'll have no choice but to just go for the surgery.

On another note, my speech therapist also taught me new exercises to add onto my current ones. My last session was July 11th, and my next session will be August 6th to have a big enough gap to see if I've made any more improvement so hopefully things go well!