Posted , 3 users are following.
I've was diagnosed with bronchiectasis 2 years ago. I am taking an inhaler called Breo. I cough throughout the day, not too bad, but I have noticed that my voice weakens. Is this normal as it has never happened before?
0 likes, 3 replies
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dancing_queen beverley85820
Posted
i find that I can’t control the volume of my voice and it can be very croaky. I’m often told that I am speaking too quiet and people can’t hear me and then another time I’m told to stop speaking so loud. It can be very frustrating at times, especially when I’m with people who don’t know about the condition.
aitarg35939 beverley85820
Posted
I know of several things that can be going on. First, the volume of our voice depends upon how much air we can push out over our vocal cords and on whether we have the energy to use our diaphragm in the process.
2d: vocal cords are just muscles. We must exercise them to keep them in good working order. As we age & as more of us tend to live alone, and with the disinclination to talk rather than text, we "practice" less and less, and if we no longer work ,,, Humming and then singing on a regular basis helps.
3d: Mucus can dry up or just thickly coat our entire breathing passage. That both restricts airflow and gunks up the vocal cords. Might have to try a mucus thinner. Costco stateside sells the cheapest one, as cheap as the stuff was back in the '80s-'90s. Once it is loose enough, humming/talking/ reading aloud and singing help clear the stuff from the upper passage.
4th: check the info flyer for the Breo. I don't have a problem w/advair which is the twice daily original version of the same med. But both spiriva & lipitor affected my vocal cords so much that all I could do was croak.
Dancing Queen, is it possible you're experiencing hearing loss? Becoming deaf(er) affects how we hear our voices inside our head, and that affects how we modulate the volume of our voice.
I had another point but alas I was interrupted & then had a silver moment & don't recall. I am pretty deaf bilaterally ( thank you IV gent, 1985 lung infection!) but I used to narrate talking books. I have attended several too many talks on the mechanics of breath & vocal cords, lol.
aitarg35939 beverley85820
Posted
Remembered my other point: most coughing damages our vocal cords, per my gp, ENT and later an otolaryngologist. If we learn to cough without the sound effects, we do much less damage. For me with vast quantities of mucus, this means silent expulsions of air until I think the stuff is most of the way up. Then there are sound effects. If there's a way to get the stuff up that last bit silently, I need to learn it.
If you don't have all the gunk but just have a dry cough, find some lozenges you like & see if they won't get you thru much of the day w/o coughing.