Hoarse? How to soothe a rough voice back to smooth

A long lecture, a loud party or simply a cold – and suddenly your voice is hoarse or gone altogether. What exactly happens when you lose your voice and how to get it back. Berlin (dpa) – Raspy. Breathy. Strained. Weak. When you're hoarse, sending a voice message, presenting a project at a meeting, dictating an address to your car's navigation system, or simply having a phone call can be difficult. "We're a communicative society, and voice plays a major role in people's jobs too. So having it fail you due to hoarseness isn't just unpleasant, it's a big problem," says Dr Christopher Bohr, head of the Clinic and Policlinic for Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Medicine at Regensburg University Hospital in Germany. It's a problem many of us have had, if only on occasion. Here are answers to some pertinent questions: How and why does hoarseness occur? Your voice is produced by airflow from your lungs – which act like a pair of bellows – upwards through your trachea (windpipe) to your larynx (voice box). There it meets two bands of tissue, your vocal folds ("cords"), which open when you breathe but close when you speak, causing them to vibrate and create sound waves. Your vocal tract – pharynx (throat), oral cavity (mouth) and nasal cavity – then filters the sound waves, shaping your voice, its timbre and pitch. "Your voice is in good working order when your vocal folds are highly flexible and completely open and close," Bohr says. "If this isn't the case, you become hoarse." Hoarseness can occur when inflammation makes your vocal folds swell and lose flexibility. Vocal nodules, polyps or cysts on the folds can also disturb airflow and hence their vibrations. In short, says Bohr, "anything that hinders the opening and closing of the vocal folds can cause hoarseness." Common culprits include colds, laryngitis or overuse of your voice, for instance by trying to carry on a conversation in a loud pub or make yourself heard teaching a classroom of noisy children. Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a chronic condition in which stomach acid rises into your oesophagus (food pipe), is another possible cause of hoarseness. Smoking, regular alcohol consumption and inhalation of large amounts of dust can irritate your larynx and vocal folds as well. What can you do to treat hoarseness? Since hoarseness results from your vocal folds' loss of flexibility, it's important to restore it as far as possible. You can do this by keeping them moist, for instance with hyaluronic acid tablets or salty lozenges. They increase salt levels in your saliva, thereby increasing moisture in the folds' cells. Saline solution inhalations can be beneficial too. And be sure to drink plenty of water, or perhaps warm tea with camomile, which has an anti-inflammatory effect, or sage, which moisturizes. The most effective measure, however, is probably to rest your voice. If this is impossible, say, because you've got an important appointment when you'll need to speak, it might be a good idea to warm up your voice a little beforehand – but go easy on it. "Clearing your throat or whispering doesn't help at all," says Bohr. "On the contrary, it only further irritates your already irritated vocal folds. Whispering puts a lot of strain on them." It's best to speak in a middle vocal register and natural, low volume. Something else to keep in mind: "If you feel phlegm build-up on your vocal folds, coughing is gentler than clearing your throat," says Dr Antoniu-Oreste Gostian, head physician in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at St Elisabeth Hospital in Straubing, Germany. When is hoarseness reason to see a doctor? If it lasts longer than three or four weeks, you should definitely try to determine the cause and rule out a serious condition, such as cancer of the larynx. "When detected early, cancer of the larynx is now nearly 100% curable," Bohr says. So make an appointment with an ENT physician. Can you strengthen your voice through training? Yes. Using your voice better can reduce strain on your larynx and vocal folds. "If your voice isn't resilient enough for your job or private life, you should get a thorough voice diagnosis," says Gostian. The first place to turn is a specialist in phoniatrics, who, with a speech therapist, can work out a tailored treatment plan for you. You can also do some simple voice exercises on your own. "Softly hum a melody, or try the LAX VOX method, which involves humming through a straw into a glass of water," suggests Bohr. Strange though it may sound, it's quite effective. Can your mental state affect your voice? Yes, psychological factors sometimes play a role in hoarseness. A classic example is psychogenic aphonia, a disorder in which a person, due to psychological or emotional stress, either fully loses their voice or can only speak in a hoarse whisper. Incidentally, someone's emotional state can be read in their voice. By analyzing parameters such as pitch, volume and speech rate, modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems can gauge how tense or excited a person is. When you're excited, the pitch of your voice is often higher because muscles in your larynx contract, stretching your vocal folds and making them tauter, which causes them to vibrate faster. When you're relaxed, your voice is usually lower. The following information is not intended for publication dpa/tmn coi bzl rid nhr xxde ob arw

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)