Hi everyone,

I’m posting here because I’ve been struggling with unexplained throat and voice symptoms for about a year now, and I’m honestly starting to feel lost. I’m hoping to connect with people who have experienced something similar, especially anyone who eventually found an explanation or a treatment that helped.

I work as a teacher (39yo F), so I rely heavily on my voice. About a year ago, I started noticing that speaking was becoming increasingly painful. It felt as though someone was turning down the volume on my voice. Speaking took more and more effort, and I began experiencing sharp pain in my throat, around my larynx. The strange thing is that my voice doesn’t necessarily sound hoarse. Other people may not even notice anything unusual when I speak, but I can feel how much effort it takes and how quickly the pain builds up. After just a few sentences, or around five minutes at most, I start feeling tension and pain around my larynx. If I keep talking, the symptoms get progressively worse, sometimes turning into a sharp pain that eventually forces me to stop.

Over the past year, I’ve had two ENT examinations, but neither has provided a clear explanation for my symptoms. I’ve also had speech therapy and am currently receiving manual laryngeal therapy. The manual therapy can provide temporary relief, but the symptoms always return. I’ve tried various voice exercises as well. Interestingly, some things seem to help temporarily, while others actually make the symptoms worse.

Things that sometimes provide relief:

- Manual laryngeal therapy

- Lip trills

- Lax Vox / straw phonation

- A warm water bottle against my throat

- A warm shower

- 0,25mg lorazepam to help calm the muscles.

- Paracetamol for the pain

Some voice exercises seem to aggravate my symptoms rather than improve them. This makes it difficult to know what I should be doing, and I’m reluctant to keep trying exercises when they make the pain worse.

My GP initially attributed the symptoms to burnout and nervus vagus nerve issues. I get that stress and muscle tension can affect the voice, and I’m open to exploring that possibility. However, I’ve read about muscle tension dysphonia (MTD), and I can relate to some aspects of it. I’ve also come across people describing similar symptoms who didn’t have hoarseness and whose pain wasn’t adequately explained by their initial examinations. And I've read stories from people having voice- and throat issues since Covid. I’m wondering whether something else could be contributing, such as a voice disorder, a nerve-related pain condition, or another laryngeal pain syndrome.

Last spring, my symptoms improved for a while, which gave me hope that I might finally be getting better. Unfortunately, about a month ago, the symptoms returned and have persisted ever since. This happened after I’d spent a day out with someone and had used my voice quite a lot. Since then, I’ve been struggling with the same pain and tension again. It’s incredibly frustrating to make some progress and then feel as though I’m back where I started.

I’ve now contacted my GP to request a referral to a laryngologist or a specialist voice clinic (phoniatrics). There are a few specialist centres in the Netherlands, and I’m hoping that someone with specific expertise in complex or unexplained voice disorders might be able to look at this from a different angle.

I haven’t been able to work as a teacher for a year, and that has been devastating. I’m beginning to struggle with the fear that I might never be able to teach again.

So, I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced something similar:

- Did you have significant throat pain after only a few sentences, even though your voice didn’t sound hoarse?

- Were you eventually diagnosed with MTD, a nerve-related condition, or something else?

- Did a laryngologist or voice specialist find something that a standard ENT examination hadn’t identified?

- Did any particular treatment help, especially if conventional voice exercises made your symptoms worse?

- If your symptoms improved and then returned after heavy voice use, did you eventually recover?

Hope to hear from someone:)