I lost my voice! This has got to be the first time in my life that this has ever happened ?
I’ve always had a loud voice. I enjoy speaking at a high volume. It sucks a lot having to speak in a much softer manner than usual. Seriously, I sound like a dying old guy letting out his last breaths. Feels… emasculated in a way.
I think it began last Saturday (20/4). We were preparing for this camp event at Bach Khoa University. I got up Sunday feeling particularly tired, with a big lump in my throat. It hurt whenever I swallowed.
(I also had barely 4 hours of sleep the previous day, so I was seriously considering bailing from the event. Finally decided to suck it up and went).
Throughout the day my voice started off sounding weaker than normal, and then it began to just fade. I had to ask Phong to do most of the talking.
Funny enough Phong also had a mild cold on Sunday. He kept sneezing and also had a semi-sore throat. His voice wasn’t affected as much as mine though.
Monday, my throat still massively hurt. I considered using a voice amplifier to teach, but seeing how cumbersome it is I decided to just talk normally, just at a lower volume.
Afterwards I did some Googling and apparently:
- The most common cause of losing your voice is an upper respiratory tract infection that affects the larynx.
- People whose job demand lots of talking at high volumes, e.g teachers, auctioneers, singers, are vulnerable to losing their voice. The mechanism of “losing your voice” is a lot like delayed muscle soreness: as you overuse your larynx, it becomes inflamed and takes several days to recover.
- The reason why a lot of people have sort of a hoarse voice is that as they overuse their larynx, overtime a layer of callus builds up. This is really interesting.
- So overall there’s nothing to worry about if you lose your voice once in a while. However they also say it might be caused by a growing tumour which is a cause for cancer. So if your voice remains weak for more than several weeks, you should go see a doctor immediately.
Tuesday was the worst! I became a meek little kid during the class. Had to speak like I had perpetual depression and lethargy, even though my body felt perfectly fine. The word here is “emasculation” :<
Wednesday (today), my throat does not hurt so much when I swallow. I can speak at 85% my regular voice now. Coughed quite a bit throughout the day though.
Hope that in the next 1-2 days I’ll be 100% back to normal.
As a side note, I have a group of four students who travel from Hai Duong all the way here to study 3 evenings a week. Somehow 3 of them also have a sore throat! Wondering if this is related at all, if I infected them or they infected me.
Update 4/5: Alright it’s been close to 2 weeks and somehow I’m still coughing violently and my throat is still kind of sore. I can speak mostly normally now, but it still hurt a tiny bit when I swallow. This is a longass cold. A lot of people around me are having signs of a cold too. I think there’s a cold outbreak happening now.