After three botox shots, I can't say it's been a exactly successful.

First botox...small dose.....but back to square one voice wise only a month later. Second botox.....much larger dose.....but couldn't talk for 8 weeks! Third time.....smaller dose....could barely talk/whisper for three weeks.....and now voice is already breaking and it's been just over a month and a week. That was an unpleasant surprise.

Just like most people here, the difficulty of balancing out a career in the midst of this is agonizing to say the least....and I find myself having great empathy w/anyone that writes in expressing similar dismay.

Now I've covered the spectrum botox wise overall with small, medium, and large dosages, and it seems to have been as harmful as helpful. Being unable to talk for 11 weeks is a high price to pay. Then there's the transition period from a mediocre voice to a good voice which isn't all that fun.....followed by the good voice period being short lived.

Am left wondering about botox....but not without hope.....and appreciation that we could have far worse than SD.

Have learned a lot from everyone's posts on this board and their personal experiences.

Sorry to hear that the 3 botox that you've had have not worked for you very well. I can't remember if you have AD or AB SD - please try to remember to add this with your signature file at the end of your message.

I know how frustrating it can be to have a long down time with loss of voice as a side effect of botox. But try not to give up too easily on botox - it is a matter of trial and error. From my own experience of 12 botox shots over 5 years I found absolutely no co-relation between the dosage given and the number of weeks that I went between injections. I kept a record card of results that the hospital gave me and kept a chart of the duration periods eg : 1.5 units each side I went 22 weeks between injections, 5 units each side = 12 weeks, 2.5 units each side = 33 weeks, 3 units each side = 15 weeks.

I do believe though that this extreme breathy down time can be the most frustrating part of the whole cycle. I found it extremely hard to deal with in my profession dealing with builders, architects and engineers on noisy construction sites, to the point of extreme hyperventilation by running out of air too much and too quickly.

I know several people have also tried getting the injection in just one vocal cord - some alternating sides and some sticking to the same side each time. They have reported that doing this reduces the breathiness and down time to a more tolerable level.

Continued best wishes

I'm a 40-shot veteran now. It works better for me now than it did in the early days because the doctors (and I) have played around with different alternatives. I'm envious of the few SD-people I know who have a shot and it produces a normal-sounding voice straight away which lasts until their next shot - in my case I've had to deal with this breathiness issue.

As well as the dosage you are getting, I would look at changing some of the other variables involved. You could consider unilateral shots instead of bilateral, and talk to your doctor about maybe sharing the contents of the syringe into more than one site in the vocal muscle - this acts as an insurance policy in case the placement isn't quite right.

Hang in there!