Yes, I would imagine that anyone with S.D. has experienced this. I certainly can relate. In the six years I've been on my S.D. journey, there were days when my voice was so bad that I couldn't really get the words out to explain the problem, or I was just too tired to explain it, or someone made an excuse for me so that I didn't have to explain it. Depending on the day and how I felt, it was a relief not to have to talk at all. Some days, just leaving the house could be hard because I didn't feel like trying to talk to anyone!

The past few weeks, I've been blessed to finally get results from Botox (after a long trial and error period), and now that I can talk again (for awhile), I love to educate people about S.D. The more we educate people, the better chance we have in helping researchers find a cure.

So, I just work hard on taking it day to day, moment to moment and when the good voice days are there... I am the teacher. When the bad voice days are there, I might prefer to be the student. :-)

Im have not been social butterfly anymore with this disease for that reason, but I do get people at the bank, or people when they call, or grocery clerks who think I have a cold, and I tell them no I have a neurological disease..

Just my thoughts

Jean

I'm a Cal fan...and "yippee"...we've done darn good this year!

I recall one of the first times I noticed my voice problem was at a football match. Of course we play the real thing over here in the UK with a round ball. I think you call it soccer. Your football is our rugby but your players appear to stuff things in their shoulder area and wear hard hats and cycling pants. Most Americans I think don't know a deal about cricket either and my advice is keep it that way. All I know about watching cricket is like watching paint dry!

Anyway, I thought that my voice problem related to shouting at the game but of course it never recovered. Nor did my team by the way. I tell a lie this season they are through to the last eight of the Worthington Cup!

David

I'm curious about the Muscle Tension Disorder - never heard of that except for a woan at work who I spoke to SD about b/c her voice sounded like what I've heard of AB/SD but she mentioned it's a muscle tension problem. She said she has done speech therapy a number of times to try to control it.

Just curious if you have any more info. And as an Irish Catholic South Suburban Chicagoan. . . go Irish! Even though those Trojans killed us.

When I taught classes at conventions last year, I always told people, "I have a small problem with my vocal cords not working quite right. So, if you think I sound like I'm about to start crying or like I'm extremely nervous, it's okay. I sound like this all the time." I'd say it with a smile and an attitude of "I accept this" and people would smile back at me and be fine with it.

I've gotten more and more comfortable about telling people about this disorder. One of the reasons why is my new husband. He tells people, "yeah, my wife has this vocal disorder, no big deal, right?"

I'm currently on about zero voice after a big injection of botox, and I'm letting people just think I have a very bad case of laryngitis. These are people that I don't deal with on a regular basis.