Susan,While I don't consider myself anything other than a "recreational singer", one downside aspect of botox is that it will serious inhibit your singing voice within 3 to 5 days after the injection. Essentially the botox makes the vocal cord muscle totally relax - unable to spasm - which polishes off your ability to shout, sing, talk loudly or change the tone range of your voice. After the effects of the shot begins to diminish, some "tone" will return and, over the next few months or weeks, the SD will slowly but surely regain control over your vocal cord muscle. As that happens, your normal singing voice will return - but your speaking voice will tighten up.
Essentially, when you sing - you use 95% of your lung capacity. That is enough to make your vocal cords vibrate and to sound normal. When speaking, however, you use 5% of your lung capacity - not enough to make the taught cord vibrate easily. This is why people with SD can sing, but not talk. Hope this helps. John
Hello Susan: I feel compelled to answer your inquiry from my own experience. If your singing is more important to you than your speaking voice, you must take this into consideration before having a Botox injection. After my first Botox shot, my singing voice CHANGED for the worse. Before Botox, I was able to sing fairly normally (not as well as before I developed SD, of course), but after the shot, my voice was initially terrible for about 2 months, then progressed to what I would term marginal. I continued to sing with my Master Chorale, but I had very little volume and poor control. I would have to sing very cautiously, always being afraid of what I called my "bagpipe" sound which burst forth in a very un-lovely sort of bleat. This condition never did improve, and I was afraid to have another shot for fear of totally ruining my singing voice. Later, I did have Dr. Berke's surgery, knowing that this would lessen my chances of ever singing again, but I had come to the conclusion that speaking was more important than singing. I am now 9 months post-op and am singing tenor (instead of alto) in my church choir. My range is about an octave and a half and I am taking voice lessons to improve my tone quality and range. I am not recovered enough to rejoin the Master Chorale, but still hope to some day. My speaking voice is almost back to normal, however and that's the best part of all of this.
The bottom line is that you will need to decide for yourself whether it is more important to sing than to speak before deciding on an invasive course of action. I'm sure others who sing will be answering your inquiry, and as we've found out in this disorder, everyone reacts differently.
I wish you the best of luck with your search for answers.
--Lloy