Vocal cord injection after unilateral paralysis

Hi Luna,

I was very interested to read your post as I was left with vocal cord issues after my first operation for follicular thyroid cancer in 2023.

My issue is slightly different to yours though as what happened to me is that the surgeon made a mistake during the operation and permanently paralysed the vocal cords on one side. This left me with a very weak voice.

I pushed for Speech Therapy which helped a lot and also appointments with an ENT specialist over the period of a year. My voice gradually became stronger, though isn't as strong as before the operation and it can still tire easily. The undamaged vocal cord has "learnt" to adapt and so moves further across my throat when I speak so I now sound less breathy. In my case I was told that a filler injection into my damaged vocal cords wouldn't help.

I hope this info is helpful for you as you make your decision.

Hi River71 Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I'm sorry that you've also had vocal cord issues and I'm glad to hear that they've improved over time. They did say that the working vocal cord may move more to compensate but at the minute my voice is still very weak and I really struggle if they is any background noise. I'm also working with the speech therapists and that has been very helpful.

It took about a year for my working vocal cord to adapt and most of the time my voice sounds fairly normal now. For the first 6 months I could barely whisper and at times no sound would come out at all. My voice does tire quicker now and it is harder to raise my voice in noisy environments though.

I hope the speech therapy carries on helping you and that in time, like with me, your unaffected working vocal cord adapts.