Laryngitis - treatment?

[ny biker]

I've had a bad cold for almost a month now. Most of the symptoms have cleared up, but I have a lingering case of laryngitis. This has happened before, where a bad cold ended with laryngitis, and a few times I've been completely unable to speak at all. This time around I can still talk but my voice is very hoarse. And as mentioned in other threads, it has affected my breathing while exercising because the swollen vocal cords make it harder for air to pass through.

It's been almost two weeks since my voice first became hoarse. Last week it was worse than the week before, so I worked from home in order to minimize the need to talk to anyone. The breathing problem has gotten better. But my voice has still not recovered.

I haven't been to a doctor because I don't think there's anything they can do to help. But I really need this to get better. Does anyone know if there is something a doctor can do, or if there's anything I can do other than drinking lots of fluids and using throat drops?

Thanks!

[Crankin]

When I moved back here, I would get this every October, a result of the colder weather and the beginning of school. I wasn't sick, just could not talk, which pretty much eliminates being at work for a teacher. I did go to the doctor the first time and the one thing she told me was do not drink hot drinks! Keep sipping and drinking cool water all day. And don't talk! I kept trying to talk in a whisper voice, which made it worse.

[OakLeaf]

You could still drink or gargle the cooled infusion :)

The University of Maryland is my usual go-to for home remedies when I don't have something specific in mind. Here's what they have to say: http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/condition/laryngitis

[rocknrollgirl]

I had it really bad last year. My vocal cords were so swollen I was having trouble breathing. Especially at night. It was pretty scary. I went to the doc and they gave me a short course of steroids. It worked like a charm, at least for the swelling. The lingering hoarse voice and cough lasted for weeks, but at least I could breathe.

Might be work a shot.

[marni]

whenever we used to go skiing both my father and I would go completely hoarse. He carried of hip flask of equal amounts honey, bourbon and lemon juice. got a small swig every night. It helped, but it had to be at night or after I was done skiing for safety reasons.

[ny biker]

Thanks ladies.

I went for a bike ride last night. My legs felt great but I was wheezing on every hill, and it was from my throat, not asthma. So I'm going to try a doctor. Of course since this is a holiday weekend the earliest appointment I could get is for Tuesday morning. I made the appointment, but will go to urgent care tonight. I'm pretty sure my insurance requires a hefty copay for urgent care but if there is any treatment available I want to start it now.

The UMd website was interesting. I do usually take zinc lozenges when I first get a cold and they usually help. But this cold started differently than usual, with wheezing a full day before the tell-tale sore throat, so I didn't start the zinc early enough. I did find that menthol cough drops were very helpful, so much so that I almost went out and bought some old-fashioned Vicks Vapo-Rub when the cough and congestion were at their worst.

[OakLeaf]

Yuck. Hope the doc had something for you and you feel better soon.

[ny biker]

Thanks. The visit to urgent care went more smoothly than I could have hoped, with no patients in the waiting room when I arrived. I saw a P.A. who confirmed that my lungs were clear and gave me a prescription for prednisone. If it's not better in a few days I need to see an ENT specialist. And there's no need to limit my activities.

And yes she asked "is your heart rate always this low?" I would have been disappointed if she hadn't. :D

The pharmacist recommended taking the first dose tomorrow morning because it can cause insomnia. I'm looking forward to it.

Btw my copay was only $20 -- with my old insurance I think it would have been $60. Many aspects of my job frustrate me but we do have good health insurance, which is an indication that upper management respects us. I do appreciate that.

[Crankin]

You will feel better pretty quickly. I know Prednisone is not good in many ways, but in situations like this, it works, and quickly, too. I am sure, as someone with asthma, you are familiar with this.
I am so glad I stopped getting laryngitis every fall and some years, in April, too. I had to have my 8 year old son call the lady who got substitute teachers once, because I absolutely could not talk. Have a good holiday weekend.

[rocknrollgirl]

That is what they gave me last year when I had it. It should start to work pretty quickly.

[ny biker]

Unfortunately it has not helped. Things seemed a little better on Saturday but I'm still hoarse and had problems breathing when I went for a walk yesterday. So I have an appointment with and ENT on Thursday.

It's such a pain not being able to talk.

[ny biker]

Um okay. The ENT was a jerk.

Apparently it just a coincidence that this started just as I was getting over a bad cold. My left vocal cord is paralyzed.

There are three basic possible causes for this. (1) Damage during surgery. This does not apply to me. (2) Ideopathic. A fancy word that means "we have no clue." (3) A problem with the nerve than runs down from my head, around my heart and back up again. I have two CT scans scheduled for next week to look into this.

According to this doctor there is no treatment. They can shoot collagen into it temporarily improve my ability to speak but that would make the breathing problem worse. Except he refused to believe it was causing a breathing problem -- I had to get angry and then cry before he paid attention to that part. "It would take extreme exercise for that to happen." Well yeah, that's what I do, jacka$$. (I am really angry at him.)

Anyway. What I didn't tell him, because why waste the energy on someone who's clearly not listening, is that I have a friend whose vocal cords were damaged during a surgical procedure, and it affects her breathing during bike rides. So I know I'm not imagining the wheezing that comes from my throat when I ride my bike up a hill. In fact I referred my friend to the pulmonologist who treats my asthma, and he did tests to confirm she had no lung problems and then referred her to an ENT. That ENT apparently suggested some treatments to possibly improve her situation. I think speech therapy might have been one of them, I'm not sure.

So I will go for the CT scan next week and then have a follow up with the jerk doctor early the following week. In the meantime I will schedule an appointment with the other ENT that my pulmonologist recommended to my friend.

After I left the doctor's office, I remembered something that happened to me a long time ago. I was living in Chicago at the time so it must have been around 1990, give or take. I had to go to a meeting for work. The only details I remember were that it was at an office I'd never been to before, I had to rent a car to drive there, and I was by myself, which was unusual because usually a senior manager was involved with any meetings that I attended. Anyway when I got to the place and parked my car in the garage, I realized that I had lost my voice. Spontaneous laryngitis with no apparent cause. It was weird. I don't remember how long it lasted, probably a day or so at most, and it went away on its own. I assumed it was some sort of stress reaction.

So here is the really important question: if you have a CT scan of the neck and chest with IV contrast, would you be able to go for a bike ride afterwards?? The place where I'm going for the tests is right near the route of my usual post-work bike ride. It might be a nice way to clear my head afterwards.

==

Update. Oh jeezy peezy. The Mayo Clinic website knows more about this that the doctor does. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/vocal-cord-paralysis/basics/definition/con-20026357

I'm leading a bike ride on Saturday that will require a few pre-ride announcements. I guess I will type them up and staple them to the cue sheets.

[thekarens]

Jackass docs aren't worth your time or effort. Definitely switch asap! Hope you get some improvement soon :(

[Crankin]

I am sorry this happened to you. Really, when the physician doesn't get intense exercise, then s/he is an azzhole.
I don't think you should have an issue after the CT scan.
I'm allergic to IV contrast dye, so as an asthmatic, make sure you tell them you have asthma, allergies.

[OakLeaf]

Ugh. What a jerk doctor. Hope you get better treatment from the new one and that he has something that will help.

In the meantime as far as the bike, I always found that sticking my tongue out while climbing, like the pros do, really helps open the airway.

[ny biker]

Thanks ladies.

The frustrating thing now is having to wait more than a week to find out if it is idiopathic or if there is a more serious cause, and then wait more for whatever treatment is appropriate -- unfortunately many of us know this feeling all too well. I did try to expedite things by going to the radiology department in person and then back to the doctor's office to schedule the follow-up appointments, since they are located in the same hospital.

Overnight I decided to make an appointment to see the pulmonologist, just to get his input -- he also does critical care which I think gives him a broader view of things. Unfortunately his first available appointment is not until the end of June. So I sent him an email instead to ask for a referral and if he felt it would be helpful for me to see him.

[ny biker]

I thought I had followed up on this thread, but I guess not.

The paralyzed vocal cord gradually improved. I think it was August when my voice sounded normal again. I still had minor breathing problems on bike rides for a month or so longer. The pulmonologist was great. I was able to see him before I got the CT scans, and he asked me to send him a cd with the CT scan images so he could examine them. If the CT scans had shown that something in my chest that was affecting the nerve, he would have treated me instead of the ENT. He also referred me to an ENT who specializes in vocal cord problems. By the time I was able to get an appointment with her, the symptoms had improved quite a bit. She told me that the cold I had had was the cause of the problem -- idiopathic in this case basically means caused by a virus.

I came down with a couple more colds last year. The ENT had said that the paralysis was likely to recur, so both times I worked from home while I was sick so I could avoid straining my voice. Recently I've had a mild sore throat a few times, but I think it was caused by pollen allergies. My voice was not affected.

This morning I woke up with a sore throat and laryngitis. The pain is on the right side, not the left which was the paralyzed side. My right ear hurts a little, too. Otherwise I feel fine. I'm kind of concerned -- I know it's not paralyzed, but I'm worried that will happen. I'm trying to rest my voice, hoping this will clear up on its own.