About Vocal Nodules & How to Protect Them

Video Transcript

"JAMES MENY: The more pressure the more the chords are going to close up against it. The more you blow air against them the louder you're going to get a sound, its called trumpeting. It's actually--it creates a really big sound as used in belt but horrible on the chords. Over the long term what happens is the chords can't or loose their elasticity and can't resist that air pressure against the chords so the big thing that you're going to see long term or one of two things or even both. Because the chords are pressed so hard against to each other they start getting raw and you'll end up with a little bit of a callous that starts growing and that's called a polyp or nodule. As it gets harder you've heard a people get nodules and that looks like a little pimple on the side of the vocal chord. It could be anywhere on the vocal chord it's usually at where the person breaks in their voice. If that happens then you have to have surgery. And how do you know if you even have it by the way? If you go through a scale of ah-hah hah and you hear a whole in your voice ahhhh-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-haaahh you hear that happening you'll probably developing that or have it. If you get the surgery done what happens is they either use--use actual scalpel or they use laser to cut or burn off that that nodule or polyp and then there's scar tissue. And just like anywhere else on your body scar tissue is not as flexible as the original tissue. So even though you may have it remove you may not have the abilities that you once had before you had the nodule or the polyp especially in flexibility wise or range sometimes."