Losing Your Voice

Sore throats are common and for most people their voice remains unchanged whilst others find it develops a slight harshness or sounds croaky; these are normal and most often your larynx (or voice box) remains predominantly unaffected.

Why Do We Lose Our Voice?

When you lose your voice it will probably start as a rasp or croak that deteriorates into a whisper. This may be accompanied by a sore throat though this is not always the case; some people find their voice has disappeared without ever suffering from any soreness in the throat beforehand.

Losing your voice is most often a symptom of laryngitis which means the area of your throat called the larynx has become inflamed. The larynx, otherwise known as the voice box, contains the vocal folds (or chords) which vibrate when the air in the lungs is forced through them by the diaphragm when we exhale.

During normal speech and sound, the folds vibrate to varying degrees to give us sound, when the tissues are inflamed or have an infection, they are less able to do this and the air is simply pushed through without causing any vibration.

Very rarely, losing your voice is a symptom of a more serious condition such as a tumour in the lung or airway or because of deep psychological or emotional reasons.

Losing your voice totally is very rare and even the ability to clear the throat or cough shows that there is some degree of function there as these are classed as sounds.

If your vocal ability does not improve after a few weeks, please see your GP to rule out any serious or underlying medical complaints.

What Can We Do To Prevent It?

Sometimes you can do nothing to prevent losing your voice. Simply exchange of saliva such as from someone’s sneeze, cough or speech can be enough to transmit enough germs to transmit the infection.

It may be possible to lessen the chances of getting an infection such as avoiding those with existing sore throats, coughs and colds, making sure you are well rested and generally healthy which should help keep your immune system well prepared and ready to fight infections and germs. This can be further enhanced by making sure you manage your anger, stress and emotional issues well helping to prevent you from becoming run down and more susceptible to infections.

How Do We Treat It?

A lost voice will return in its own time and when it is able. The best action to take is to rest, drink plenty of fluids and try and talk as little as possible in order to give the tissues time to rest and heal. If you place undue stress on the vocal chords such as by singing or talking when they are not fully healthy, the chances are you will prolong the hoarseness or loss and may affect your vocal ability long term; bad news for professional singers.

Sore throats are very common, rarely serious and will usually resolve themselves with a little care and attention. There may be some measures that can protect your voice from damage but not all occurrences may be prevented.