Did you lose your voice?

[Trinalovescats]

As many of you know,I was sedated for 6 days and I was curious if anyone else lost their voice?
It took me a whole month to regain my voice.

Also,I have a lazy left eyelid that doesn't close and the nurses kept asking my parents why my eye won't close...funny they got weirded out by it not closing!

So did you lose your voice?

 

[honeybunny]

I did not lose my voice.

 

[Owenall]

I was sedated for about 4 days and lost my voice and ability to swallow drinks for about 3 months, although I could swallow solid food Ok, and drinks with thickeners in with difficulty. My voice gradually got back to normal in late August after my AVR in April. It has been over 3 years since my op and everything is fine now.

 

[mainframe]

i was sedated for 12 days for my 2nd surgery in 2009. I don't remember losing my voice or having a hard time swallowing. Maybe I just got lucky.

Chris

 

[jeffp]

I was only sedated for a day after MVR and on the ventilator for one more day, but had difficulty talking after for a while. My voice had an almost palsy like wobble to it and they suspect there was some phrenic nerve irritation. I also would get diaphragm spasms while talking and would have a " whoop" randomly in the middle of words when it would happen. Kind of freaked everyone out for the first week or so home. Gradually got back to normal after about a month.
Jeff

 

[Trinalovescats]

Did you guys also have a feeding tube?I had it for 14 days it was removed on my last day of discharge.Im still slowly getting my appetite back 4.5 months later.

 

[epstns]

I didn't have any lengthy intubations, but just about every time I've had to be intubated, I've lost my voice. Having that tube down your throat often irritates the vocal cords, and loss of voice is the result. When I had my pacemaker lead replacement this past July, even though I was only intubated for a couple of hours, within a day I lost my voice. It recovered quickly, but I still had a rough voice for a week or two.

 

[dornole]

Interesting. In addition to the irritation from intubation, irritating the [FONT=&quot]recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) that controls your larynx during open heart surgery could also happen. My daughter's was cut during a PDA ligation surgery and her left vocal cord is paralyzed as a result. Luckily since she was only a few days old, with a flexible newborn nervous system, she has good compensation from the right vocal cord and can speak (though not yell and she's a bit hoarse sounding). But caused a lot of swallowing problems at first and I've heard that in older people this injury can mean permanent loss of voice. [/FONT]

 

[Trinalovescats]

I wasn't worried about my hoarse throat,I was just happy to be alive!