Osteopathy Voice and Song: Reinke's Edema, story of I.
I. came to my office for a dysphonia problem that arose about 4 years ago in a subtle and progressive way. Teaching in a gym she has always blamed the problem on 'having to scream'. Then, with the passage of time, the disorder began to persist I., believing that it could be something different, first turned to an ENT and then to a phoniatrist who found bilateral Reinke's edema on 2 / 3 front strings. The edema was then surgically reduced.
Following this, speech therapy and diaphragmatic control exercises were prescribed. Everything continued in post-surgery for a period of 5 months, a period after which, given the non-results, I. went again to a phoniatrist who found mild edema on 1/3 posterior chord with hypotonia of the 2 / 3 anterior and was prescribed other speech therapy, but hypothesizing a further intervention. What emerged from the medical reports brought by I. was that a pharyngeal hyperemia was also highlighted, and a chondro-vomeral deviation with a large right convex radius with anterior dislocation of the quadrangular cartilage.
As a first approach I felt I had to go and evaluate the condition of the skull and rebalance its parameters by restoring functionality and then evaluate the phonatory tripod in order to realize the state of functionality of the vocal organ structures. The bulk of the work was a tissue and articulatory rebalancing of the subhyoid components, which were then brought into agreement with the hyoid and suprahyoid structures with articulatory and fascial techniques. The latest work was a rebalancing between the skull and the phonatory system to restore the functionality of the tripod.
Immediately after the session, I.'s voice was less blown and definitely with a louder and more ringing 'volume'.
After 12 days, her voice kept these improvements and indeed it was further 'cleaned'. I. has regained her vocal and social autonomy and is very happy because after a long enough period of discouragement regarding her chances of recovery she has found serenity and has very pleasantly discovered this aspect of osteopathic treatments that she did not even imagine could exist.
The next steps will be to implement the results with a few more sessions in order to eliminate or at least reduce as much as possible the 'blowing' that is still present and to remotely control the condition of the strings with phoniatric support.