I had Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia (AD-SD) and underwent the Selective Laryngeal Adductor Denervation - Reinnervation (SLAD-R or "De-Re") procedure at UCLA Medical Center in Feb 2011. It was performed by Dr. Berke and his team. This surgical journal blog charts my experience starting from a few days before surgery and through my ongoing recovery.
I’ve passed the hundred day mark, which was something of a milestone. My voice is getting stronger and is no longer as breathy as it was before. A better description might be “croaky.” I can speak for longer periods of time without getting lightheaded now. However, in noisy places, I still don’t have much volume and so I can’t project. Here’s a sample of my voice at the three month mark, which was a couple of weeks ago:
You can clearly hear that I have a lot more volume now than I did at 3 weeks post op. And if you compare it to the pre-op recording, you can hear that I no longer suffer from vocal spasms, which is great.
Back to my "normal routine" - playing golf at the world's longest golf course in Lijiang, China (near Tibet).
Despite my still imperfect voice, I’ve mostly been back to my normal routine: business travel, conference calls, meetings with customers, etc. If I’m in a quiet environment, then speaking is no longer the chore it was when I had SD. So all that’s left now is for me to improve to the point where I can be comfortable is noisy places too. I suspect that’s still a few weeks off.My scar is healing well. I’ve been careful to apply suntan lotion with SPF50 most days in case I wind up outside for extended periods. I suspect the scar will be barely visible in the future. Most people don’t notice it already. The numbness in my neck is still there, but seems to be less so. I expect that will resolve soon as well.