To continue with my story, I want to emphasize that Botox merely treats the symptoms of SD and does nothing to address the cause. All the other therapies I tried (Alexander Technique, acupuncture, voice therapy) focused on the symptoms too. There is nothing wrong with treating the symptoms. Sometimes that may be all you can do. In fact, Allergen who makes Botox would like all of us SD sufferers to believe that there is nothing else that can be done. They have no incentive to fund research or support discussion about other options.
So again, I encourage any one reading this post to educate yourself on the dynamics of mind-body syndromes. This is when the mind induces a physiologic response (throught the autonomic system) for psychologic reasons (which are at the unconcious level). The gold-standard for explaining these dynamics are the books by Dr. John Sarno.
In my next post, I'll explain how I used his approach...
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2 comments:
Thanks so much for posting your story; I'm looking forward to hearing more. I've also had SD for about 5 years and have tried all sorts of alternative therapies and exercises before finally trying botox. The botox only worked for about 2 weeks for me, but it was really great to talk again and I'll probably try it again. One down side of botox is that it takes away my singing voice for quite a while, and I do sing in a choir which means a lot to me.
Lately I've just wanted to give up worrying about my voice all the time and get on with my life. I've learned that I can speak on an inhale and people understand me quite a bit better. I don't know if doing this all the time is going to cause problems down the road, but it works for now.
Hi Rebecca,
Whenever I correspond with people who have SD, I am struck by how similar our stories are. I too sing on a choir and missed it when I took the Botox. Ironically, I started singing because I thought it would help my SD.
Regarding your second comment, I can't encourage you to speak on the inhale. I think it will cause problems down the road as you are reinforcing a bad habit. I'll post some more later today...but in the meantime, I strongly encourage you to go to Amazon.com and look up Sarno's book, The Mind Body Prescription and then read the reviews. You can learn a lot about his approach there. All the best to you!
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