www.voice-doctor.com

Welcome to the National Spasmodic Dysphonia bulletin board (BB). You will learn much, if you stay tuned. There have been several past discussions about Dr. Cooper, some recently, that you can research by going back on this BB. Many of the comments have been negative because the majority of the people on this BB are working with doctors who have a different etiology about SD, than does Dr. Cooper. Therefore, many people disregard his accomplishments.

I personally worked with Dr. Cooper in the first six months of acquiring SD. His surprisingly simple voice techniques work! I got my voice back in three days. That beautiful voice, which I thought was a miracle at the time, lasted for ten days, then it slowly slipped back into the SD pattern. There were reasons why my voice didn't hold. I had gone back to my stressful job as an Inside Telephone Sales rep. I was on the phone non-stop eight hours a day. Also, I had just moved into a newly constructed home and was being poisoned by the neuro-chemicals from the construction. So I was feeling lousy most of the time.

There was little time for me to keep up Dr. Cooper's rigorous voice exercise regimen. When I first returned home, I did the exercises two and three hours a day, before and after work. The exercises are tedious and boring, but those who can endure the task have maintained their voices. I have met them. Dr. Cooper locates on the musical scale where you should be talking, and he places your voice in the mask, that is in the area around you upper lip and nose. If you are speaking correctly, you should feel a buzz in this "mask" area.

Subsequently, I did a radio show with Dr. Cooper and he was able to bring my voice back up, but the SD was winning by then and my voice never went back to being healthy. Six months later, I talked like the "monster from the deep" and opted for Dr. Berke's surgery. I just had my six months checkup and the new nerve is healing very well (I'll write more soon on the BB about that visit soon).

After seeing Dr. Berke, I stopped by to see Dr. Cooper. He said that the surgery has created a very breathy voice. He doesn't think my cords are closing all the way on some of the vowels yet. He offered to work with my new surgically created voice when I was ready. I told him that I would wait a few months to give more time for the healing process. Dr. Cooper has worked with several of Dr. Dedos patients, whose voices had become almost inaudible after surgery. I have heard them after Dr. Cooper helped them through his techniques to regain good voices. He has also worked with Dr. Berke's patients after surgery.

At this writing, I do believe that I will be limited vocally, due to the surgery. However, the bottom line is that I can speak clearly and be understood, which is why I went for the surgery. When I say limited vocally, I'm comparing it to the voice I was born with. I was a professional singer and TV host. And my voice was my most important tool in my successful sales career. All these vocal functions are gone now. I do think that my voice will get louder than it is right now, but I also think I will always be limited in what I can do with it.

I plan to work again with Dr. Cooper since I do believe he can help me again. He will not be able to get back the virgin voice that SD destroyed and surgery altered, but I believe that he can enhance the one I have. I would highly recommend Dr. Cooper to anyone who has a serious voice problem and may be contemplating surgery. The fact that I couldn't hang on to what he taught me, doesn't mean that you can't. Brian Foxly is just one of the people that has been very successful working with Dr. Cooper. Names are available if anyone is interested.

Dr. Morton Cooper, PhD, is a Speech Language Pathologist in Southern California. Laryngeal Dystonia ("Spasmodic Dysphonia" - which is extremely difficult to diagnose, even by the experts, as there are so many "similar" dysphonias which *mimic* SD) is a neurological and medical disorder. Thus, a neurological-disorder is treated by a medical doctor.

I was at the Michigan Spasmodic Dysphonia Symposium (NSDA) last month in Detroit; and, even with years of experience attending conferences and researching SD, I was *blown away* that SD cannot be fully and accurately diagnosed by the SD-medical-experts of MANY years. In 2001? Sometimes, even the experts cannot tell the difference between "remission" and an incorrect diagnosis or the difference between SD and MTD and other dysphonias ("Dysphonia" means you have a problem with speaking...with no causal implications).

It might help you, Nisha, to do a SEARCH on this Bulletin Board (which is inhabited by some intelligent, experienced SD patients) on subjects which interest you. Also, pay attention to people like Joan Carole (who has already responded to you) re their experiences with the subject you surfaced. Experienced patients give great information.

You dropped in to the best source on Spasmodic Dysphonia. Patients who have "been there and done it" over many years, with all of our varying experiences. We SD'ers (on this BB) have between one and 30-years of experience with all kinds of docs and treatment methods.

Good luck on your own case and treatment. Welcome to the SD-BB.

David Barton did an excellent job recently in reporting on the events and SD-doctors' presentations in Michigan. I hope you saw his comprehensive report. You would get alot of information from it.

However, there were 150+ patients in attendance at the William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan a month ago today; and, obviously, we all did "selective listening" (as humans do) to the information most important to us. One of the things that hit me hard is, with these esteemed and VERY-experienced SD doctors, diagnosing SD still can be "an art" as well as a science ~ in other words, not perfect. As an example, I have a "classic case" of severe AD-SD (this means "easy to dx by an experienced doc because I meet all the criteria" ~ history and symptoms are SO clear), yet I had to dx myself in 1994 after four years of treatment and non-diagnosis by voice professionals.

Other patients may have *mixed-cases* of AB-AD-MTD and other things and, even the most experienced docs struggle with a clear diagnosis when the symptoms are not as clear as mine were. The "SD-Adventure" I call it. It is neither the doctor's nor the patient's fault as the *BRAIN* tends to be complicated (all that grey matter doing different functions) and defy the experts' attempts at defining it. True-SD originates in the brain. Other disorders are confused with it because some things that look (sound) like SD do not originate in the brain.

Thanks for starting a good thread and write me on my e-mail. Good luck.

--Lynne