Singing voice....
Any singers under us...do you feel your voice has been adversely effected by the prednisone...and what have you been able to do for it.
Back group two years PMR no on one mg prednisone, still manageable pain, still rest an hour a day if I can! Thanks all, Alida
I am afraid so, only discovered that my singing had become a croak a year or so ago.. I think that my throat is narrower too. I have difficult swallowing tablets etc now. I imagine like all muscles your singing muscles will respond to exercise. Keep singing!
Thanks for yr response.🌞I certainly will not stop
Not sure whether it’s Pred or age, but my singing voice has deteriorated badly over last two years. I also find I’m regularly clearing my throat, almost like a nervous habit. Dr gave me Demysta nasal spray. It helps a bit.
Good luck 🎼
Pym
Regularly clearing throat - me too - but not so much at all since I cut out gluten. Have been nicely surprised. Singing voice still intact - I think!
So helpful to get all the responses. I feel very supported.🌞😉
I sing alto with a Cheshire choir, The Tatton. Singers. Pred seems to have helped my voice. I easily reached a top D last night! Couldn't do that before. Singing is one of my great joys and my PMR hasn't adversely affected it. 👍👍🌷🌷😀
What I think it could be is that I am diminishing the amount of prednisone...so I got more inflammation than before..pain wise I mange,just, but the voice is suffering, but I just have to accept that , I think.... thanks for your feedback. Alida
Thanks for yr reply🌞😉
Not sure if it is pred or old age or a combination of the two, but I used to be able to sing, and now the voice is but a croak! occasionally it comes back but I can't rely on it!
Thank you.🌞😉
Miner's a large choir of 70 singers so the odd tired lapse can be hidden.... 👌
singers so I now just miss the high notes and the low notes, and make sure I do the rest OK!! The support I got on this site was just soooo reassuring....🌞😉
I was diagnosed last May and I have gone from being a top sop and sung in shows such as Phantom and Les Miserables in the last year, to being a top alto. I can still get top c but only for a while after I start singing. My throat muscles get tired and I find I can't support a proper singing posture. The altos are dead pleased to have me as current singing goes up to an F which few can get. I cheat stagger breathe all over the place too but am doing fine, voice still works at alto even on tired days. I don't think it's the pred but who knows???? Conductor keeps checking im not permanently moving to alto but I don't know......it's a hell of a lot easier sitting/standing comfortably than permanently at the ready for the upper register 🤣🎵🎶 Good luck
Glad you are still singing Angie. X
Yes, still singing🌞😉
Do what is best for you... maybe you are ready to hange to altos??? Nothing is fore ever, might go back tosops🌞😉
I find my voice often is croaky,and this affects my singing voice,it is difficult to reach a high note .l loved being in a choir but would not inflict myself on one now! I also find l have to blow my nose a lot, even when l have no cold.
Yes, the croaky voice! Forget singing, I can’t talk half the time. I was with a group yesterday and when I started to talk I sounded like my 94 year old mother😳
Thanks for your response.🌞😉
Until my accident at Christmas I was singing regularly as part of my job working with children's choirs. I was diagnosed in June 2017 and haven't noticed any difference. My voice has changed in range over my lifetime due to aging, rather than due to PMR, but tone is the same. Likewise I have no issues with breathing techniques.
I would therefore advise you check it out with GP.
Ok I admit it, I'm really lazy with my breath support, maybe I could still be a sop but by the end of rehearsal you have to pick two of four options; pitch, words, timing or volume. Having enough breath is option 24 🤣
I am still in awe of your nightly performances over three weeks of Les Mis last year! Just shows where there is the will there is a way.
Interesting you mention stance, which is key for singing, since this can be a major issue with PMR. At my physio appointment today (for my replacement shoulder bone) I identified that I was struggling with lifting my arm forwards and upwards ( necessary if I am to both drive and conduct choirs again). My therapist identified that stance was the issue, causing stress on a particular muscle, which in turn was causing swelling. He asked me to put my shoulder back and up into the correct position and put a couple of pieces of tape around my shoulder muscle. The purpose is for the tape to remind me to change my stance so that the muscle is trained to work properly again. I can't believe how effect two bits of tape are!!!
Bearing this simple solution in mind and thinking that PMR has caused me to walk with a bit of a stoop and hunched shoulders anyway, I am wondering if fellow sufferers have developed stance problems too. If so a bad stance can cause all sorts of deferred pain. I wonder why then, that physio therapy is not offered per se as part of our treatment plan?
May start a new thread on ' stance', might prove interesting......
Think it might well! Mine is a downward spiral - the combo of a scoliosis and PMR causes increasing stress on my back muscles which tighten and eventually spasm. Which encourages a stooped posture to reduce the pain, which makes it all worse...
What a crap.....🌞😉kind regards. Alida
Another reason for raising awareness of the importance of stance is that I think this has been at the root of my recent health scare interpreted by GP as possible cancer of the pancreas which it isn't.
This extreme interpretation has wasted ambulance, paramedics, GP, Specialist consultant time, another endoscopy and ultra scan resources. Yet since I have increased mobility of arm and have already been adjusting my stance eg
I am now sleeping flatter on back rather than sleeping sitting up with body at 90 degree angle, ( where boobs were constantly pressing down onto stomach),
I am wearing a bra during the day releiving the additional pressure of them on the stomach where I had pain.
I am no longer stooping as much so now can walk without pain between shoulder blades (possibly negating the need for scan led blocker injection )
......The list goes on, but the excruciating pain, that necessitated I lie down after only a couple of hours throughout the day, has been absent for a fortnight which is the duration of when the physio started to improve the function of the arm!
Now that I have some use of the arm I am no longer straining the stomach muscles when I get in and out of bed, nor am I straining the same muscles due to constipation experienced after my op, nor am I over compensating (as much) on other muscles throughout my body.
Hence, since PMR impacts on our muscles, my thinking is that physiotherapy might prove invaluable as part of our treatment plan. It would initially need to be individualised to take account of other co-morbidities of an individual, but could then progress to joining physio classes as appropriate. I suppose I am advocating something along the lines of personal trainers they have at gyms but with a qualified physio leading. It could save the NHS a lot of money in the long run.
On a totally unrelated matter I was
pleased to read on SJ's earlier post your OH is home. Hope this eases things for you.
It is mentioned in guidelines, we should be offered a tailored physio/exercise plan which is probably thought of in relation to preventing steroid myopathy. But in the NHS they often don't think preventatively - I was laughed at when I returned from Germany where I had been got to a nearly ideal state and asked for it to be completed. The same happened after the plaster was removed after my broken leg and damaged knee - there could have been far more done for the knee and it is pure luck I think that there isn't severe OA developing.
To be honest - seeking out a good Pilates instructor is probably the ideal. Finding one is the problem.
And PS - I think you are probably absolutely correct. Most doctors haven't an inkling about how much pain dodgy muscles can lead to...
I was a physio before I had to retire due to pmr....so my stance AND sitting posture are mainly good, and I am sure that is a great help. Thanks for your reply🌞😉Alida
Most of my problem is just plain tiredness, holding my stance and using the huge number of muscles uses up too many teaspoons sometimes. No problem with performance nights as the buzz and awareness that people have paid a lot to come is incentive enough.🤣
Interesting comment thank you. Alida
I'm not in the league with some of you lot above, but my voice seems not to have changed. I did have a little trouble with breathlessness at higher doses, but that issue has gone with the reduction.
Thanks for your reply. Alida
It wasn't the pred for me - it was the PMR, or at least what has been diagnosed as PMR, I probably have large vessel vasculitis. If chest and neck arteries are affected it can lead to lung and throat symptoms - cough, sore throat and possibly neck muscles tiring more easily when in use making breath control poorer. Somehow my throat, maybe the larynx, were affected and I couldn't guarantee what note would come out. After over 50 years singing church music I had to give up.
Sad when you have to let go of your singing... thank you for your reply. Alida.
That's such a shame PMRpro. 50 years! Congratulations. 👏
I tried to engage my GP in the possibility of Granuoltosis and Polyangiitis, sorry about the spelling. He just wouldn’t listen, because I also suspected that. Send me away with a nasal spray.
Has your nose really changed shape? If so, I'd email Sarah and ask her what she thinks.
The bridge of my nose seems swollen, impinging on my eyes a little and there is uneven swelling on my upper eyelids. Only noticeable to me really though. OH can never see anything ( unless it’s his way of helping).
My kidney function tests haven’t flagged anything up.
I also acknowledge that I am in a bit of a state since my rock and a hard place post.
The last thing I want to do is create an unnecessary drama. Thanks though. I hadn’t thought of doing that.
Explain all your fears and doubts to her, You know she is very good at listening,
I will. Thanks so much.
And tell her Eileen told you to!
👍😃
Oh that is such a shame!
What does not kill us makes us stronger... yeah.. right!!😛🌞😉Alida
My voice has gone a bit lower, but I put hat down more to age. My breathing, however, is more difficult and I hadn’t thought about it as a result of either PMR or the pred., but actually I think one or the other is probably responsible. My singing is very important to me, even though I haven’t done much this year so far due to illness, death and knee replacement!
Hope you can pick up whatever singing you can do, it is so important for us!!! 🌞😉
Thank you! Alida
Yes definitely, but all seems okay now. I started on 50 mg 4 years ago and until I got down to around 5 mg, I noticed that my voice had a constant hoarseness in the lower range. I sing soprano and found that if I sang above the hoarseness it was fine. In some ways I found that hitting the higher notes was actually easier and pitch was great so not all bad!
Thanks for yr response, it is obvious to me that the pred. And or the PMR strongly influences our singing and speaking voice. 🌞😉
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