Vocal Issues and RA

My voice is affected by Rheumatoid Arthritis. It just is. I can’t “take a lozenge” or realistically do anything to improve the strain on my voice due to inflammation and pain. Not exactly ideal when you’re meal ticket IS your voice, which it is for me.

I’ve been living with Arthritis virtually my entire life (diagnosed in 1988) and I talk about it more now in hopes of letting other kids know that they are ‘normal’ and can achieve what others think is ‘impossible’. It’s not a matter of ‘thinking positively’ either, though I’m sure that couldn’t hurt. It’s about finding the right medical team, appropriate treatments (which can take years and do more harm than good), surgery and other methods of accommodating the painful, draining disease which often causes other painful, draining diseases or infections. If the RA itself doesn’t, the medicine almost certainly will.

My voice is struggling this week. I feel okay, overall, but it’s grading - to be told that my product (my voice) isn’t cutting it and to try again, try again, try again. The truth is, the more that I re-record or re-attempt something: the worse it will get.

If you accept me for my personality, you must also accept me as I sound. Some days I sound smooth. Other days, I sound rough. It has been this way my whole life and awareness is appreciated. You don’t have to like me or accept me, we all have our preferences and there’s nothing wrong with that, but at 35 - this is how I sound.