Hello, I've only just joined so please excuse me if this is in the wrong place/format/whatever, but I realyl do need some advice.
Some basic background...I am a 20 year old Musical Theatre student with a passion for singing, I had been thoroughly enjoying university and was experiencing no problems whatsoever with my throat until last January in which I went for a singing audition.
This was the first audition I had been too that required singing, regardless I felt relatively confident in my own ability and spent the entire night before hand practicing my songs. The next day I woke up with a slight tingling in my throat that I put down to nerves, yet as the day went on it got worse and worse. After the audition I went on vocal rest for 2 weeks (with no talking whatsoever), drank honey and lemon, steamed, added a humidifier to my room -- I literally tried everything to get rid of it.
Long story short, I haven't ever recovered. 8 months on the throat is worse than it's ever been and I have lost my singing voice entirely. I wake up in intense pain, which seems to dull through the day but get worse again through the night. My voice has gotten husky and it's hard to talk and produce sound.
In this timespan I have been to the local GP 6 times to be prescribed basic bacterial medication. It didn't work, so I went to see an ENT specialist. He stated that the muscles around my throat were incredibly tight and suggested I see a throat osteopath. He also prescribed me some medicine for acid reflux just in case, but this did nothing. I went to see the throat osteopath and he massaged my throat -- yet afterwards my throat felt worse and was in more pain. I then went to see a voice specialist, who said that the pain and vocal sound quality was most likely caused by bad speaking habits, yet she couldn't figure out what they were. 6 2-hour sessions later my throat was no better. She suggested it is probably down to stress.
So from here I went to see a hypnotherapist as a last resort. He said that he agreed it was down to stress and promised to relax me/make my throat better. After the session I did feel more relaxed and was finding it easier to think positive. However, a week and a half on my throat is still dreadful. I am trying my best to try and ignore the voice pains as the hypnotherapist said my constant attention towards the pain is making it get worse -- but it's impossible to ignore something that is causing you so much pain and, is eventually, going to be my career choice.
Has anyone else ever suffered sore throat/loss of voice due to stress? I really don't know what to do now, yet I'm finding it incredibly hard to destress when I'm at university and spend each day in so much mental/physical pain. Sorry for the incredibly long post!