What's happening to my voice?

[dani2776]

Ok I am experiencing so many symptoms with my lovely Hashi's but lately I keep losing my voice or it is very hoarse.  Is this normal?  My levels are not good with my Free T4 being very low but I have resumed a new med and it has only been 11 days since I started it.  My ultrasound I had done due to soreness and diffuculty swallowing only showed severe inflammation.  Is the inflammation causing problems with my voice?  Is this normal?

[MANmom]

Nodules were found in 2001 in an ultrasound, we watched them for years.  I started feeling crappy back in November of last year, so they investigated further.  The recurrent laryngeal nerve is a nerve that controls your vocal chords, and IT RUNS THROUGH YOUR THYROID.  If there is anything pressing on it, like a nodule...you will get hoarse, inflamation could also cause it.  The swallowing could be because of the nodules.  My issue was I would swallow food and it would get "stuck" at the base of my throat (right where the thyroid was) and I would get rapid massive hiccups until I could take in enough water and flush it down (that hurt).  I would get hoarse after a 3 hour rehearsal, and if I was really tired at night, I would be hoarse the next day.  One day I was really tired but fine when I went to bed, I woke up hoarse and it lasted for 5 days...that was when I decided I needed to have surgery.  By the way, they did not find cancer IN the nodules, it was in the thyroid tissue itself.

[dani2776]

Did they find your nodules with an ultrasound or something else?  I was just wondering if I should look into this farther as the difficulty swallowing is getting harder.  I could barely swallow my dinner last night as it took almost 4-5 swallows per peice to get it down and then I woke up this morning and I can barely speak!!

[MANmom]

Could be...I have Hashi's and I had nodules and inflamation, I was getting hoarse and having swallowing issues, since we removed the thyroid, all symptoms have gone away.  My swallowing difficulties were when I would take a bite of food it would get stuck near the base of my neck, then I would get rapid hiccups and feel like choking until I swallowed water to flush it down.  I am a singer, so hoarseness was not good, I had a lobectomy to remove three nodules on the right side, hoping I could keep the left, but they found cancer, so the other side was removed, too.  I am awaiting ablation with RAI 131.  But after they removed the three nodules and the right side, I did not have the swallowing thing.  I have not really tried to push my voice lately, but it all looks good so far.