Voice Surgery Abroad

Transgendered men, also known as transwomen, experience what the medical community refers to as gender identity disorder. Typically, sufferers seek to undergo a gradual transformation which involves the removal of obviously male physical characteristics and the subsequent construction of female ones. The process involves a variety of procedures which can be classified as gender realignment surgery.

For many transwomen, the completion of all common gender realignment procedures is still not sufficient to successfully integrate them as a female member into normal society, since the pitch of their voices is consistent with that of a male. For these individuals, voice surgery may provide the result they seek.

Procedure information

There are a number of techniques practiced for voice alteration, with cricothyroid approximation (CTA) perhaps being the most common. This procedure involves the surgical fusion of the thyroid and the cricoid cartilages in order to raise the pitch at which they vibrate. The success rate of this process is variable and what works for one patient may well not work for another, hence there are no hard and fast guarantees.

Other procedures available include laryngeal reduction surgery, which is the surgical shortening of the vocal cords; laser assisted voice adjustment (LAVA) and thyrohyoid approximation.

Recovery time

Patients are normally discharged from hospital the day after the procedure, then expected to rest their voices for at least a week. Dietary instructions may be given to prevent the patient consuming foods that will aggravate the vocal chords on its passage to the stomach. While resting the vocal chords, patients should avoid speaking in anything over a whisper and in the period following the initial week should avoid excessive, aggressive or high-volume usage.