Thyroid Surgery - Post-op questions

I had my hemithyroidectomy 10 days ago, and had a few post-op questions for anybody who has had the surgery. My voice seems to sound ok, however I am unable to make high pitched sounds and I'm a bit worried it won't come back :sad: I wondered if you experienced anything similar? Thank you.

  • I didn't have that exactly, or perhaps I didn't notice since I don't have any real need to make high pitched sounds. I did, however, find that for a couple of months after my operation a) my voice would get weak if I used it too much and b) I had difficulty talking really loudly. The latter I only noticed when I returned to work and had to to do yard duty and suddenly realised I couldn't make myself heard across the yard, telling students the bell was about to go and to get ready to go in to class. I am not sure exactly how long it lasted as covid hit in about 6 weeks after my operation and we went into lockdown and I wasn't using my voice to the same extent I would in class. But it did recover.

    Did you get a vocal cord check after the operation? If you did and all was well, I'd imagine this is likely to be temporary.

  • Hi Margaret,

     

    Thank you so much for your response; this is reassuring to hear. I'm glad that your voice was back to normal in due course. 

    Hmm, so I was told that they would monitor my recurrent laryngeal nerve during the op and check it at the end, to see if there was any damage. I didn't get to speak to my surgeon after the op, but the op note said there were no complications, so I am guessing it was all ok. I have a follow up appointment in 2 weeks, I hope it all normalises by then, but if not, I will definitely ask the doctors.