Laryngeal nerve damage

I haven't said much about laryngeal nerve damage so I'll focus on that now. I have recordings of my voice after surgery but I couldn't figure out how to post it on Blogger so I'm sorry to say that you won't get the multimedia experience. My voice sounded like it was hard to get a whisper out (it was). Thankfully, about 5 weeks after surgery, my voice is completely back to normal. If this happens to you, I would recommend resting your voice as much as possible. Try not do anything that will get you out of breath because your breathing is also affected. Don't strain yourself either, I should not have gone on a mountain bike ride two weeks after surgery because I felt like I was having an asthma attack. My breathing (very shallow) seemed to be worse after that and I think my voice got a little worse too. About a month after surgery, I had body work and my friend (a therapeutic massage therapist) focused on my diaphragm which she could tell was very tight on the right side (the side that the nerve was damaged). After she worked on me, It seemed like by breathing and voice started to get better. Body work focuses on muscles and my problem was a damaged nerve but maybe the muscles near or around the nerve started to let go after she worked on me. Also, my husband went on a work trip so I didn't talk as much at the end of a day when my voice was tired so.. 1. Time - it takes more time than you would want for it to get better. 2. Strenuous Exercise - no! - Don't do anything that will make you breath very hard 3. Rest - seriously, do rest the voice 4. Have someone work on your diaphragm - I laid down on the ground and my friend put her hands on my diaphram and had me take deep breaths in and out while she had her weight on me. I really do think that it made a difference for the better. 5. I believed that my damage was permanent so I was very scared but it was not. Trust that it will probably get better.