I am a school music teacher--voice, choir, piano, general music. I was very worried about my singing voice. It was written into my treatment plan to do IMRT to my lower neck. This was because there was a large scar from surgery (gone now!) over my larynx. Usually they place the scar below but because my neck was so thin (yeah, it is actually more muscular now because I have done so much exercising I guess) the surgeon had to put the incision there. Anyway, they had to radiate it. Thus they did IMRT to protect my larynx beneath it.

I had my larynx scoped recently because I was having hoarseness only for singing (videostroboscopy) My larynx looked really good, untouched by radiation. My thyroid BTW got hit and I am hypothyroid and have to take meds. The ENT, who specializes in voice, especially singing issues, said he thought some speech therapy would help, and that the hoarseness was because of the muscles surrounding the larynx not functioning correctly. I guess that describes it. Anyway, the exercises work very well. I think I was getting into some bad habits about singing, using muscles I did not need to use--extrinsic laryngeal muscles--instead of relying on breathing technique. Something like that. Anyway, when I practice them in the mornings, I'm good all day. The speech pathologist told me that good technique can overcome my problems.

In short, my voice does not quite function the same, but not really worse either. I remember when I got out of treatment I tried my singing voice out & it was horrible. I was missing huge chunks of pitches. It is not at all like that now. I had someone tell me the other day when I was just messing around singing a tune how good my voice sounded, which did a world of good for my psyche.

So it is too early for you to panic as far as singing goes.

Best,
Anne