Discovering SD

Years came and went, and I knew no more about what I had than when I first started having problems. All I could tell people was that I had a voice problem and I couldn't really talk much.

By January of 2006, I had just gotten back in touch with a friend of mine from high school. We were talking about our lives, and it came up that I was having difficulty speaking. She asked me what it was, and I told her that I quite honestly had no clue. That prompted me to look it up.

I searched the Internet by looking at symptoms. Most sites had a list of similar disorders and conditions listed together, but one stood out in particular--spasmodic dysphonia, specifically the abductor type. I read a bunch of different sites and looked at the symptoms. Everything seemed to click. I was pretty sure that it was what I had.

One of the sites, I can't remember which, had a list of things that people with SD have trouble saying. I was sitting on the couch and my husband was sitting at his computer when I was looking at this list. I read things out loud to him, and told him how I thought that this is what I had, and it had a list of words that I couldn't say. I told him it was ridiculous, though, because I can say pu...and then the word cut out. I was attempting to say "puppy."

I then contacted my former speech therapist and got an appointment scheduled. I told him what I thought I had, and he agreed that was a good thing to check for. After some tests and a ripped tongue later (he held my tongue out so far that the skin underneath it tore), I had my diagnosis of abductor type spasmodic dysphonia in March of 2006, nearly three years after the onset of symptoms.

Next up: Therapy and how I got a new job.