Treating vocal cord dysfunction with hypnosis

Edwin Selij
February 27, 2019

Vocal cord dysfunction is a condition of the vocal cords that is very similar to asthma. In fact, the dysfunction can cause you to experience shortness of breath and wheezing just like people who suffer from asthma. Sometimes you can also be misdiagnosed because of this, and to make things more complicated, you can have vocal cord dysfunction AND suffer from asthma. Fortunately, there are ways to treat this disease and deal with these unpleasant feelings of stuffiness. In this blog, I explore them in more detail

What is vocal cord dysfunction?

When you suffer from vocal cord dysfunction (also called VCD, short for vocal cord dysfunction) your vocal cords don't act normally. For example, they are normally open when you breathe, but when you suffer from this dysfunction they sometimes close up, making breathing very difficult and causing you to wheeze.

It's not like your vocal cords are closed all day long. Something triggers your vocal cords to close and it only happens during the day. When you sleep, you are not affected by this condition.

You can recognize vocal cord dysfunction by the following symptoms:

  • Feeling hard to breathe.
  • Feeling like your throat or chest can't move properly.
  • Feeling choked or suffocated.
  • Many cough.
  • You make a lot of noise while breathing.

An attack of VCD can be very intense and sometimes it requires hospital treatment.

Why do you get dysfunction on your vocal cords?

The dysfunction of your vocal cords is generally triggered by something, this can be:

  • A cold
  • Strong Scents
  • Smoke a cigarette or cigar
  • Excessive mucus at the back of your throat
  • Acid Burn
  • Strong emotions
  • Stress
  • Sports

What treatment is available for vocal cord dysfunction?

You might think that, just like with asthma, you should be able to use some kind of inhaler for VCD. With asthma, an inhaler provides relief from symptoms, but unfortunately, this is not the case with vocal cord dysfunction.

Before receiving treatment, of course, you will be checked to see if you suffer from VCD or asthma or even both. The check if you suffer from dysfunctional vocal cords consists of checking your breathing and your vocal cords. For example, it checks whether the air is coming in and out of your lungs properly. This can show if there is something blocking your breathing.

If you are not suffering from an uptick in VCD at that time, nothing comes out of the test because everything is normal at that time.

Because of this, it is very difficult to properly diagnose vocal cord dysfunction. Therefore, it is recommended that you tell your doctor to look at your vocal cords. This is done with a small device that can look into your airways through your nose. This usually does not have to be done in the hospital itself.

Sometimes during the test you may also be asked if you want to exercise or given a medication to induce VCD symptoms.

Then, when you finally know for sure that you have vocal cord dysfunction, you often get therapy to deal with it. If it is due to thick mucus, you will often receive advice on how to reduce this and what remedies will help.

The therapy is precisely about controlling your neck muscles so you can relax them when needed. For this, you often need several sessions to master this. Usually you get that training from a speech therapist or psychologist who has experience with VCD.

In addition, stress and strong emotions can trigger VCD. So that’s also something you need to learn to manage[1].

So unfortunately there is no pill for this disease, but with the right training and knowledge on how to handle stressful situations and strong emotions, you don't have to suffer much from VCD.

How hypnosis helps with vocal cord dysfunction

Hypnosis can be used in diagnosing VCD and treating this disorder. In children and adults, the technique can be used.

In some cases, it can be difficult to diagnose VCD, in part because it may be combined with asthma or other conditions such as GERD where you suffer a lot of belching. In this case, hypnosis is a possible solution.

A case study[2] describes how an 11-year-old boy was diagnosed with hypnosis as a tool. He suffered a lot from "neck attacks," and in addition to that he already had asthma and GERD. Since the doctors thought sports were too dangerous, they decided to perform the examination with hypnosis. The device that goes in through the nose so that his vocal cords could be controlled was inserted using self-hypnosis as an anesthetic and then a visualization was used to induce a flare-up of vocal cord dysfunction. The little boy had to recall a recent neck attack. This clearly showed that his vocal cords were responding to it. To this he was given the hypnotic suggestion to relax his neck which also worked immediately.

So with this technique, hypnosis is useful for determining if you suffer from vocal cord dysfunction.

Hypnosis for the treatment of vocal cord dysfunction

Hypnosis is used to better manage emotions, relax and reduce stress. All of these can help make vocal cord dysfunction less severe[3] and in doing so, it can help with symptoms that stem from CVD, such as fear of a flare-up or attack that makes you afraid to go anywhere or other fears.

Dealing with emotions

Some emotions can upset you tremendously, and that can trigger dysfunction at your vocal cords. One of the first things you do with hypnosis, even before anything happens with suggestions, is to relax. This is also very important to ensure that the flare-up of dysfunction passes and you can breathe normally again.

Relaxation begins with a breathing exercise in which you breathe through the abdomen. As you breathe you also relax your muscles. While doing this, also make sure you relax your face and neck muscles and don't press your tongue against your palate.

In addition, there are other techniques that help you relax and that you can learn through mindfulness, such as the mindfulness body scan.

It’s also important to identify the source of intense emotions. Your emotions are actually your reaction to an event, triggered by the beliefs you hold about how the world works and how you function within it. When an argument breaks out at a party, many people don’t like it. This is because many people believe that a party is supposed to be a fun time spent together. Arguing is the exact opposite of that. If it’s your party, you might naturally react very strongly to it.

Therefore, it is wise to look at the situations when you have an upswing to figure out which beliefs to look for. With this, a hypnosis expert can help by having a Socratic conversation or doing a regression.

With regression, you find out where beliefs come from if they are not helping you. You then go back to the moment where your subconscious decided that you had an important insight to turn into a belief. These are often moments in your childhood. Because of this, regression can help because later in life you have more knowledge and can better determine how logical that belief is. By tracing its origins, the belief can already have a lot less influence on you immediately.

Reducing Stress

So stress can also trigger a VCD attack. Therefore, it is important to reduce stress. To do this, you can first make a list of things that stress you out, such as overwork, relationship problems (possibly with the subject of the problem), financial issues and so on.

Then the question is why does that stress you out? So for this too, you can take the steps to identify beliefs that are causing the extra stress and therefore not helping you.

Then you can reduce them by putting helpful beliefs in return. For example:

When you fear losing your job if you don't always overwork.

"Overworking is something that is normal from time to time, but not when this becomes the norm. Then you may say no and refer to colleagues who are more suitable to work overtime once in a while."

When your friend controls too much of what you do.

"A relationship is about partnership and not ownership. You help each other with each other's lives and don't live through the other. If you really want to do something, this should be possible."

When you often need to make ends meet.

"Live in the here and now. The financial problems will come up again when you're making your monthly schedule, at the grocery store and during the weekly round of bill paying, but not while you want to enjoy your cup of tea and the rising sun."

These are just examples. Depending on your beliefs that affect emotions or create stress, a hypnosis expert may choose different suggestions or a completely different technique.

Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis works and how you can use it to help yourself or others? Then come to a hypnosis workshop or check out the training programs.

[1] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17623-vocal-cord-dysfunction

[2] http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/106/6/e81.short

[3] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00029157.2014.989566