Anyone have experience with vocal polyps?

[baremountain]

From what I understand vocal polyps differ from nodules in that they're more likely to be only on one vocal chord and spurred by environmental factors. I think I take pretty good care of my voice for someone who screams as much as I do - I always engage my abs and push from my stomach, and I try to maintain proper posture while singing intensely as best as my situation allows - but I think the one-two-punch of a drunken night at a punk show and a sudden change in allergens/temperature during a cold front last weekend created the perfect storm for a polyp to form.
At least based off my internet sleuthing, I think that is what I'm suffering from. For the last week I've noticed what feels like a bump on my right vocal chord. At first it kind of hurt to yawn or open my mouth wide, but that went away after day 2 or so and it never actively hurts anymore, but it's definitely noticeable. I'd say the easiest way to characterize it is like my voice feels constantly exhausted. The polyp seems to have left my normal speaking intonation in tact, but I feel a strong 'pinching' sensation in the right side of my throat when I try to speak/sing in a register higher than my normal voice. There also appears to be a pitch ceiling that modulates with volume - as in when I try to sing louder, the highest pitch I can hit is lower than when I try to sing quietly.

That said, I still have been speaking quite a bit, and maybe doing other things that aren't helpful (smoking/drinking/eating spicy foods). I'm curious if any of you have had any experience with these things & if there's a way to heal it with R&R and some home remedies vs paying for vocal therapy or whatever. Been hitting it hard with the tea/honey game, but any other suggestions are welcome!
Also if you've beaten a polyp while continuing to drink/smoke please feel free give me a story of encouragement because cutting those looks like the first plan of action but I would obvis prefer not to. To give some background on that, I don't smoke cigarettes but I smoke about 1-2 joints and a couple bowls every day, and typically don't drink more than 1 beer a night. My voice is real important to me so I'm willing to do what I have to, but you can't blame a guy for trying to beat the system.

PS: Advice on proper technique is appreciated but not exactly what I'm looking for at the moment, as I currently don't have any singing voice to speak of to which I could apply said techniques.

[D.o.S.]

Get it checked out by a doctor and switch to edibles.

[baremountain]

I'd like to put off sinking the time & money into seeing a doc for a couple more days if possible if I can treat myself with some behavioral modifications, which is what the internet seems to suggest.

switch to edibles.

Dang I have no clue why I didn't think of this. I have a whole tin of candies in the back of my closet I normally never think of them bc I enjoy the act of smoking more than anything I think.
A friend also just suggested steeping garlic in a hot water/honey mixture and sipping on that, along with aspirin and zinc (which she says is more of a wives tale). Probably gonna hit this regimen when I get home.

[coldbrightsunlight]

While I never went to a doctor properly about it I had the exact symptoms you're talking about after a drunken weekend combined with a cold back in April. I don't smoke but I continued to drink, and it took a long time but I'be been basically back to normal for a month or so. Singing still fatigues my voice a bit more than it used to but I can sing without pain and have got my range back. The length of time/volume I can sing for/at without strain is improving still.

I drank a lot of green tea with honey for a while, not sure if it helped but it was tasty anyway and coffee felt like it really dried my throat out and hurt. I tried to speak less, and quieter, while it recovered. I almost never sang until I was sure it felt ok (this was very depressing because I sing all the time) It was a bit up and down, usually in that I'd go out and get drunk and my voice would be worse for a few days. it took longer for my full pitch range to come back than it did for the majority of the pain (that weird pinched feeling on one side of the neck) to go away (a couple of months).

Again, never confirmed what it was exactly, but that was my experience with throat damage from too much shouting. YMMV.

[popvulture]

I'd lay off the smoking for a week and see how it treats you (DoS's advice on the edibles is obv a great alternative). I don't need to tell you that smoking of any kind is terrible for your voice. But yep, I've been on and off cigarettes forever, so I feel your pain—I can also attest to how night and day it is when it comes to the condition of my singing voice if I do or don't smoke.

Also check this stuff out if you haven't already.

[baremountain]

I have an appointment with an otolaryngolgist (AKA throat doctor, I won't pretend I didn't have a tab open next to this to look up how what they're actually called) later today just to get it checked & confirm my suspicions. Hopefully my mileage varies such that I'm looking at a couple weeks vs a couple months, but we'll see. Monkeydancer did the pitch range come back naturally, or did you have to re-train your voice?
Throat Coat is some magical brew for sure, I drink that stuff like water when I've got a sore throat. Yesterday I took the edible route with a little Pax action, but I'll probably ask the doc later if vaporizing is any better than smoking though.

[popvulture]

Not sure about using a Pax type vaporizer, but I'd imagine it'd be at least somewhat better than straight up smoking.

I do know that using liquid vape pens does weird shit to my throat—I guess it's that propylene glycol. I can definitely feel a sort of coating thing happening, and my nose is usually stopped up the next day. Shit is gross. YMMV tho

[D.o.S.]

I've been using one of those vape pens for a hot minute now and there's some merit to what you're saying re: coating but it doesn't affect my voice nearly as much as actually smoking does.

[popvulture]

Oh definitely not as bad as the real thing, that's for sure...

[D.o.S.]

it directly correlates to the satisfaction, actually

[popvulture]

So true

[coldbrightsunlight]

Monkeydancer did the pitch range come back naturally, or did you have to re-train your voice?

Bit of both. I kept it very chill till I noticed it coming back and then slowly started practicing and finding the high notes again.

[baremountain]

So I went to the doctor yesterday and got a camera tube shoved through my nose to look at my throat. It was one of the strangest sensations, and not very comfortable, especially since she had to try both nostrils because the first one was too swollen from allergies to get the tube through - her discovering that hurt a bit. But she told me I don't have any long-term damage like polyps or nodules, it's just severe inflammation from allergies. Basically just avoiding singing for a little bit, taking it easy on the booze & caffeine, and drinking plenty of water/herbal tea should get me on the right path. She said that it'd be best if I didn't smoke at all, but that if I decide to do it that vaping is the way to go.
This, however, directs my attention to a much shittier reality: my allergies are getting way worse as I age. The worst they've been before the last year is a proclivity for sinus infections around the change of the seasons that'd keep me coughing for 1-2 weeks and pretty stuffy. In the last year, however, aside from this whole mess, I have had a 3-week-long cough that involved coughing blood up for a short period and I suffered for 2 weeks from what's known as otitis media with effusion (my Etruscan tube on my right ear was swollen shut following an ear infection that caused my ear drum to perforate, so all the fluid from said infection was stuck in my ear canal) leaving me with severely diminished hearing on the right side. The otitis media was the worst of the three I'd say. I already have trouble hearing people when there's a lot of background noise, but to have my right ear essentially lose most of its function was absolutely maddening; I'd constantly be frustrated because I couldn't hear and I constantly had to check my behavior to make sure I wasn't taking that frustration out on the people who were trying to speak to me. It put the fear of god in me w/r/t/ developing tinnitus.
I used to take allergy shots when I was a kid, but I grew out of it for a while. I'm thinking now I might need to start taking them again or something, because that's 6+ weeks out of the last 52 where I suffered some kind of affliction that in some way made it more difficult to perform/write/record my music.

[popvulture]

I recently went on a cleanse kind of thing (Whole30) that eliminates a lot of things that cause people allergies: no grains at all, no dairy except for eggs, no beans, no soy, no added sugar. It was rough, I will say... I didn't even make it all the way through, quitting at day 16 because I was just extremely bored and not happy.

BUT. I did notice that when I went back to eating anything I wanted (and I didn't go nuts and just shove donuts into my face or anything), I pretty soon noticed some things that had gone away while I was on the new diet. Didn't have any hay fever type feelings, no itching, skin got better. I wonder if I should've just powered through—I really don't know.

My whole point: maybe some of the things that bother you would improve if you tried eliminating some of the typically irritating items from your diet. I wouldn't recommend something like the Whole30 per se, more just trying to not eat one of those groups for a week, see what happens, try eliminating another the following week, and so on. Could help? My biggest takeaway was that a ton of stuff we eat causes inflammation. I'd of course heard that before, but had never experienced the benefits myself. I'm currently trying to figure out a little more tolerable method.

[D.o.S.]

I just read something similar about that with regards to the whole 'gluten free' thing. Turns out that while you (generally) don't have a gluten allergy or whatever, you will feel a whole lot better because you're cutting out a whole bunch of shit that isn't good for you. Shocking stuff.