2023.02.03 – 0764 – How Meds Can Hurt Not Help Your Voice
Medications – Again, sticky-sweet, tongue colour-changing over-the-counter lozenges do not touch your vocal cords. Although they might have a placebo effect (you feel as though they are helping, and so your confidence returns), the ones with anaesthetic or numbing properties may actually be causing further damage, giving you a false sense that everything’s OK.
Instead, focus on the root cause of your vocal fatigue by practising with a vocal routine.
Other medications can affect your voice too:
· Inhalers and steroid sprays
· Antihistamines (such as hay fever remedies) can also dehydrate
· Antibiotics
· Antidepressants
· Oral contraceptives
· The menthol in some cold remedies may be an irritant
· Decongestant meds for nose and throat problems often work by drying out the local tissues. That’s obviously not good news. If you have a cold and a subsequently blocked nose, you may have a dried-out nose caused by your meds and a dried-out mouth caused by having to use it for breathing. Therefore, it’s essential that you take plenty of fluids.
Alternative medication may include:
· water, gargling and sleep are free
· steam – is cheap
· mindfulness – takes just minutes
· warm pineapple juice – some find that this can help soothe a throat
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