At some point in life, most people “lost voice” due to a flu or the enthusiastic shouts during a sporting event. Symptoms usually improve with home remedies such as drinking plenty of fluids, suck on hard candy or throat lozenges and rest your voice.
However, when symptoms last more than two weeks, you should not ignore hoarseness, says the September issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter. Hoarseness can be caused by other diseases and some may be serious.
Here are the common causes and treatments for snoring:
Repeated irritation of the vocal cords: smoking, excessive and repeated the voice, corticosteroid inhalers to treat asthma, frequent heartburn, excessive alcohol consumption and chronic cough are, among others, causes irritation of the vocal cords. When the irritation is continuous, the vocal cords may appear sores, patches similar to calluses and sometimes swelling. Such conditions usually heal disappears once the source of irritation, but in some cases may need surgery to remove any anomalies that conservative treatment fails to resolve.
Aging of tissues: the vocal cords lose tension and fullness with age. Treatment may include injections of a substance into the vocal cords to help them recover their wholeness.
Laryngeal Cancer: The highest risk of developing cancer of the larynx runs people over age 60 who smoke or consume excessive amounts of alcohol. When vocal cord cancer is detected early, can usually be successfully treated with surgery or radiation.
Complications of other health problems: hoarseness may result from an underlying disease such as rheumatoid arthritis, hypothyroidism, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. Treating the underlying condition may improve hoarseness, but if the nerves do not recover, surgery can realign the vocal cords or you can use to inject substances capable of creating more permanent artificial vocal cords.
Muscle spasm of the vocal cord: spasms unnecessarily stress the vocal cords. Injections of botulinum toxin (Botox) can help stop muscle spasms and that relief usually lasts three to six months, after which treatment must be repeated.