About 3 or so weeks ago, I microdosed on mushrooms. While tripping, I made myself on WWE 2K22, which involves taking a selfie and uploading it to the game. Now, I rarely ever take selfies as it is, and anytime I do or record myself, it’s always on Snapchat, which is mirrored. So I haven’t seen a non-mirrored image of myself in God knows how long. A selfie on the iPhone front facing camera immediately flips it the proper way as if it was taken by somebody else. So, this combined wit the fact that I was tripping made me notice (And hyper fixate on it after the fact.) that I have an uneven jaw. Like the left side is way more developed than the right so it’s asymmetrical. And I ESPECIALLY noticed it because I was freshly clean shaven because of the add-on to my neck tattoo. Not actually deformed or anything due to a skull irregularity or anything, but most likely jus a gradual muscle imbalance due to chewing and sleeping on one side all my life. It’s prolly extremely minor or unnoticeable to most people because nobody has ever said anything about it. That or they were being nice lmao. But either way, nothing major that requires surgery like an actual deformation would. But I immediately got to researching ways to correct it, and it all mostly revolves around obviously switching to chewing on the weak side, (And speeding this up further by chewing mastic gum at least an hour a day on the underdeveloped side. It’s 10x harder than regular commercial chewing gum so it literally works out your jaw to chew it.) sleeping exclusively on the stronger side until they balance out and then trying to stay on your back once they’re even, mewing; which is switching your tongue posture and passively keeping it against the roof of your mouth as much as possible, and lastly, minor jaw exercises and stretches that you do daily.
So I been doing all these for 2 weeks and believe it or not have already noticed results. Not placebo either because the weak right side is literally firmer to the touch now like the left side is. But now the problem is, and I jus said all of that to say this lmao, starting around last Sunday or maybe this Monday, I had woke up and out of nowhere it was hurting on the left side of my throat when I would yawn. Didn’t hurt at any other point tho. Not during talking, singing, swallowing, anything. Strictly when yawning. Noticed shortly after that that also affected my singing. In general because my voice ain’t projecting like it’s sposed to, but especially trying to hit higher ranges. And not even extreme higher ranges like falsetto, but basically anything slightly above my speaking voice range. And I can literally physically feel it if I put my hand on my throat while attempting it, the left vocal cord ain’t moving up like it’s sposed to, and the sound is essentially all being carried by the right vocal cord. But at the same time, it’s all painless and none of this hurts to do, it’s jus straight up not working or sounding right. It’s bizarre because there’s literally no other symptoms. I don’t even have a hoarse voice or a change in tone, it jus simply won’t work right when singing all of a sudden.
So that’s why I mentioned all the jaw stretches and exercises because that’s the only thing that’s been different in the past few weeks so I’m thinking and hoping that that’s all it is and I jus overextended something while doing those. Because in that case it wouldn’t be an injury to the actual vocal cords, but instead to the muscles around them. But even that seems like a stretch because there’s nothing harsh about them at all. It’s simple shit like holding your mouth open as wide as possible for a minute, pushing your lower jaw to the left for 30 seconds, pushing it to the right for 30 seconds, repeat. And in total I’m done wit all of them for the day in 5 minutes total. So there’s not even any over repetition or over exertion involved. Sure, I’ve never done them before, so it’s new to my body, but they’re still extremely mild. None of the stretches at any point had ever hurt or felt like I pulled anything either. Only soreness I had was in the right jaw muscle itself, and that was from the mastic gum. But that was muscle soreness I was sposed to have, jus like post gym soreness from working out any other muscle.
So I have no clue. I’ve never fucked my voice up so it’s making me extremely anxious, worst part is I have an appointment wit an ENT doctor, but they can’t get me in til May 18th. Hopefully this is mild and goes away by then, but if not, it’s 3 weeks of wondering if this is permanent and fucking up my musical ability for life. I don’t think it was caused by singing itself because at no point has singing ever been painful to me, and usually improper technique causes pain. And on top of that, there was never any individual moment where there was a stab of pain and I could tell I pulled or popped something while singing. And like I said, even right now it doesn’t hurt to sing or talk, it jus don’t wanna work. Another scenario is that it’s specifically on the left side, which is where I received the radiation for the cancer. Not directly thru the throat since the lump was in my lower left neck, but beams undoubtedly passed thru the throat and vocal cords. Immediately after finishing the radiation, I had a sore throat specifically on the left side that lasted for about 2 weeks, but that passed and then there’s been no issues ever since. So idk how plausible it sounds that the radiation blows my voice 3 months after the fact. Seems like something that would have been more immediate. But I guess there’s also the possibility that the radiation weakened the vocal cord and this was a ticking time bomb. Cause like I said, this is only the left vocal cord that’s having an issue, not both.
Idk, shit is stressing me the fuck out tho. I was about to do final takes on this catchy ass single that I was intending on dropping soon too and that definitely jus got put on standby smfh.
Lmao. It’s crazy that it took me this long to notice it. In the mirror, now that I’ve noticed it, I can tell now even in the reversed image. But I think what made it stand out in a non-mirrored image was that each side is in the opposite place you’re used to seeing it, so any inconsistencies are gonna stand out since it’s not how you’re used to seeing it. Either way, that’s not a concern really because it’ll correct itself wit consistency, and already is, for basically free cause the only thing any of it has cost me is the mastic gum, rest is all effort and a lil bit of time lol.
But this voice thing has me nervous. Hoping the worst that comes of it is jus being out of commission singing wise for a couple weeks and it jus heals itself wit vocal rest.
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About 3 or so weeks ago, I microdosed on mushrooms. While tripping, I made myself on WWE 2K22, which involves taking a selfie and uploading it to the game. Now, I rarely ever take selfies as it is, and anytime I do or record myself, it’s always on Snapchat, which is mirrored. So I haven’t seen a non-mirrored image of myself in God knows how long. A selfie on the iPhone front facing camera immediately flips it the proper way as if it was taken by somebody else. So, this combined wit the fact that I was tripping made me notice (And hyper fixate on it after the fact.) that I have an uneven jaw. Like the left side is way more developed than the right so it’s asymmetrical. And I ESPECIALLY noticed it because I was freshly clean shaven because of the add-on to my neck tattoo. Not actually deformed or anything due to a skull irregularity or anything, but most likely jus a gradual muscle imbalance due to chewing and sleeping on one side all my life. It’s prolly extremely minor or unnoticeable to most people because nobody has ever said anything about it. That or they were being nice lmao. But either way, nothing major that requires surgery like an actual deformation would. But I immediately got to researching ways to correct it, and it all mostly revolves around obviously switching to chewing on the weak side, (And speeding this up further by chewing mastic gum at least an hour a day on the underdeveloped side. It’s 10x harder than regular commercial chewing gum so it literally works out your jaw to chew it.) sleeping exclusively on the stronger side until they balance out and then trying to stay on your back once they’re even, mewing; which is switching your tongue posture and passively keeping it against the roof of your mouth as much as possible, and lastly, minor jaw exercises and stretches that you do daily.
So I been doing all these for 2 weeks and believe it or not have already noticed results. Not placebo either because the weak right side is literally firmer to the touch now like the left side is. But now the problem is, and I jus said all of that to say this lmao, starting around last Sunday or maybe this Monday, I had woke up and out of nowhere it was hurting on the left side of my throat when I would yawn. Didn’t hurt at any other point tho. Not during talking, singing, swallowing, anything. Strictly when yawning. Noticed shortly after that that also affected my singing. In general because my voice ain’t projecting like it’s sposed to, but especially trying to hit higher ranges. And not even extreme higher ranges like falsetto, but basically anything slightly above my speaking voice range. And I can literally physically feel it if I put my hand on my throat while attempting it, the left vocal cord ain’t moving up like it’s sposed to, and the sound is essentially all being carried by the right vocal cord. But at the same time, it’s all painless and none of this hurts to do, it’s jus straight up not working or sounding right. It’s bizarre because there’s literally no other symptoms. I don’t even have a hoarse voice or a change in tone, it jus simply won’t work right when singing all of a sudden.
So that’s why I mentioned all the jaw stretches and exercises because that’s the only thing that’s been different in the past few weeks so I’m thinking and hoping that that’s all it is and I jus overextended something while doing those. Because in that case it wouldn’t be an injury to the actual vocal cords, but instead to the muscles around them. But even that seems like a stretch because there’s nothing harsh about them at all. It’s simple shit like holding your mouth open as wide as possible for a minute, pushing your lower jaw to the left for 30 seconds, pushing it to the right for 30 seconds, repeat. And in total I’m done wit all of them for the day in 5 minutes total. So there’s not even any over repetition or over exertion involved. Sure, I’ve never done them before, so it’s new to my body, but they’re still extremely mild. None of the stretches at any point had ever hurt or felt like I pulled anything either. Only soreness I had was in the right jaw muscle itself, and that was from the mastic gum. But that was muscle soreness I was sposed to have, jus like post gym soreness from working out any other muscle.
So I have no clue. I’ve never fucked my voice up so it’s making me extremely anxious, worst part is I have an appointment wit an ENT doctor, but they can’t get me in til May 18th. Hopefully this is mild and goes away by then, but if not, it’s 3 weeks of wondering if this is permanent and fucking up my musical ability for life. I don’t think it was caused by singing itself because at no point has singing ever been painful to me, and usually improper technique causes pain. And on top of that, there was never any individual moment where there was a stab of pain and I could tell I pulled or popped something while singing. And like I said, even right now it doesn’t hurt to sing or talk, it jus don’t wanna work. Another scenario is that it’s specifically on the left side, which is where I received the radiation for the cancer. Not directly thru the throat since the lump was in my lower left neck, but beams undoubtedly passed thru the throat and vocal cords. Immediately after finishing the radiation, I had a sore throat specifically on the left side that lasted for about 2 weeks, but that passed and then there’s been no issues ever since. So idk how plausible it sounds that the radiation blows my voice 3 months after the fact. Seems like something that would have been more immediate. But I guess there’s also the possibility that the radiation weakened the vocal cord and this was a ticking time bomb. Cause like I said, this is only the left vocal cord that’s having an issue, not both.
Idk, shit is stressing me the fuck out tho. I was about to do final takes on this catchy ass single that I was intending on dropping soon too and that definitely jus got put on standby smfh.
But this voice thing has me nervous. Hoping the worst that comes of it is jus being out of commission singing wise for a couple weeks and it jus heals itself wit vocal rest.