sick sick sick

It's winter, time for bulky woollens, riding boots and in the world of singing, inconvenient sickness, with its attendant agonising decision-making! I'm no doctor - but I have a lot of experience of being sick, and working sick, so for what it's worth, here are my answers to the sickness FAQs.

FAQ: I think I'm getting a cold! I have a lesson and a short rehearsal today for a performance tomorrow and a little bit of a sore throat, at the back of my mouth! And a runny nose and maybe a fever! What should I do?

A: I'd probably skip the lesson. (You should still pay for it if your teacher has only hours' notice, but see if she can schedule a make-up extra lesson for you the next week in a cancellation!) Go to your rehearsal, and don't bother with the doctor - you have a virus and they will be advising rest and plenty of liquids - awesome advice if you didn't have a performance tomorrow! Get to the chemist and get hold of 1. a herbal runny-nose remedy called Respatona Head Cold, and 2. a steamer (humidifier) and run it all night near your bed on full. No screaming, not much talking and when you are singing go for clarity and focus. Stay off Codral and away from fierce nasal sprays like Otrivin and Sinex. They dry out the fine membranes of your larynx and make hoarseness a probability. Gargle Betadine if you can get it, or salt-water in a weakish concentration if you can't. Lemon and honey taste nice in hot water and don't do you any harm. Keep super-warm!

FAQ: My cold went a week ago, but now I've got an awful feeling that someone is gripping my throat down near my larynx and I am a bit hoarse. I've coughed up some nasty-tasting green and yellow stuff too. But I don't really feel sick, or have much of a runny nose. I have a lesson and a rehearsal today for a performance the day after tomorrow.

A: Oh-oh. Get thee to the doc. Tell him about the phlegm and its colour. Now is a great time for a course of the toughest antibiotic he will give you. Garlic, lemon, honey: they give you a great feeling of virtue and may help a bit - eg the lemon and honey will help cut the phlegm to make it cough-upable - but seriously: if you want to make your singing commitment and the doc thinks they may help, eat up your pills! Again, you can risk taking an anti-inflammatory like aspirin when you AREN'T using your voice - like now. No lesson, and no rehearsing on this pipe, especially if you aren't sure you can reach the notes. No Codral, no Otrivin or Sinex spray. Sit in front of your steamer all day and steam yourself. Run your steamer all night. Gargle Betadine every three hours. You may well make it but if you have an understudy it might be worth giving them a heads up. With any luck the antibiotics will kick in and the swelling in the larynx will go down and you will sail through your sing after a super-careful warm up with lots of intercostal stretching and humming!

FAQ: Three weeks ago I had laryngitis and I sang a big concert on the last little bit of it and I feel my voice hasn't been quite right since! I don't have a regular singing lesson but should I try to go to a specialist? What if I have a nodule or tearing or something?

A: OK. Firstly: if you feel that there is something really wrong in your pipe, don't let anyone tell you that you are wrong and everything's fine UNLESS they are an ENT (Ear Nose and Throat specialist) and you are both looking at a recent clean laryngoscopy. I have been confidently told (many many years ago!) by a very experienced singing teacher, then by a good ENT that I didn't have a nodule - until he got a camera down the pipe and said, "Oh, except that little one right there!" Here are some tells for problems: you might have lost range at either end, especially at the top, over a long period of time; starting the sound takes a massive effort and still sometimes it fails to "speak"; there is unprecendented breathiness, or another noise - sometimes a metallic sound - in the voice. You are in a unique position to know if something has changed for the worse down the pipe.

HOWEVER: don't rush to a negative conclusion. When you feel that you really have to work sick you will probably do it.Then you may feel a certain terror that you have buggered your instrument and you have brought it all on yourself! You will never sing again! It's ruined and it turns out to be all you ever cared about...

Well my darling: you headed for the right profession! But now you should calm right down, especially if it really has been less than a month. It's probably worth contacting your old voice teacher or your singing teacher for them to have a listen. It is very probable that having been hoarse for a while you have developed some idiosyncratic work-arounds that you are now having trouble abandoning. Even if it's all by yourself, go back to your basics; run your breath drills and sirens and hums. See if by consciously opening out any protective postures you might have adopted in your throat you can find your clear, energised voice again. Repeat this for a few days and see if your register transitions get any smoother. If you are getting better, be patient.

Final note: if you do turn out to have an injury, don't go mental over it. If Rafa Nadal had thrown himself off a bridge when someone first said to him, "Gee that knee looks a bit iffy mate!" then he'd be down about four Grand Slam titles. Nodules can be trained off with the aid of a speech pathologist, and it is highly unlikely that you will be told you will never sing again - and if you are told any such thing, get a second opinion! Just as elite sports people are usually working off an injury or surgery or strengthening up to stave something off, singers can't realistically expect absolutely perfect function at the physical extreme of human potential from their instruments every single day of their lives. People cough on you on the bus and you get things. No guiltifying! No spurious psychopathologising of a poorly timed cold, people! Stuff happens. Try to make sure you are in good shape for the next performance. Get some rest.

Clare Heuston