Survey study, 1999
Do women's voices change before their period?
Yes. About one in three women experience voice problems starting 4-5 days before their period. When 97 women with this problem were given vitamins, blood flow medicines, and anti-swelling drugs, 84 improved.
What they did
The researchers studied 97 women who had voice problems before their period. They examined their vocal cords with a camera and found swelling and congestion. They then treated these women with multivitamins, medicines to improve blood flow, and anti-swelling drugs.
What they found
84 out of 97 women showed improvement in their voice problems after treatment. The problems included fatigue, loss of range, loss of power, and loss of harmonics. Problems typically occurred 4-5 days before menstruation.
What it means for you
Voice changes can happen to about one in three women before their period, especially those who use their voice professionally like singers and teachers. These changes are caused by physical swelling of the vocal cords. Treatment helped most women. The main limitation is that this study had no control group, so we cannot be completely certain the treatment caused the improvement.
33%
of women who experience premenstrual voice syndrome
97
women in the treatment study
84
showed improvement with treatment
About the study
- Original title
- Sex hormones and the female voice
- Authors
- Abitbol J, Abitbol P, Abitbol B
- Journal
- Journal of voice : official journal of the Voice Foundation
- Year
- 1999
- Study design
- Survey study
- Participants
- 197
- What was tested
- Multivitamins, venous tone stimulants (medicines to improve blood flow), and anti-swelling drugs
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1016/s0892-1997(99)80048-4
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