Betty, re "true laryingitis" -- I've got it -- or maybe worse.
Alice, You hit the nail on the head with that old saw about prevention and cure.
I'm afraid I've gone beyond the kind of 'laryingitis' most of you folks are talking about.
Two weeks ago I developed a productive cough and rhinitis, which made my asthma worse and my voice a bit froggy. I used many of the techniques discussed above for the next week, and managed to participate in Singtime Frolics in Oregon and do several gigs I had lined up during that first week.
But the mistake I made, I fear, was allowing myself to keep coughing--sometimes in great spasms--trying to get the phlegm out of my lungs. By the time the worst of the coughing part of the bug was done with, I had severely irritated my bronchial tubes and vocal cords from the coughing.
The result? For the next four days I could barely whisper and couldn't produce any musical hum beyond half an octave, no matter how much I hydrated or did throat relaxing exercises.
The docs ordered me not to use my voice at all for the duration, and I've complied with that pretty completely for the last 5 days [no singing, hardly any talking]. Now I can almost hum a whole octave [low tenor range] -- I seem to gain about one note a day.

I know, I know, I should go see an ENT doc, but my travel schedule doesn't permit my gettting an appointment for now.

I hope I haven't developed terrible nodes on my vocal cords and that I haven't lost my singing voice for a long time or permanently. Singing is my livelihood, as well as a source of pleasure.

This is to underscore your point, Alice, that you should not sing when you are sick if you can help it.

Now that I've gone and really messed up my throat, though, I'm wondering what's recommended for rehabilitation. Is it really true that the best cure for real laryngitis is complete rest of the voice? If you completely rest any other parts of the body--muscles, and bones, at least-- they get very weak and you can't just return to normal activity by warming up. What's the balance between resting the vocal cords and stretching the throat?

FWIW, the doc has me on prednisone and a codeine cough syrup [with guafenicine(sp?)] for about 5 days to deal with the bronchitis and laryngitis. Anyone have any experience with those meds for severe laryngitis?

Fisherman's Friend and Cold-eez have helped soothe my throat but they didn't bring my voice back when I was getting absolute lack of sound above middle C. The only thing that seemed to help was just to quit trying to make noise.

Thank God for whistling! It got me through a couple of gigs when I couldn't sing. I'd just accompany my whistling with the guitar. I hope that doesn't hurt the voice, too!

Yeah, Alice, maybe I should have tried the anchovy thing--or just gargling with heavy salt water--but as you said, I could have really messed up my vocal cords [and maybe did] by singing when my vocal cords were in bad shape.


Susanne
That link you posted --http://www.men.net/~acflynn/ --r turned out to be a gay men's website. Just a typo?

Genie