UPDATE: 9 Years
The man who wrote the book Change Your Voice, Change Your
Life saved my voice, my career and maybe even my life.
After
working with Dr. Morton Cooper for just two weeks during the month
of August, 1990, I have seen a dramatic improvement in my voice
and a major reduction in pain. I noticed improvement with Dr.
Cooper within three days after having seen 18 other health-care
professionals over s 20-month period. These professionals included
ENTs, speech therapists, singing teachers, neurologists, internists,
psychiatrists, pain doctors, a masseur and chiropractors, among
others.
Clearly there are some major problems in America today with vocal
rehabilitation. Why is Dr. Cooper the only professional using
these methods, which work? No one should have to go through what
I went through.
I wholeheartedly encourage you to read Dr. Cooper's text as I
believe it may be the seminal piece in reforming vocal rehabilitation
in the U.S. today and helping vocal abusers.
JOHN K. CAMERON
Sales Executive
Letter from Mr. Cameron to Ms. Jane Brody
Correspondent for the New York Times
I am writing to you concerning what I believe to be a very important
story. It is a story about conquering illness and coping with
the medical establishment and their poor understanding of an ailment.
It is also a story of complete recovery for many previously diagnosed,
'hopeless' cases. It is most of all a story about a Ph.D. in speech
pathology in Los Angeles who is the second 'Wizard of Westwood,'
not in UCLA basketball but in voices, a man who takes broken voices
as well as broken lives and fixes them.
I know, because I have been through it... and I really believe
this is a story that needs to be told because there are thousands
of people with serious and disabling voice problems who are not
finding much help from the medical community in the treatment
of their problems. I know you have been one of the few journalists
to cover this topic in the past.
In my case, my voice had often been scratchy and my throat sore
for four or five years before a job change in late 1988 triggered
a more acute problem. In my new job I was on the phone constantly
and had recurrent laryngitis, was losing my voice, and had chronic
neck and throat pains which did not subside. The pain was intense,
so intense in fact that I had to leave that job in New York and
go on disability while I saw scores of ear, nose and throat specialists
in New York and Philadelphia who diagnosed everything from a 'vocal
stress point' to 'da New York throat.' I went through intensive
speech therapy twice with little result (basically relearning
how to talk, no small order.) I was prescribed a host of medications
to no effect and even saw chiropractors and a masseur to no avail.
Over a 20-month period I saw 18 doctors. Tests revealed no tumors
or serious structural problems but my pains continued and speech
therapy did not seem to help. What became apparent during all
of this is that many in the medical community know very little
about voice, and as I have since learned, most M.D.'s have less
than six hours of training in voice at major medical schools.
Most of the recovery process is handled by doctors' adjunct speech
therapists who have varying theories, practices, and credentials.
Moreover, shuttling between uninvolved doctors and various speech
therapists can be a maddening process.
One voice specialist I met with during this process described
the state of voice therapy in America today as 'an absolute disaster.'
I think he is right. As a matter of fact, after spending $20,000
and 20 months looking for an answer to my problem, I am convinced
he is right. That specialist's name is Morton Cooper, Ph.D., and
he is a world renowned vocal rehabilitation expert in Los Angeles.
He has put me on the road to recovery. Cooper is a voice therapist
who started his own practice 31 years ago after years of frustration
in working with M.D.'s when Cooper was head of the Voice Outpatient
Department at UCLA. Nothing the M.D.'s were trying, Cooper found,
including voice therapy, medicines or surgery was consistently
working. Using his direct vocal direct rehabilitation techniques
(DVR), Cooper has successfully treated such people as entrepreneur
Norton Simon, as well as actors Richard Crenna, O.J.. Simpson
and Henry Fonda, among others. He has saved many careers and probably
prevented many suicides because of his techniques of vocal rehabilitation.
Imagine not having a voice to depend on. Imagine having pain
whenever you speak. Imagine having spastic dysphonia, or 'monster
voice,' in which your voice sounds like you are gargling -- or
you have no voice at all! As a journalists who earns her living
with her voice you can no doubt appreciate the physical and emotional
trauma that would accompany such problems. And it can happen to
you! Or anyone! Right now thousands of people are running to ear,
nose and throat specialists who throw up their arms, 'dish people
off' to other specialists, shun patients or give dubious treatments.
Some of these 'treatments' include chewing on a golf ball, lifting
chairs, and 'chasing your voice around a room.' One man I met
almost had the roof of his mouth cut out by various 'specialists!'
It is an amazing story of a fairly common problem (dysphonia)
that is so poorly understood in medicine that many are suffering
needlessly. it is also a story of a West Coast specialists, Dr.
Cooper, who takes people from the medical mill, the health care
junk pile, and FIXES THEM! I saw improvement in three days with
Morton Cooper after 18 other doctors basically threw up their
hands. There are dozens of high profile people, many in Hollywood,
who will testify that they were helped too. People who have trouble
with their speaking voices (as opposed to the problems of singers)
seem to be particularly difficult to treat and Cooper is the 'high
priest' of the speaking voice.
I think there are some miracles going on in Westwood and I think
a lot of people could use this good news. There is help with the
right professional. Most people probably experience voice loss
at some point in their lives, probably only temporarily, but there
are probably millions with regular voice dysfunction who do not
even know they are speaking incorrectly and are abusing their
voices. these people chronically clear their throats, have voice
pain, or have regular voice fatigue. They may even get 'monster
voice' or spastic dysphonia. Dysphonia is a common but often undiagnosed
problem which long-term can be devastating to career and personal
life.
I hope you will give this story idea serious consideration and
I will be happy to assist you in any way that I might help.
Sincerely,
JOHN K. CAMERON
Sales Executive
