You ve been hoarse or even worse, you ve lost your voice due to acid reflux.
Now, you are wondering how to heal vocal cords from acid reflux?
Stay tuned, because in this video, my guest, a performing artist and vocal coach Matilda
Lindell will share her journey to a healthy voice.
Hi!
I am Katarina, speech language pathologist and here on this channel, I share practical
tips about using your voice in a healthy way.
So, if this is a topic that interests you, consider subscribing to this channel and hitting
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In this video, I want to introduce you to Matilda Lindell, who is an artist and voice
coach from Stockholm, Sweden.
Aside from writing and performing her own original music, she has been part of several
groups and bands throughout her career.
One of them is the ABBA Tribute act ABBA THE CONCERT which she has been touring the US
with for over a decade.
Matilda has a degree in vocal pedagogy and is a Certified Master Trainer in Estill Voice
Training and she coaches singers and voice teachers around the world.
I had the privilege to work with Matilda in my Estill certification program.
During our many conversations, she shared with me how she overcame a very severe case
of acid reflux.
With her never-ending curiosity, perseverance and positivity, she was able to discover a
natural way of treating her acid reflux issues.
Her story is very encouraging and today, she is sharing her wisdom with us.
If you want to stay in touch with her, click the link in the description below this video
to get even more tips on how to maintain a healthy voice.
Now, let's hear from Matilda.
Okay, Matilda, tell us about your journey with acid reflux.
Let's start at the very beginning.
How did you find out that you have acid reflux or how did you realize that you have acid
reflux?
Well, in the beginning it was more subtle than became when the problem magnified, but
I had this sore throat that sort of didn't, didn't always develop into like a big cold
or anything.
And I got hoarse, so it like stopped there.
It was like throat and hoarseness and it, it was too often.
And I got like, it's weird that I just get the sore throat and I feel this resistance
in my voice.
And then nothing happens.
Like I didn't get sick or anything like that.
And after, So you really di not have any obvious acid
reflux symptoms like heartburn or belching?
I did.
I probably did a little bit, but I don't remember.
It was nothing like, extraordinary.
It was mostly, you know, maybe a little bit, not that much.
I had problems with my stomach getting bloated, and very burping and all kinds of stuff my
whole life, really, but not super extreme.
So I did not connect the dots.
And after a while though, because this was when, well, it was I'm sure, I mean, many
years ago now, I went to the ENT and just like, maybe I have ... I didn't know so much
about it, then I was just like I looked it up a little bit and was like, maybe this is
acid reflux.
And it's affecting my voice.
And I was, you know, starting my career and I was very like, I'm, I need to take care
of my voice.
And the ENT confirmed.
Yes, you have acid reflux.
So that was nice to know what it was because I sort of, it was scary getting hoarse over
and over again.
Absolutely.
And as a singer, I think you were in tune with your body.
So you recognized that the soreness, throat soreness feels different than when you get
a cold or flu.
So what did your doctor say?
What did the ENT say?
What was his suggestion?
So his suggestion was to take like, antacid like, proton pump inhibitor, if that's what
it's called in English, Proton pump inhibitors.
And, so and I, you know, I didn't know.
So I was like sure, I was like anything to get this, to get my voice to work.
So I tried that for a while and initially it actually helped, I got some relief from
that.
So it was good in the beginning.
Like I just try to eat.
He said, you know, to watch my food, like I try to avoid acidic food and, you know,
fatty foods or anything that can make the sphincter, lower esophageal sphincter looser,
you know, I tried to do whatever I could, and it didn't get better.
And it got worse.
And then I switched to a different medication.
I got back and like, I don't feel it's helping.
Something is not right.
So I switched but I continued on that lane for a very long time.
That's a common comment from my viewers who say, Oh, I've been on this drug.
I've been on this drug.
Nothing is helping.
What can I do?
Tell us how it affected your voice.
You were a singer.
And I think at that time you were even touring.
It must have been very scary not to have your voice.
Right.
It was very scary.
And, and the, well, the hardest part was the more, when I, the medication only sort of
masked the symptoms for me and then actually magnified the problem.
So then from having like, you know, a sore throat and some hoarseness and, you know,
feeling, you know, kind of gunky in the morning, I got this heartburn and like, I had some,
like, I was choking, like someone was choking me.
Like I wanted to swallow something down, but I couldn't, I had chest pain, like real chest
pain.
And I thought like, is this like, do I have so much inside?
Is this my heart?
What is going on?
And I got nauseous.
And when it got really bad, I couldn't even eat.
I could, like when I ate, I was so afraid of getting acid reflux because now I could
really feel the acid reflux and I get nauseous.
And I didn't, I didn't understand why first.
That the acid reflux problems sort of made all these other issues with my body.
I'd had mineral deficiency and iron deficiency and so many problems that, of course also,
so not only the acid reflux affected my voice at that time, all of these other things, like,
because you need your whole body and your health for the voice to work.
So you got into a vicious cycle where you didn't eat properly, you were still taking
the drugs, you got hoarseness, and then you were afraid to eat again.
And it's sort of rolled like a ball, I guess.
Yeah.
It was a terrible spiral downward.
And I didn't know, to like, get off, like get off the bad spiral.
I was, I was freaking out, I started losing my voice also so much more frequently.
And I knew that I had good technique and I had a lot of experience and, you know, so
I was like, what am I doing wrong?
I'm a vocal coach.
I know what to do.
So also I was touring and I am, I could tour for weeks at a time.
And I didn't, well, this is this band I'm touring a lot with still, it's an ABBA tribute
band.
I'm Swedish.
So I sing a lot of ABBA music among other things.
And I don't really have it's, you know, it's costumes, it's with a band.
You have your co-singer.
No, I can't just call in someone else.
Right.
So I'm, the band is very dependent on me.
So when I lost my voice and had to go on a two week tour, three week tour, I just had
to go.
And it, that was of course, really, really scary.
Uh, because also you don't want to strain your voice.
You don't want to be out there seeing that, of course magnified the stress as well, which
is not good for acid reflux.
So you're very right.
It was just, yeah, it was so bad.
It was so bad.
Okay.
So obviously the traditional treatment didn't work for you.
So now tell us, what you did differently?
What did you start doing?
And I know we've discussed this before.
It wasn't just the diet.
It was more than that.
So if you can talk about that.
Yes.
So, well, it was actually when I lost my voice, you know, one time too much.
So I rarely, I rarely lost my voice when I was singing, but when I was talking and I,
when, when it was bad, it could go like this.
And I was like, this is enough.
Something's wrong.
This is not working.
So I totally took a total pivot and researched, whatever I could for a few days, I was obsessed
with this and the deeper I went into this and discovering what was wrong and what had
led to the next thing and the next thing, and the next issue I needed to take step towards
working on my digestion to fix things that was like the core problem, the most common
cause of what's causing acid reflux is too little stomach acid, but this has caused so
many things that I had.
So my blood pressure was super low.
I had no iron.
The doctor was like, how can you be standing up?
You have no iron in your blood.
And so, and I couldn't digest my food.
That was why I was so nauseous all the time when I ate and because of, I had no stomach acid
in my stomach, it was inviting all this bacterial overgrowth.
So I had so many issues to solve.
So it's just, I had to take one thing at a time, wipe out the bacteria, try to raise
my stomach acid and work on my digestion.
It's so many components in that.
And you need your minerals in your body to create the stomach acid?
The HCl it's so many components.
So I really had to go and I studied health a lot, and I got help from, from various places.
And that I finally found useful and slowly it was hard in the beginning, but I totally
stopped eating the medicine from that day.
It can be harsh to just stop the medicine.
But I was like done.
I had a lot of acid reflux at first then, but it got better.
And I really worked my way up and my blood pressure got up and my iron and my minerals.
And at the same time also, of course, using my voice a lot to both make sure I took care
of it and my body as good as I could.
And we can also use the vibrations from the voice to actually trigger our nervous system
to calm down and get more balance in our bodies.
So I really tried to like work on all components, like the voice, but the mind and the body,
the inner, you know, functions, to get it all to work.
It was a long journey.
But If I summarize it, you really covered your
physiology in terms of your digestion, right?
So you changed your diet, you changed your lifestyle, you used vocal technique to improve
your vocal function.
I feel like you really went all out and worked on everything, every little thing in your
life.
Definitely.
I used my voice also a lot to actually work on the mind, I think, yeah, I had to work
on the whole thing and the whole How long did it take you, can you tell us?
Well, I got better much better within month months, I'm still working on things.
But in the beginning, I would say the first one to two months was really, really difficult
because as I was starting to fix my digestion, when you have bacteria in your stomach and
when you're just, I still felt the acid reflux, it was really hard.
And you actually made it a little bit worse first.
So it was a hard few months, but then I got so much better.
And when I finally could digest my food a little bit better, of course, this took I'm
sure a year before I could really do it on my own.
And without thinking about every little thing I ate.
What is one thing that you would tell someone who is complaining about or who was diagnosed
with acid reflux issues?
What would be one piece of advice you would give them?
Well, I wish that I had known from the start, the cause, the main cause.
I was not aware I was, I didn't And if I had known it was because of too little stomach
acid I had, I would have done it so differently.
But other than that, I would say, don't give up, we can fix so many things in our body.
We just need to know how to interpret it and feel it.
And there's so much we can do with our food, with our mind, with our voice, for the whole
body.
Amazing.
You are a shining example, how to deal with acid reflux when the traditional methods don't
work.
So thank you very much for sharing your journey and your experiences with this problem.
You're welcome.
My pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you for staying until the end.
If you found this video helpful, click the like button and share it with your friends
who may benefit from this information.
Check out Matilda s link and her latest Abba cover video.
And check out my other videos on the topic of acid reflux.
I hope to see you soon.
Bye.