Ep 4 Live Q&A – March 13, 2019 – What are some suggestions to maintain my voice during allergy season?

Mike Elson: This one just came in. I can share my experience with this. So question number five comes from Lillian. She just dropped this question in, “What do you suggest during allergy season to maintain my voice?” I’ll jump in first.

Mike Elson: I know for me, I just use Alavert, it’s a chewable tablet. Especially if I’m going to be singing, or before a lesson or a workout, whatever I’m doing, I just pop one of those in about 30 minutes before. It dissolves underneath your tongue, so it seems to work faster than the oral pill you can take, the Claritin-D. But I like Alavert, again. No paid sponsorship from them yet. But they’re great. They got the orange-flavored one, that’s my favorite, so that’s the one that I use.

Mike Elson: And I’ve tried Flonase, a number of those different ones, but for me, it was the Alavert. So I’d say try it, go through the different … work with your doctor to try the different prescription drugs that are available, and find the one that’s most comfortable. That, I think, was about the fourth drug I tried. Finally, when I tried, it just cleared me up, and I instantly opened the sinuses, allowed me to sing, whereas if I wasn’t taking that, you get blocked sinuses, and then obviously it just impairs, it limits your singing abilities when you’re clogged.

Matthew Edwards: Yeah.

Mike Elson: What do you have on that?

Matthew Edwards: First, hi Lillian. It’s good to see you here. I agree with you, and you brought up a great firsthand experience. You tried some other medicines and then found that Alavert was the one that worked for you. And everybody is going to have to … Can you maybe type it in there? Somebody is asking how to-

Mike Elson: Yeah, I will, I will.

Matthew Edwards: But some people, you know, Zyrtec is supposed to by non-drying or non-drowsy, and I have people who take it and say it drys them out and it makes them tired, whereas Claritin makes me feel like I could go to sleep all day and drys me out, and other people say it’s the best medicine for them.

Matthew Edwards: So what I would do is pick something. A lot of times, we’re starting to find that people’s bodies react to certain medicines. They’re starting to come up with DNA tests to tell us which medicines might react best with our bodies. So I was working with something for my son where we were trying to pick a medication for him. The doctor said to me, “If you don’t want to spend the money on the DNA test, let’s start with the medicine we know works for you because if it works for you, it’s more likely to work for him.”

Matthew Edwards: So if you have a family member who says, “Hey, I take this allergy … ” And my family member, mom, dad, brother, sister. And they say, “This seems to be fine for me. It doesn’t make me tired, doesn’t dry me out,” it’s probably worth trying. Right? Start there. Then if that one doesn’t work, you want to look around and see what other ones might work.

Matthew Edwards: Nasal sprays, not the Afrin, we’ll get to that in a second. But regular nasal sprays, allergy nasal sprays like Flonase, can be really, really good. Right? Because when you spray that steroid in, it’s going into your nose and it’s helping exactly with the tissues that swell up, and it’s helping stop the allergic reaction. Right?

Mike Elson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Matthew Edwards: Versus having a pill, which can sometimes dry. You just got to make sure as you spray it, don’t spray so much of it that it ends up running down the back of your throat, because sometimes when it does, it’ll make the back of your throat sore. I did it one time, my throat hurt for a day and a half, day and a half, two days. Right? I got really excited about my inhalation. You know, they tell you to inhale, and as a singer, I would go … and so I took the nasal spray and I was like. Not so good. So don’t sniff it like a singer, sniff it like somebody who is just going, “That smells nice,” okay? Light sniffing, not singer sniffing. So those can be really beneficial to people.

Matthew Edwards: Staying hydrated is critical, okay? We have two kinds of mucous that get excreted onto the vocal folds. One is more sticky, one is more viscous, it’s more liquidy. And when you start getting dried out and you get overrun by that dry mucous, that’s how bacteria set up, and that’s how you eventually get things like a sinus infection, bronchitis, laryngitis, all those wonderful things. Plus, as we said, dry, crusty jello does not vibrate well. So anytime your jello gets crusty, it’s bad news.

Matthew Edwards: You want to try to make sure you’re drinking enough water in the day. The doctors say that you should be drinking enough water that you pee clear. So if you’re going to the bathroom and it’s clear, you are good to go. You should also, another recommendation you can follow, is to drink half of your body weight in ounces per day. Right? So I weigh 220, I should drink 110 ounces of water a day. All right?

Matthew Edwards: You don’t want to go overboard. There are conditions where you can drink too much water and it can be harmful to your body. That’s why I say it’s a good rule of thumb that you can go by, and it’s in a pretty safe zone. You can get online and find all kinds of calculators that will tell you for your body what you should be drinking.

Matthew Edwards: You want to, if you have a house that’s dry, you want to make sure that you have some sort of a humidifier in your room. Now, you can over-humidify your room, so what you’re going to want to do, is at most of the stores where they sell the humidifiers, they show a humidity monitor, and it shows you a safe zone, and then it shows you a good zone and a bad zone. You want to stay in that safe zone.

Matthew Edwards: I had a house that I rented out to a soprano who got really worried at one point, and she lived outside of the safe zone to the point the black mold was growing in the room. She went, “I don’t know why mold is growing in the room.” And we started talking, I was like, “I owned that house for like four years, and that never happened.” She’s like, “Well, I’m trying to keep the humidifier running because of my allergies.” I was like, “Well, that would be why we now have mold.” Right? So don’t run it to that point, keep it in that safe zone.

Matthew Edwards: There’s some research about nebulized saline versus a steam inhaler. So you’ll see a lot of people using those personal steam inhalers. For a long time, we believed that those were really helpful. We’re now not so sure, all right? And what they’re starting to think is something called a nebulizer, which you can buy on Amazon, with saline solution, which you can also buy on Amazon, is better for your vocal folds. There are some studies that back this up, medical studies that have been presented at conferences.

Matthew Edwards: I … to the point where it’s universally recommended as the better option, but steam is picking up around it because there have been several studies that are all showing that that seems to be the way to go. So something to keep an eye out on, something to ask your laryngologist about or your allergist about if you’re running into trouble. Right?

Matthew Edwards: And if you’re looking at a professional singing career, one of the best things you can do is go get allergy testing done. You know, and it’s scary. I ended up having to have it done with my seven-year-old. I didn’t tell him what they were going to. I might have him in therapy as a teenager for that, I don’t know. But I literally laid him down on his stomach on the doctor’s table with a book, and I just rubbed the back of his head, and he was like, “Ah, that’s scratchy.” And I said, “Read your book.” And we talked about things in his book, and all of a sudden they were done and he looked at me and said, “Oh, we’re done?” I said, “Yup, that’s it.” Right? It was super simple.

Matthew Edwards: Then what ended up happening out of that test is we found out exactly what he’s allergic to, and now we know what to avoid, and we know how to eliminate some of those environmental issues that are avoidable. So I think that if you’re a singer who struggles with allergy, go through the testing. It’s not nearly as bad as it seems [crosstalk 00:49:35]-

Mike Elson: If a seven-year-old can do it, come on. You know?

Matthew Edwards: I know, right? And a seven-year-old who has a scratch and freaks out like he just had his leg taken off. So if he can handle allergy testing, everybody else can, I think. Right? So it’s worth getting a shot because then you’re not in the dark. Because I remember when I was a singer, I was, I’ll admit, too afraid to go get allergy testing because I don’t like needles, but when I was actively performing in the summers, I just had to lock myself up in the room I was staying because I was afraid to go outside because I knew I was allergic to something but I didn’t know what. And I’ve got to tell you from personal experience, not a fun way to live. Go get the testing, find out what the issue is, it’ll be much better for you.

Mike Elson: Sure thing. Sure thing. Well, hey guys, we’re going to wrap up here. Any final thoughts you have to share, Matt?

Matthew Edwards: The only other thing that we didn’t touch on that I thought about along the way is for our professional performers, we’re going to have a frank, honest conversation here, smoking and drinking, I get it, but it’s problematic. So you need to be aware of that. There have been some studies done on vaping versus smoking. It’s been with nicotine and with cigarettes. I don’t remember what, I think that we were still finding that there was an irritation to the vocal folds there are other studies that believe it’s less cancerous, which is a really great thing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s less irritating. Okay?

Matthew Edwards: If you live in Colorado, if you live in Washington, Washington, D.C., Michigan, any of the places with legal marijuana, you need to look at all of your options available to you because that is really, really harmful. And when I’ve met people who are running into a problem with the band, and we start talking about their pre-show routine and it includes smoking a joint and they wonder why they don’t have high notes, I’ve got the answer for you right now. Okay?

Matthew Edwards: Then drinking, I’ve also had other guys who have told me, “I’m losing my high notes as the gig goes on.” I said, “Let me go see you perform.” Beer six by the end of the gig. That would be why you’re dying out. Okay?

Mike Elson: I don’t understand!

Matthew Edwards: Right? I get it. It’s rock and roll, right? You’re supposed to be able to party and do it. But let’s be realistic and honest with that conversation that cigarettes or smoking of any substance and drinking alcohol do dry you out. And if you are using those substances before, during a gig, it is likely to dry out your jello, and it does make you more prone to a vocal injury. So consider that and figure out what you’re going to do with that information, but my recommendation is always to try to get through your gig with water, and I think you’ll be in a much better spot.

Mike Elson: So our public service announcement for the day just say no, okay? All right. Guys, thanks for tuning in everyone. Absolutely, we appreciate all your questions. If you have more, drop them in below, we review them. We’re trying to organize, we’re getting a lot of different questions. So please, give us your question, we love to answer them for you as we keep doing these weekly live broadcasts. And thanks, everybody, for tuning in. Have a great week. See ya guys!

Matthew Edwards: Thanks guys, we’ll see you soon.