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From: Julie Winterroth
Date: 13 Oct 2005
Time: 14:52:05 -0500
Remote Name: 140.160.128.45
Scott, I just want to first thank you for sharing your story. I found it very interesting, and am curious about the phenomenon of your "temporary fluency". I was reading some of the other comments people have made, and hypothesizing another possible cause/contributing factor. (A little disclaimer: I am only an undergrad student without much experience in stuttering, so please excuse any misconceptions I might have.) In my studies so far, I have found many people who stutter also have excessive tension in anxiety-provoking situations. So, perhaps in your 2 incidents, the medications and the paralysis of the facial muscles could have caused a momentary sedation of the laryngeal and facial muscles, allowing for "fluent" speech. What are your thoughts on this hypothesis? Did you experience an overall relaxation? (Of course this does not account for why the stuttering got worse directly after. Perhaps you should keep trying to contact fMRI researchers. Ceratainly if I were an fMRI researcher, I would be interested in using your case.) Thanks again for providing a little window into your world and experiences. Take care.