You should not lose your voice after thyroid surgery. In this video, Dr. Clayman explains that a vocal cord nerve can become temporarily paralyzed uncommonly and you may experience hoarseness, but you should not lose your voice. If a person does lose their voice as a result of thyroid surgery, it may be temporary, or it may be due to inadvertent injury to a vocal cord nerve that is known or not known to the surgeon. You should ask your surgeon how frequently they perform thyroid surgery and how often a patient loses their voice. An excellent surgeon will tell you the risk is near zero, or way less than one percent. If the surgeon says 2% or more, then you may want to discuss this with another surgeon. The surgeons with the most experience have the lowest complications rate. Nerve monitoring does not prevent injury to a vocal cord nerve and in fact it gives a surgeon a false sense of security because they think they are protected, but what prevents damage to a vocal cord nerve is your surgeon seeing the nerve and preserving the entire nerve and all of its branches. A surgeon should be able to tell you that the risk of injury to your vocal cord nerves is less than one percent, if not, it’s not the right thyroid surgeon for you. If he/she says they are going to monitor your nerve in the operating room to help prevent a nerve injury, then know this is absolutely not true and often increases the risk of nerve injury. These tubes are used to protect the surgeon from lawsuits, not the patient from injury.