Ok, I have an update. I saw an ENT doctor. He looked in my throat with this scope that was a thin cable that went up my nose and down into my throat.
He said for the most part he saw nothing out the ordinary. Which was a relief, because of course one of my biggest fears was that I had throat cancer or something serious like that.
But he did say one of my vocal cord flaps was enlarged and stretched a little bit. He called it plica ventriculosis.
I did mention I came down with this after a football game. So it could be possible I did damage to my vocal cord area by screaming. I'm an nfl season ticket holder. The game this happened after, I did scream louder than I had all year. When I yelled during that game it was like I used something other than my normal vocal cords, it was like I used an upper gear to yell louder, which might have been the ventricular folds, and as a result, maybe they took damage.
I mentioned originally that I thought I had a cold after the football game. Maybe I didn't have a cold, and it was antibodies reacting to the tissue damage in my throat.
If this is the case, it seems the damage could be permanent, because it has persisted for over a year. I'm still on the albuterol inhaler, which helps reduce the sound of the wheezing. He also put me on a steroid, Medrol, which is an anti-inflammatory. I'm also supposed to take Mucinex. I'm trying not to exhale forcefully to keep checking on it. And I'm trying to rest my voice as much as possible in hopes that the tissue will tighten back up.
I wonder if the tissue does not rebound on it's own if there might be surgery to correct it. I'm not opposed to the idea of surgery if it's not too risky. I don't want to change the quality of my voice or anything like that. But the wheezing is annoying.
In any case, I'm relieved to know it's possibly not cancer or something serious.
thanks