My daughter, who is 16, is very interested in operatic singing. She frequently suffers from a sore, irritated throat brought on by the singing. What are the best remedies, and what can be done to avoid these sore throats?

S.M.

Pain is your body's way of telling you that something is WRONG. "A sore, irritated throat brought on by the singing" indicates that your daughter is injuring her larynx. If she does this on a consistent basis, she may ruin her singing voice; even her speaking voice may be adversely affected.

This does not mean that your daughter should abandon her aspirations. On the contrary, there is a solution to this problem, one which has been available for hundreds of years.

Your daughter desperately needs a professional voice coach! A good voice coach will not only teach your daughter how to properly use her voice so as to avoid injury, but will also help her to optimize her singing voice. By improving her technique, she could increase her dynamic range (the "distance" between the highest note and the lowest note that she can comfortably sing) and her resonance (the "fullness" of voice that separates an operatic voice from a whiner). Resonance is the reason why even Ted Koppel probably sounds pretty good when he sings in the shower.

Poor technique can lead to a number of laryngeal problems. For example, poor technique can cause "singer's nodules" (also known as "screamer's nodules") to form within the vocal cords. Singers with nodules have a variable degree of hoarseness or breathiness to their voice. This would be acceptable, perhaps, in a country- western singer, but not in a diva. Nodules are notoriously difficult to treat. Surgical excision is usually a mistake (the scar tissue from excision causes more problems than the nodules), so the only treatment is intensive speech therapy -- and time.

Certain voice techniques are well known. For example, abdominal breathing is essential. But there are undoubtedly many subtle techniques that she would learn only by working with an appropriate voice coach. (In your daughter's case, that would be a coach with experience in opera.)

I can also give your daughter some advice that is more medical than technical in nature. Excellent hydration (drinking at least 64 ounces [8 cups] per day of nonalcoholic, noncaffeinated beverages) is very important. In general, it is a good idea to avoid alcohol as much as possible. Tobacco smoke (direct or secondhand) is off-limits. Needless to say, more acrid smoke (such as cigar or marijuana smoke) is even more damaging. Finally, gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, must be aggressively treated, if it is present.