Shania Twain finds it easier to sing than she does to talk following her debilitating battle with Lyme disease.

Amid years of career silence following her 2005 Greatest Hits collection, the star underwent throat surgery to strengthen her vocal cords, and only in recent years made her musical comeback with her fifth album Now in 2017.

She went on to headline an accompanying tour the following year, and launched her Let’s Go! Las Vegas residency last December, but Shania told Loose Women she feared she’d never sing again at the height of her voice issues.

“There was a long time I thought I would never sing again,” the Life’s About To Get Good star shared. “It took years to get to the bottom of what was affecting my voice, and I would say probably a good seven years before a doctor was able to find out that it was nerve damage to my vocal cords directly caused by Lyme disease.”

Shania continued: “It’s very debilitating. Our voice is such a huge part of our self-expression, and for a vocalist, a singer, obviously… it’s devastating in so many ways.

“So, until I got to the bottom of why I was having a problem with my voice, there wasn’t really much I could do about it. So it took a long time and I did believe that I would have to probably accept at some point that I was never going to be able to sing again.”

While Shania is now confident onstage, she admitted she was still struggling to talk normally – something that may take a while, if ever, to completely recover.

“My speaking voice is definitely the biggest effort, because as you can hear, I get quite raspy,” the hitmaker shared, explaining that “singing is actually easier”.

“I have more power when I’m singing now, I have more character I find, and I enjoy singing again. Speaking is the more difficult challenge for me than singing. I’ll take that!”

Despite her residency show being shut down amid the pandemic, Shania is keeping busy with the 25th anniversary re-release of her seminal 1995 album, The Woman in Me.