diff --git a/litellm/utils.py b/litellm/utils.py
index 82c0e94d1..264b28e06 100644
--- a/litellm/utils.py
+++ b/litellm/utils.py
@@ -1575,8 +1575,8 @@ def openai_token_counter(
     model="gpt-3.5-turbo-0613",
     text: Optional[str] = None,
     is_tool_call: Optional[bool] = False,
-    tools: List[ChatCompletionToolParam] | None = None,
-    tool_choice: ChatCompletionNamedToolChoiceParam | None = None,
+    tools: Optional[List[ChatCompletionToolParam]] = None,
+    tool_choice: Optional[ChatCompletionNamedToolChoiceParam] = None,
     count_response_tokens: Optional[
         bool
     ] = False,  # Flag passed from litellm.stream_chunk_builder, to indicate counting tokens for LLM Response. We need this because for LLM input we add +3 tokens per message - based on OpenAI's token counter