Swallowing

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I sometimes have a difficulty wherein I try to swallow something, food or drink either, and my esophagus "locks up" in spasm. As this is a bad place in my throat' anything abobe it can stack up and I can't breathe. I have learned to self heimlich. Anyone else?

my swallowing is screwed, but its due to a progressive neurological disease i have... so i cant fit into your statistic

It only happens when I eat. But it doesn't stop air flow. Usually it catches down lower in my oespahagus - past the epiglottis and windpipe. Breathing does become uncomfortable - but my windpipe is not blocked.


The epigottis closes over when eating to ensure food does not enter the trachea / windpipe. The epiglottis is just the below the throat - quite high up. The epiglottis closes the trachea to make sure food stays in the oesphagus to enable it to travel to the stomach.

That must be so hard Strapples.

and the thing that really bugs me is i struggle to hold my weight but just cant, i weigh 89 pounds now... last october i was 110. and none of the doctors want to give me a G-Tube (thats a little feeding tube that goes directly into your belly and has a connector on ur belly)


^^ G-Tube

Oh - that's a buggar. Do they offer explanation? I would have thought you should have the right to the option of this treatment.

do you have the same condition as - whose the guy? - he's a physicist I think - can't think of his name, he is in a wheelchair - he has aided speech. Do you know I mean?

they are not giving me any explanation but we are getting me a new gastroenterologist who might possibly do it for me...

Stephen hawking, no but i have something highly similar... is condition only comes in adulthood... the condition i have which is more than likely SMA comes on in childhood/adolesence

oh and i have officially threadjacked this thread for discussion of ME and my condition... that concludes that announcement

We can always take it back to the OP.

Stephen Hawking - yeah that's the guy

Would you contact him? I think perhaps he could offer you some wisdom about life and your options?

i have contacted him... but wisdom and options from someone else is not what i need i already know all my options and i dont really need much "wisdom" because of how much of an optimist i am about everything...

here they thought i would get depressed about my disease resulting in me needing to get a powerchair (which arrives in 2-3 weeks from now) and yet i am actually kind of glad. my theory is the fact that i have always not liked walking due to the fact it has always felt weird (sensory integration disorder) and my gait has always been screwed up and people would make fun of me and also i could never run or ride a bike so walking has always been pretty useless...

Tis just fine to hijack my thread, Strapples. I wish there was a cure.

yah!! !! Keeping your mood up is over half the battle won - good for you Strapples.

Nice to speak with you.

i dont think id want that cure!! !

well dont fix the loss of walking part... fix the eating part though... but the loss of walking is kind of a good thing with me hehe

the funny thing is my doctors were all expecting me to become a depressed mess... well i totally proved them WRONG

I dig.

No, really.

A few years back I got hit by some neurological condition. I would become locally paralyzed (arms, legs), and the pain was indescribable.

Everything was so difficult. I had to see clients and crawl up stairs. Driving became so hard, even to c0lose the door.

No idea what. I am poor and have no financial assistance.

Whatev er it is it is in remission. I still get episodes but farther spaced. I am permanently weakened. Sucks

You have it worse, but I have been down that road. I dig. Damn.

I haven't had this happen but I accidently inhale liquids fairly often. It's not every day, but maybe once a week I suck something into my trachea and start coughing like crazy. It's embarrassing when it happens out in public because I cough for like 5 minutes and I'm like gasping for breath at first until I get more of it coughed up. (too much information?) I used to be guaranteed to choke on raw carrots.

My ASD kid didn't seem to have a problem with choking (inhaling food or liquids) but with gagging, so there were lots of foods that were totally inedible if they triggered the gag reflex (because of their texture).


I think it's like dyspraxia. I've never seen my kids do it, or my siblings when I was a kid, or my parents... but I have been doing it since gradeschool age, at least.

I'm sorry to hear you don't have medical insurance/money. You should probably see a neurologist and get it checked out. It could be something in your brain stem... maybe...

from pubmed

1: Clin Neurophysiol. 2003 Dec;114(12):2226-44. Links
Neurophysiology of swallowing.

Ertekin C, Aydogdu I.
Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Ege University, Medical School Hospital, Bornova, Izmir, Turkey. erteker@unimedya.net.tr
Swallowing is a complex motor event that is difficult to investigate in man by neurophysiological experiments. For this reason, the characteristics of the brain stem pathways have been studied in experimental animals. However, the sequential and orderly activation of the swallowing muscles with the monitoring of the laryngeal excursion can be recorded during deglutition. Although influenced by the sensory and cortical inputs, the sequential muscle activation does not alter from the perioral muscles caudally to the cricopharyngeal sphincter muscle. This is one evidence for the existence of the central pattern generator for human swallowing. The brain stem swallowing network includes the nucleus tractus solitarius and nucleus ambiguus with the reticular formation linking synaptically to cranial motoneuron pools bilaterally. Under normal function, the brain stem swallowing network receives descending inputs from the cerebral cortex. The cortex may trigger deglutition and modulate the brain stem sequential activity. The voluntarily initiated pharyngeal swallow involves several cortical and subcortical pathways. The interactions of regions above the brain stem and the brain stem swallowing network is, at present, not fully understood, particularly in humans. Functional neuroimaging methods were recently introduced into the human swallowing research. It has been shown that volitional swallowing is represented in the multiple cortical regions bilaterally but asymmetrically. Cortical organisation of swallowing can be continuously changed by the continual modulatory ascending sensory input with descending motor output. Significance: Dysphagia is a severe symptom complex that can be life threatening in a considerable number of patients. Three-fourths of oropharyngeal dysphagia is caused by neurological diseases. Thus, the responsibility of the clinical neurologist and neurophysiologist in the care for the dysphagic patients is twofold. First, we should be more acquainted with the physiology of swallowing and its disorders, in order to care for the dysphagic patients successfully. Second, we need to evaluate the dysphagic problems objectively using practical electromyography methods for the patients' management. Cortical and subcortical functional imaging studies are also important to accumulate more data in order to get more information and in turn to develop new and effective treatment strategies for dysphagic patients.
PMID: 14652082 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Every once in a while, I'll find myself thrashing from side to side in order to aid in swallowing. I think it usually happens when I've already eaten too much.

A friend recently saw this and thought I was having a seizure, but doing this seems to completely negate any choking sensation.