Today I was chewing a mouthful of toast and for some random reason, a small, dry piece fall down my throat and I started to choke on it.
After a little coughing, I could tell that, although the obstruction was gone, something else was wrong - I’d managed to cough the small piece f toast up onto the top of my palate and it was causing a stinging sensation.
I cautiously inhaled through my nose and the fragment was quickly cleared, but was drawn instantly down into my windpipe and there followed a minute or so of painful hacking and dry heaving, at the end of which the offending food matter emerged in a number of pieces back out through my nostrils.
As I said, this isn’t the first time this has happened to me and my question is this: how can I dislodge a piece of food from the top of my palate without inhaling it?
<Warning: Don’t try this at home! Or anywhere else. I am not a doctor, and I am just giving a wildly reckless possible solution.>
As far as I can tell inhaling through the nose is the best method of clearing the food obstruction, but that necessitates leaving your trachea open for the food particle to fall back into. What you want is some way to keep your trachea closed and achieve the same effect (and probably the esophagus as well; that is what started the whole thing anyway).
What you need to do is close off your throat while leaving your nasal passage open. While keeping your mouth open, take a can of compressed air and spray it up your nose! (Make sure to keep the can upright, as frostbite of the sinuses has to be horrible) This should dislodge the piece of food and deposit it in your mouth.
