You are not my doctor, this is not medical advice, I am going to seek medical treatment, etc.
You know how sometimes when you are drinking something and occasionally it “goes down the wrong pipe” and you cough and such?
Over the last few weeks this has been happening to me all the time. Like every single time I’m drinking something. Even if I’m slowly sipping on something my epiglottis just flaps open and I goddamn feel like I’m going to freaking DIE! :eek:
There has to be something wrong, right? It’s come down to me taking individual little swallows. Because if I try to swallow a couple of times, like drinking soda…boom. I’m pouring liquid down my lung. One time I didn’t think I was going to catch my breath and felt like I was going to pass out. I can actually feel the thing in there move when this happens.
I have an appointment to have a scope look down there. But until that happens just wondering if anyone ever heard of this before.
This happens to Mr.Wrekker on occasion. Never have found a cause. It’s usually after a big weekend of drinking, eating and debauchery. He doesn’t really get hungover, so when this happens he knows it’s time to slow down a bit. Do you drink beer or carbonated beverages?
I’ve observed no correlation to what I’ve been doing or what I’ve drank previously or at the time. Due to work schedule I’ve just went 2 weeks drinking no alcohol and very little soda. Almost all water. (I lost 10 pounds, mostly squeezing the water out of my system). This problem happens regardless of what i’m drinking, also. Water, juice, soda, beer. My epiglottis seems to have a mind of it’s own. I can actually feel it flip back while I’m drinking. Weird, huh?
Should have added, I’ve had upper g.i.'s before and have had my esophagus stretched due to things going down slowly, years ago. But I’ve never had anything like this happen. if I try to drink something after 2 swallows the thing flips open and I start coughing and wheezing.
At first I was like, WTF? Am I getting so old I forgot how to swallow. Then after a week of carefully swallowing and paying attention to it and it still happened I concluded there was a problem. It’s even happening every other time I swallow saliva! It’s even woken me out of a sound sleep.
I’ve observed someone undergoing a video fluoroscopy with a speech and language therapist (in the UK they’re the ones that assess swallowing difficulties) for this type of issue. From what they were saying, this is something that needs to be checked out, you don’t want liquids or food going into your lungs.
This began happening to me, at the same time we discovered I had a hiatal hernia and sleep apnea. It seems to happen more often when I’m full, or after a few drinks.
IANAD, but this helps me. I sit such that I’m leaning back a little more while I eat. My guess is this relieves pressure and “pushing” against my whole upper chest. I think the problem with drinking a few beers and wrong-way swallows is due to everything relaxing.
CPAP and additional care with diet in the evening seems to have solved it mostly, but it can still happen from time to time. This seems weird, but I’ve found a curious correlation when eating out too. Booths tend to sit me up straighter (unable to lean back) and cause an episode, so now I always insist on a table at restaurants.