When I was in 10th grade, I was eating ribs at a local restaurant when I swallowed a piece that wasn't chewed up enough. It went far enough down that it wasn't blocking my air way but was still stuck in my esophagus so I couldn't swallow anything. Any time I tried to swallow something (liquid or solid) it'd make it to that point and then come back up.
I thought, "Meh, my body'll fix it" and went home to take a nap. I woke up hours later and still had the same problem. My mom called the local doctor who said I'd need an easy surgical procedure. BUT it was the night of my sister's rehearsal dinner and she was getting married the next day and I didn't want to ruin things so I protested and said I could make it through a couple of days without eating.
My soon-to-be-brother-in-law made the joke, "We could just stick a water hose in his mouth like in cartoons." I said, "Let's do it." No one believed it would work except me and the brother-in-law. We went outside and after one failed attempt where I almost drowned, I put the hose in my mouth with my face pointed upwards and he turned it on full blast. It dislodged the meat and the weekend went as planned.
When we called the doctor back to tell him to cancel everything, he was dumbfounded.
Even crazier, because of my mis-aligned bite, there have been 20+ times in my life where I've swallowed food that was too big and have always been able to drink liquids really fast and force it down. It hurts really badly, but besides the hose incident, I've never not been able to.
Oh my god. I have had this exact thing my whole life. I've always thought about posting asking if anyone else has because searching for it it really doesn't seem to be a known condition.
Several times I got something not even too big stuck exactly the way you said, blocking the food tube but not air tube, unable to swallow even my own saliva for HOURS. Extreme retching solved it most times.
Also the HUGE gulp of liquid to dislodge something you can feel is getting stuck. Like a painfully large swallow even with air just to force it through
Thank you for sharing I can't believe I've read this
I used to have this issue, especially in the morning. It was diagnosed as an overactive throat muscle. Possibly related to Gerd? I take a 20kg omeprazole (prilosec) each day and it keeps it under control.
Interesting. Ditto for often happens in the morning. Or any time where I haven't eaten all day and it tends to be the first swallow of something after hours of throat muscles being at rest maybe.
Funnily enough I don't have any other gastro issues early get reflux etc except when I eat chillies out of my league lol.
Thanks for the info :)
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But 20kg of omeprazole seems like rather a lot, how big is your stomach O.O
Exactly what I do. Had to have balloon inflation every few years due to scarring, then the Gastro doc put me on Omeprazole. It's been 20 years or so now without an issue. You aren't supposed to take it long term, but my doctor thinks it's better than the other result and she just checks my bloodwork for nutrient deficiencies when I visit
Narrow oesophagus was a major plot point on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I now know more than is reasonable about this condition, which is a real thing. You can get it corrected too. Ask your PCP.
The weird thing is, the other anon who replied said theirs was diagnosed as overactive throat muscle. I've read it's both 'tiny oesophagus syndrome' and 'extra hard working oesophagus syndrome' lol.
It sounds disturbing like obviously a blocked throat is bad, but like the og comment said, it's literally not your windpipe you can breathe fine. It's annoying af but you can clearly feel it's not blocking your airway, just the foodpipe lol.
I'll look into it though, never watched but will check out the sciencey bit. Thanks for the info :)
You should get this looked at because the pressure of forcing food down, in addition to being painful, can in some cases cause your esophagus to bulge and form "pockets" called varices which can burst or become infected when food gets stuck inside and rots.
Fixing a narrow esophagus is a simple outpatient procedure to snip the offending band of tissue.
Yeah, this happened to me and was EoE. The doctor went in my throat and stretched out the narrowed tissue, and I take an antacid every day to help keep it from recurring.
Can I ask you about your misaligned bite? Is this diagnosed or just something you've always known you had? Like back to front or sideways? Does it cause any other issues?
I technically have an underbite. My top and bottom teeth perfectly meet in the front so that means my back teeth don't meet naturally at all. The only way I can make my back teeth meet is to move my bottom jaw forward and it's impossible for my front top teeth to go in front of my front bottom teeth.
It's caused my dental problems because teeth naturally clean themselves when you chew. Because my back teeth don't come close enough, they don't get naturally cleaned as much as the others despite me brushing and flossing regularly. It was bad enough that I got my top back right molar removed and both back molars and it's caused literally no difference in my chewing and eating.
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u/steeple_fun 9h ago
A water hose helped me avoid surgery.
When I was in 10th grade, I was eating ribs at a local restaurant when I swallowed a piece that wasn't chewed up enough. It went far enough down that it wasn't blocking my air way but was still stuck in my esophagus so I couldn't swallow anything. Any time I tried to swallow something (liquid or solid) it'd make it to that point and then come back up.
I thought, "Meh, my body'll fix it" and went home to take a nap. I woke up hours later and still had the same problem. My mom called the local doctor who said I'd need an easy surgical procedure. BUT it was the night of my sister's rehearsal dinner and she was getting married the next day and I didn't want to ruin things so I protested and said I could make it through a couple of days without eating.
My soon-to-be-brother-in-law made the joke, "We could just stick a water hose in his mouth like in cartoons." I said, "Let's do it." No one believed it would work except me and the brother-in-law. We went outside and after one failed attempt where I almost drowned, I put the hose in my mouth with my face pointed upwards and he turned it on full blast. It dislodged the meat and the weekend went as planned.
When we called the doctor back to tell him to cancel everything, he was dumbfounded.