Quote:
Originally Posted by jeatak
Hi everyone,
I have a question about swallowing. A little background first. I was diagnosed with myasthenia last year via tensilon test. My primary and continual complaint has been double vision. I do have some problems with a hoarse voice and my mouth gets tired when talking. All of these symptoms are intermittent and have various intensity. I also have had some neck and arm weakness, however I would say that my symptoms are mild at best.
I take 90mg of mestinon every 4 hours, but its effectiveness has waned over time. My question is this; does anyone find that after eating solids that the food doesn't all go down and requires multiple attempts. It seems that some food stays in the back of my throat.
I did have one episode of choking that resulted in a persistent cough for around 2 weeks without fever. This is unusual, I don't usually choke.
I'm not sure what to do about this. Suggestions are appreciated
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Hi and welcome to the site.
You're describing a very common issue for those of us who have our throats effected by the condition. The best suggestion I can give you is to ask your GP to refer you to a speech therapist for a barrium swallow test (ewwww... just saying.
). They can see inside your throat and see what is happening when you swallow. They can then give you tricks to use that will help with the swallowing.
For example, when I'm experiencing these symptoms I need to tuck my chin and turn my head to the right when I swallow, this stretches the muscles out on the left side and forces the swallow to use the muscles on my right side (because my left side is effected more severely) and it also shuts the air tubes to the lungs so nothing gets aspirated. We cannot give you this kind of advice as we don't know which muscles are effected worse in your neck/throat... you really need tests done to determine this.
Cheers and best of luck figuring this out. Feel free to shout out any questions you have and there're lots of us around here who'll answer as best we can.
Brian.