What is this?
 

I am assuming this is MS.

In my very first flare, before diagnosis, I was choking on all my drinks, that's why I am assuming this is ms.

This is so hard to explain....
but sometimes when I am trying to swallow (drink, food, pills) it's like there is a huge ball of air inside of me, painfully pushing back whatever I am trying to put down, and when I force it, it's ten times more painful. The other day this happened as I was taking a pill. I swallowed and halfway down it pushed the pill and all the water straight out of my body, and it hurt so very bad. I don't know if it's my esophagus or what it could be so I am asking if anyone has experienced this?

It's not like vomiting, I don't get nauseous, it's just horrendously painful and scary when it happens.

I was told after I was diagnosed that the choking on my beverages was caused by my MS, so that's why I am blaming the monster for what's happening now...

I do this sometimes, too. It's almost like I forget how to swallow! :eek: I've started taking really small bites of food and chewing forever. It's tiring but I have noticed that I don't eat as much when I pay attention to this.

That's exactly what its like! Like when I swallow my body is really confused on where its supposed to send the swallowed item! So is this just a weird thing the human body does, or is it a symptom of MS?

While I don't quite get that feeling, sometimes when I try to drink something it has to sit in my mouth cause my swallowing just won't engage. And, like Kelly, I now take smaller bites and chew, and chew, and chew to get it to go down.

I have read that drinking ice water or ice drinks helps as it helps wake up the nerves in the throat and esophagus. I have tried it and it does work.

Thanks tkirk! I will definitely give that a try! Ice is free! :D

confused swallowing is exactly how to describe it. I KNOW how to swallow, but my tongue with a mind of its own will fling food back before I am ready to swallow and I am into a coughing fit. Scary!

Feel better. :hug:

I'm of the opinion that it is an MS related thing. I never had this problem before MS. And I don't have trouble with it all the time. But, not knowing when I might "forget" how to swallow I'm extra careful each time I eat.

I hear you Ayna...*GULP*..:p.

Yep, it's a perk of MS..:(. Sometimes I really have to consentrate to swallow without choking.

:hug:

woke up twice! choking! I dont know whether its the MS or the gastroparesis! I hate this disease! Jack freaked out and knocked over everything. Pills, water, glasses he was gone gone gone!

Why cant this disease be about my little finger having an itch. Why does it always have to be something messy or rude, or inconvenient? Sheesh! :rolleyes:

I hate when that happens.:eek: It happens to me often enough that I have nightmares of dying that way. I want to die in my sleep, one day, but quietly/peacefully....Not like that.:(

(((Dej)))

I had a feeling I had ms to blame for this.. it seems if anything weird, bizarre, or abnormal is happening, its always ms related. Such an odd disease we share, and dangerous at that too! I was trying to cook the other day and realized my hand had been sitting on the 425 degree cooking rack. Yeah my knuckles look disgusting, ms won that round. Good thing is, since I can't feel my hands, the pain from the burns is very minimal for how badly they're burnt. So I feel I won that round. HA! =)

That's happened to me several times before. It's the left hand that I can't feel heat very well. Sometimes the message that I'm burning takes 45 minutes to an hour to get to my brain. Other times, it never makes it. I can feel cold much better than heat in that hand. My last flare it effected both hands.

Did you try the ice water? Did it help?

I was diagnosed with abnormal swallowing by a dentist a year before I was diagnosed with MS.

I don't get the same sensation midway down as you've described, but what I do get is a feeling as though there's a blockage in my upper throat. I have to bend my head down to swallow at times to avoid this difficulty (the food will go down, but at times it's very uncomfortable).

Recently it was at it's worst... it was like I was hitting something in the back of my throat and it was uncomfortable (not painful) to swallow even liquids. Again, tilting the head down (chin to neck) was the way I found to get around this.