difficulty swallowing
 

Anyone with difficulty swallowing.

I came across an interesting medical journal article on this topic. Also, it discusses blood pressure changes as a diagnostic test for TOS.

http://tosinfo.com/pdf/jnma_1010.pdf

I have difficulty swallowing from time to time, generally at the end of the day when all symptoms are worse. Also a strange intermittent sensation of something stuck in my throat, as if a pill is lodged there. Saw an ENT, nothing in my throat, seemingly nothing wrong with my throat. Dr. Donahue told me other TOS patients have noted the pill-in-throat feeling. I wonder if it's caused by tight muscles, muscle spasms.

whenever I swallow a pill, it always feels like it is stuck there.

I also had issues with swallowing liquids , if I didn't really focus when drinking, sometimes it went down the wrong way or I'd nearly choke on it..

The "stuck in my throat" feeling was worse during my severe spasms.

Other throat stuff-
I used to be able to sing loud and yell, but now my voice cracks and is much weaker, just from talking more than usual, like at family gatherings....
My throat will get a dry scratchy feeling too..

I have had all these same problems at one point or another. They were bad when my TOS was the worst.

One problem I had that hasn't been directly mentioned, is that when I swallowed, food would often get stuck in my esophagus at about heart level which was very painful and uncomfortable. WTH? Thankfully I don't get that anymore. Used to drive me nuts and make it difficult to eat.

Often there was a collision between the food and a large burp and neither would budge. I've read that people can swallow incorrectly and take down large amounts of air with each swallow. Maybe I was doing that... I don't really know.

Anyway, as I have improved my TOS, the throat problems have gone away or greatly diminished. Things that have helped:

- "muscle relaxation meditation" (described elsewhere on the forums)
- inversion
- chiro
- self adjustment of rib
- posture improvements
- quitting upper body exercise
- quieting reflex by charles stroebel
- stretches, but not of the neck

HTH. I think all that lumpiness and swallowing difficulty is muscle tension and/or nerve compression.

Good luck.

Hi Jo,
Do you have thyroid issues? I always thought my loss of a strong signing voice and swallowing was the thyroid issue.

Chroma, I think I'm quitting upper body exercises too. They are making me worse

The link to the article explains how the difficulty swallowing/choking is caused by tos and received by tos treatment. I would never have associated the that symptom with tos.

What did you mean by "and received by tos treatment"?

Ahhhh...meant relieved...not received...TYPO

It's been awhile since # were checked , but back then they were normal ranges..

I do think I have metabolic syndrome, which has some thyroid issues with it..

Oh my god! I definitely experience weird throat sensations like the ones described in this thread!

In my other post I forgot to mention...

My top ribs had gotten raised due to severe spasms, most of the stuck in throat feelings went away after the spasms - AND after the PT & DC dropped the stuck top ribs back in to place..
It took more than a few times consistently to get the ribs to stay down, the spasms pretty much need to be resolved for this to work fully too IMO.
I learned to tell the feeling if it lifted something too heavy and they were starting to move back up....so I could stop before it happened..
many years later I can stack hay and lift heavy things with no problem, but now my body is 10 yrs+ older and my low back has a minor complaints.

Ask your PT or DC About top rib mobilisations.... if they don't know abut it ....look for better skilled persons.
If they are really good they will have checked /noticed it... but only 1 teacher of PT did out of 8 PTs, and DC didn't notice it until I told him about the PT teacher & rib dropping treatment.