Why can I sometimes not swallow if I wamt to?

3 years ago by Grogon to c/asklemmy

Sometimes I malfunction and wamt to swallow but I cant. After a few tries it suddenly works. I usually bug when I breath heavily through my nose.

0_0j 37 points 3 years ago

This happens more frequently than you thought.

Even right now, if you try to swallow saliva multiple times as fast as you can, consecutively; you will hit a "bottleneck" :)

Oesophagus, operates on a rhythm, of which is initiated by the back of your tongue (where tonsils hit)

But, oesophagus, having mind of its own (involuntary); does not accept initiated rhythm, if it's "out of timing"

This "timing" is dictated by the way muscle contract and relax as they push saliva you just swallowed down into your tummy. Nasty yet brilliant ain't it?

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kinkles 12 points 3 years ago

I just tried this and I’m absolutely mindblown. I can get about 3-4 swallows before my body just refuses another

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palitu 3 points 3 years ago

I got one.

Sad times

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intensely_human 0 points 3 years ago

So you’ve never drank a big glass of water that takes more than four swallows?

The reason your body won’t do more than 3-4 swallows is there’s only so much saliva it can produce per unit time.

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kinkles 1 point 3 years ago

It’s not the lack of saliva to swallow. After a certain point the top of my throat feels like it locks up and won’t let me even attempt a swallow.

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Nacktmull 10 points 3 years ago

You should get an endoscopy of your esophagus. A narrowed esophagus can have several reasons.

Reflux
Food intolerance
Fungal infection

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nudnyekscentryk 8 points 3 years ago

Ask him to eat more fruit, drink water and give up cigarettes

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Berttheduck 8 points 3 years ago

Swallowing problems can be serious, you should see a doctor urgently.

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wesker 12 points 3 years ago

I tried explaining this to my ex-girlfriend, but she kept saying "you're not a real doctor!"

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kurcatovium 1 point 3 years ago

I bet you're Johny Sins level doctor! Which means expert obviously.

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I_Miss_Daniel 8 points 3 years ago

This post was a good deal more innocent than I thought it was going to be.

And quite interesting.

It's a bit of a nightmare though how sometimes it's the inability to swallow that sends people into care when they age or get crook.

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HubertManne 2 points 3 years ago

I too had dirty thoughts when I read the title. My father had alzheimers and the inability to swallow was the point were the disease had progressed to where there was no real quality of life you could point to at all.

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Radioactrev 5 points 3 years ago

You may want to look into a condition called EoE also known as Eosinophilic esophagitis. If that's the problem, you'll certainly want to see your doctor.

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zeppo 1 point 3 years ago

Swallowing requires coordination of a lot of different muscles. Do you mean that you can’t get the swallowing process to start or that you swallow and food doesn’t go down all the way?

I had a lot of problems with the latter when I was sick with undiagnosed celiac and later developing type 1 diabetes. I’d swallow fine, but it would feel like the food was stuck in my sternum and it was very miserable. They couldn’t find anything physically wrong with my esophagus at the time. My interpretation was the esophagus was inflamed from acid reflux and thus narrowed.

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