People occasionally have a feeling of difficulty in swallowing or like something being stuck in the throat. When this happens, it is a matter of seconds? It feels like breath getting stopped until one succeeds in clearing the choking. Recently one of my relatives died because of food having stuck up probably in wind pipe. How can this be explained? People start swallowing right from the birth and continue it till death without having the least clue that this could anytime be fatal. What are the causes and possible remedies?
Thanks Prof Zaheen for the informative response. Causes seem to be quite serious and an awareness may help a timely remedy.
i agree with dr Sayed Zaheen Alam answer
There are also some more common causes like hypocalcemia, different hyperexcitability status but also toxiinfections like Clostridium tetani or Cl botulinum.
A simple remedy wich may save the life in common cases of choking that occur durring eating is a sudden pressure on the chest that may solve the obstruction of the pharynx
Following this link you will fiind simple procedures of first aid of choking victims, with suggestive illustrations
http://www.wikihow.com/Help-a-Choking-Victim#Self-administration_sub
This feeling is commonly associated with a post nasal drip where the sinuses drip downwards into the pharynx causing the feeling. In addition acid reflux could cause a similar sensation. This feeling could be short term but rarely causes actual breathing problems.
Unfortunately, the human digestive system crosses in the throat the respiratory system. This is a potential cause of trouble. Swallowing disorders have many causes, sometimes inattention is enough to cause choking.
The other person can help performing the Heimlich maneuver.
Prof Zaheens reply is correct. there are other causes such as post nasal drip with chronic irritation of the posterior hypopharynx. also laryngopharyngeal reflux with acid irritation of the posterior hypopharynx. the person with symptoms needs full evaluation especially fiberoptic visualization of larynx and hypopharynx.
if need be a Functional endoscopic evaluation of swallowing can be done. or a modified barium swallow.
Many hospital-based speech-language pathologists specialize in the area of dysphagia (swallowing disorders) and will do swallowing evaluations that include videofluoroscopy or modified barium swallow (aka "cookie swallow") where liquids of various thickness and foods such as a cookie are given to the patient while their swallowing mechanism is being viewed on a screen. Worse than someone who doesn't feel something getting caught is the one that aspirates silently. In this case, whatever is consumed goes into the lungs and the result can be an aspiration pneumonia and for frail seniors or those with respiratory or degenerative neurological conditions, death. Although those without issues may think swallowing is easy, it is a hard act to swallow!
Choking occurs when an object, food, or liquid plugs the throat. It happened with me once in the 1970s & I really was about to lose my life but a friend helped me by hitting my back between the shoulders. I learnt about this “fatal” problem to avoid it since prevention is far better than cure .My advice is to: 1) Chew the food completely before swallowing it. 2) Avoid talking while eating. 3) Avoid laughing while eating or drinking (that was my problem: someone joked while I was drinking water & the laughter choked me). 4) Put water on the table near any meal.
The responses are quite informative and useful (perhaps to all the readers). Thanks.
we propose an theory : evolution of presbiphagia to dysphagia and discuss
The functional and most of the organic causes have nicely been covered by others. I want to share two cases from my experience. In the first case, a mother was feeding her male child of two years with solid foods. The child was reluctant to swallow the bolus of food but her mother was insisting the child to take more food quickly. Ultimately the bolus choked the larynx. The patient was brought to me after five minutes but I could do nothing to save the patient.
In the second case, a child of three years was playing with stones by the road side. Eventually he introduced one small piece of stone in his mouth and started having respiratory distress. Fortunately for him, he was brought before me within two minutes with deep cyanosis. At that time, I was not equipped with any instrument. I immediately held the patient by his feet with head down position and started slapping over his back strongly and repeatedly to dislodge the foreign body but was unsuccessful. I then introduced my middle finger in his throat, ignoring his biting my finger and was successful in removing the stone from his laryngeal inlet and saving the patient.
I would like to add to the excellent responses 2 points.
First more people die of blockade than of plane crashes. For children the solution lies on shaking the child when holding by feet. When too heavy, Heimlich's technic is frequently life saving. In very special cases, tracheal puncture with pen ball can be tried.
Second, permanent impression of something being stuck int throaty, so-called "globus hystericus", is always liked to a paresthesia due to depression, easy to recognized through it's bodily sings : bad sleep, fatigue, multiple pains, bad memory etc.
I suffer a lot from food going down the wrong way. Even my saliva will go down and choke me. I also have a lot of chest infections. I have an allergy to dust and take dymista nasal spray, . I stopped taking it, I now have a burning chest infection.
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