Hi, i am new here. I finally quit smoking eight weeks and two days ago (not that I am counting), after too many years of smoking. I am on the patch and i rely, when tempted, on vaping, not much, but it does get me over a really bad craving. OK, fast forward a week or two and all of a sudden i have intermittent sore throat, trouble swallowing, choking on food and a lump in my throat feeling. So off to an ENT...he puts the laryngoscopy down my nose to my throat. He gets finished and said that my voice box is a little inflamed and blamed it on not smoking and GERD. Because of my health anxiety I asked point blank if it looked like cancer and his answer was if i thought it looked suspicious i would have done a biopsy. ...and out the door he went.
So, of course i am not listening to what he said because all i fear is that i have cancer.
BTW stop smoking is really hard. i read enough (of course i did...LOL) to know that there are numerous withdrawal symptoms. The one symptom which scares the heck out of me is sometimes choking on food or feeling like something is in my throat. I know I can go to my GI doc and he would do an endoscopy, but then i am feeding into my fears....again. and yes i am on medication for anxiety.
I have had, for the past eight weeks, a very tight throat. I feel like i don't want to eat, but i do. i am just scared
Thoughts?