Aspiration

[DaveCH]

Hi all being twitching 2 years and it has greatly improved and I couldn't care less about my twitching. I have been feeling like needing to clear my throat for 6 weeks now and it is worse when I am eating and drinking. Is clearing your throat aspiration when ALS bulbar is involved or is it choking like food going down the wrong tube and liquids coming out of your nose. I am scared I have bulbar onset but my speech is fine and I can do all the tongue tests the neuro does and I can swallow fine its just this throat clearing. I do feel it is has become an OCD thing aswell. I drank half a pint of water today in one go no problem but felt like clearing my throat once afterwards. What do you all think and as I said I know the twitching is nothing and isn't even related to my concern. One thing I have noticed is my nose becomes quite runny while eating so maybe there is some post nasal drip going on.HELP

[Danath]

I've found with anxiety that catching liquids and accidentally breathing some liquids in whilst drinking is a bit more of a problem, if thats what you mean

[Pigeon]

Hi DaveCH

First of all, I have the same symptoms as you at the moment - constantly needing to clear my throat - especially after eating/drinking. It's been a few weeks for me too.

I don't know anything about ALS bulbar - but presume it's some kind of neurological condition? The only thing I can compare it with is when my Dad was having problems swallowing and aspirating his food when he had dementia (also neurological) - believe me you would know about it. My understanding is that aspiration occurs when food goes down the trachea (breathing pipe) instead of the oesophagus (food pipe). It's caused when the swallowing mechanism is compromised in some way. Usually the sufferer has prolonged coughing & choking after swallowing food/drink

But the throat clearing thing, in my view, starts in response to a minor irritation in the throat, sometimes caused by the tightness of the throat muscles, which we then focus on - which causes us to clear it more and irritate it further. You know how it is when you hear someone clear their throat - it's like yawning!

But it gets to be a vicious circle with one thing leading to more of the same. With mine, it also feels a little like my throat is closing up and as though there is some mucous or saliva pooled at the top of it - but when I try to clear it, there's nothing there - or at least nothing that will come up (:blush: sorry).

My throat feels rough and a little sore and it feels like takes ages for food to go down - not exactly stuck, but definitely slower.

Does this sound familiar? Sure we can't both have ALS so perhaps it's just a bit of anxiety symptoms, fuelled by Dr Google and mixed in with HA?

[DaveCH]

Pigeon firstly sorry to hear about your dad. My grandfather had dementia and it was very hard and heartbreaking to deal with. ALS bulbar is pretty much as you described but usually starts with speech slurring. I wasn't actually sure what aspiration meant so thanks for suming that up. I had a chest infection and this throat clearing has probably carried on from that. Chest infection cleared up about 7 weeks ago. I do think you are right and it is a vicious cycle.

[Pigeon]

Thanks DaveCH. Dementia is a terrible illness. My Dad passed away a year ago after suffering it for 13 years. It was a relief in the end as he had suffered terribly.

I just had a cold/chest thing too, so that may have started the swallowing thing with me. I'm sure you have nothing to worry about, especially as you have had some kind of neuro examination that ruled out any problems. Take a look at all the other threads (under the specific heading of throat/globus/swallowing issues) and I'm sure you'll find that others have suffered very similar symptoms.

Danath - I sometimes mis-swallow too - liquids or solids. I think it's due to the tension in my neck/throat area