BreeAnna
09-05-16, 04:13
Hello,
I was diagnosed with mild hypothyroidism a few months ago but I haven't started taking any medication for it yet because I was going to wait and didn't think I had any symptoms.
Since the beginning of April I've been struggling with difficulty swallowing. It started with a lump in my throat sensation, like food was stuck and it took days to go away. It would come and go and when I'd try eating on the good days it would come back again. For a week of this all my top teeth hurt a lot.
Then eventually I wasn't getting the lump in my throat sensation anymore but I felt food getting stuck so I would need to drink to get it down, and also I would suddenly get a lot of mucus at the bottom of my throat and more post nasal drip which seemed to just make it worse and made a little food come back up as well.
I had made a doctor's appointment and they said acid reflux and gave me Famotidine, but it didn't seem to do anything for my throat. I attempted to get a new appointment two weeks later but instead the doctor just prescribed me omeprazole. I didn't get it because it was too much money for me to afford (I asked for a liquid because how would I swallow pills if I can't even swallow food? Liquid is expensive...) so I am taking Pepcid Complete now even though it's probably too weak to do anything. I'm going through all this trouble when all I want is a test where they can look at my throat and see what's going on.
But while I wait for my physical on the 20th, I wanted to post here to ask if this sounds at all like it could just be anxiety? I've had anxiety all my life that's been mostly under control... but this problem is making me incredibly depressed and I've lost a lot of weight because eating is so uncomfortable. I spit out most of my food and sometimes I gag because I'm so scared to swallow. A couple months before this started I did have points where I would be eating normally but suddenly it was like my brain would forget how to swallow and I couldn't do it properly so I had to stop eating, if I continued it felt like the food wasn't going down right, I also wonder if that could be anxiety, my thyroid...? Agh!
It's driving me crazy and this is all I think about everyday, I'm only 25 and I have so much work to do that I can't get done being paralyzed in fear. I hope someone here has experienced something similar and it's anxiety related, then maybe I can have some hope it'll go away...
Update: I've developed a new symptom now where I get a tickle in my throat/chest while I'm eating and it causes me to cough and gag. It feels like the food pools at the bottom of my throat and I have to drink a lot to get it down. I'm not sure however if it really is food or if it's mucus.
I called my doctor to attempt to get an appointment with an ENT.
Update 2: Last night while eating I got a pain in the left side of my throat, and after a while the pain turned into a burning sensation along with a dry throat. I breathed steam and drank water and it eventually the burning subsided, but all night I had a dry throat which made it difficult to sleep. It now feels as if all my problems moved to the left side of my throat when they were previously on the right side. All mucus is dripping down the left side, food is getting stuck there as well now. I had some really intense panic attacks today and haven't eaten much at all due to the discomfort I get when I swallow food.
-Noticed the itch in my throat seems to be brought on by eating fruit or things with fruit in them. Google says oral allergy syndrome brought on by hay fever. Have added it to the possible things wrong with me.
Update 3: Yesterday I had a tickle in my throat that lasted a long time and made me cough. It seemed to subside when I calmed down... Today I didn't do so well, there's not much to eat so I try to eat dry cereal but it feels very uncomfortable going down my throat, even with water, and feels like it's getting pretty stuck. I assume that's normal though. I started to think maybe I had tonsil stones, because why not worry more? I tried to relax and it made a lot of my throat tension go away. Pretty much any really bad feelings I could make them go away, though some still linger, and when I eat I seem to get the symptoms back, perhaps fear of eating? It leads me to believe that at this point a lot of my problems are due to anxiety/stress, but I can't really know without seeing a doctor.
Update 4: I am feeling significantly better now. However the month and a half being sick caused me to really be scared of eating. It takes me forever to finish a tiny meal, and I get horrified that it'll all come back again so I don't finish eating or I spit out my food, and not having enough food of course makes me feel crappy. This is probably something I'll have to work on for a while to get back to my normal self.
This is going to be the last update here, but I do hope that my post may help someone if they end up with similar symptoms. I feel a big part of it all was most definitely anxiety making things way worse than they had to be.
I was diagnosed with mild hypothyroidism a few months ago but I haven't started taking any medication for it yet because I was going to wait and didn't think I had any symptoms.
Since the beginning of April I've been struggling with difficulty swallowing. It started with a lump in my throat sensation, like food was stuck and it took days to go away. It would come and go and when I'd try eating on the good days it would come back again. For a week of this all my top teeth hurt a lot.
Then eventually I wasn't getting the lump in my throat sensation anymore but I felt food getting stuck so I would need to drink to get it down, and also I would suddenly get a lot of mucus at the bottom of my throat and more post nasal drip which seemed to just make it worse and made a little food come back up as well.
I had made a doctor's appointment and they said acid reflux and gave me Famotidine, but it didn't seem to do anything for my throat. I attempted to get a new appointment two weeks later but instead the doctor just prescribed me omeprazole. I didn't get it because it was too much money for me to afford (I asked for a liquid because how would I swallow pills if I can't even swallow food? Liquid is expensive...) so I am taking Pepcid Complete now even though it's probably too weak to do anything. I'm going through all this trouble when all I want is a test where they can look at my throat and see what's going on.
But while I wait for my physical on the 20th, I wanted to post here to ask if this sounds at all like it could just be anxiety? I've had anxiety all my life that's been mostly under control... but this problem is making me incredibly depressed and I've lost a lot of weight because eating is so uncomfortable. I spit out most of my food and sometimes I gag because I'm so scared to swallow. A couple months before this started I did have points where I would be eating normally but suddenly it was like my brain would forget how to swallow and I couldn't do it properly so I had to stop eating, if I continued it felt like the food wasn't going down right, I also wonder if that could be anxiety, my thyroid...? Agh!
It's driving me crazy and this is all I think about everyday, I'm only 25 and I have so much work to do that I can't get done being paralyzed in fear. I hope someone here has experienced something similar and it's anxiety related, then maybe I can have some hope it'll go away...
Update: I've developed a new symptom now where I get a tickle in my throat/chest while I'm eating and it causes me to cough and gag. It feels like the food pools at the bottom of my throat and I have to drink a lot to get it down. I'm not sure however if it really is food or if it's mucus.
I called my doctor to attempt to get an appointment with an ENT.
Update 2: Last night while eating I got a pain in the left side of my throat, and after a while the pain turned into a burning sensation along with a dry throat. I breathed steam and drank water and it eventually the burning subsided, but all night I had a dry throat which made it difficult to sleep. It now feels as if all my problems moved to the left side of my throat when they were previously on the right side. All mucus is dripping down the left side, food is getting stuck there as well now. I had some really intense panic attacks today and haven't eaten much at all due to the discomfort I get when I swallow food.
-Noticed the itch in my throat seems to be brought on by eating fruit or things with fruit in them. Google says oral allergy syndrome brought on by hay fever. Have added it to the possible things wrong with me.
Update 3: Yesterday I had a tickle in my throat that lasted a long time and made me cough. It seemed to subside when I calmed down... Today I didn't do so well, there's not much to eat so I try to eat dry cereal but it feels very uncomfortable going down my throat, even with water, and feels like it's getting pretty stuck. I assume that's normal though. I started to think maybe I had tonsil stones, because why not worry more? I tried to relax and it made a lot of my throat tension go away. Pretty much any really bad feelings I could make them go away, though some still linger, and when I eat I seem to get the symptoms back, perhaps fear of eating? It leads me to believe that at this point a lot of my problems are due to anxiety/stress, but I can't really know without seeing a doctor.
Update 4: I am feeling significantly better now. However the month and a half being sick caused me to really be scared of eating. It takes me forever to finish a tiny meal, and I get horrified that it'll all come back again so I don't finish eating or I spit out my food, and not having enough food of course makes me feel crappy. This is probably something I'll have to work on for a while to get back to my normal self.
This is going to be the last update here, but I do hope that my post may help someone if they end up with similar symptoms. I feel a big part of it all was most definitely anxiety making things way worse than they had to be.