Fear of swallowing, any tips?

[Evelyn]

Hi there, I've suffered from a variety of anxiety related problems since my mind-teens I'm now 31. I've made a lot of improvement over the past year, I've gone from being a housebound agoraphobia mess to pretty much getting my life on track then out of the blue I seem to have developed a fear of swallowing. Mid way through a highly anticipated pulled pork bap the food seemed to get stuck in my throat and I panicked, every mouthful after that I became terrified that I wouldn't be able to swallow. I persevered but every swallow, my throat seem to constrict and my anxiety rose making it increasingly harder. I'm now scared to eat solid foods, I panic if there too much food in mouth and I'm hyper-aware of the swallowing process. I've since been confined to soup and ice cream but sometimes even that can be an ordeal. I just can't stop thinking "what if I won't be able to swallow this?!" I know swallowing is an automatic process and that I'm not likely to choke but now that thought's rooted it's pretty hard to budge. I've got a big meal coming up with my partners family and I just don't know how I'm going to get through it.

I'd be really grateful to hear from anyone that has overcome this problem and has any tips to offer. What should I eat? Are there any techniques to make eating easier? It's only been a week, what can I do to stop this getting worse.

Please help, my boyfriend is a chef this is torture!

[aggiecuttler]

the more you worry the worse it becomes, i have done this with tablets and made a complete song and dance over it, until it becomes like you are trying to swallow a brick, if you can try and not think about it and drink lots of water to keep you mouth moist, i know its horrible good luck blessings

[Evelyn]

Thanks Aggie, not thinking about it is proving impossible at the moment, I've lost 6 pounds in the last week. I've tried all sorts of things to distract myself with not much luck but water does help.

[calidreaming]

Hello!

I can relate to your post immensely, I suffer from this as well, thankfully it's gotten so much better but I'm still limited to what I can eat, for instance I can't eat meat or bread. I finally got a modified barium swallow which I highly recommend, they said that every thing was fine going down and it helped ease my fear, although some days are much worse it may help you like it did me! I am also on Zoloft it seems to help, food wise I eat alot if mashed potatoes and spinach. Try using lots of sauce it helps everything go down much easier. I hope this gets better for you I know the fear, this is so scary to struggle with

[Easio]

a Chinese proverb states that "one who wishes to live a 100 years, must chew each bite a 100 times" - not only this will infuse the reflexes to absorb the tasty food, reduce the size to where it will feel like a spoon of thick soup and will be great for your digestive system.

Choose meals which are benefitial for your health, chew with enjoyment, eat slow, have some a large glass of water, some nice music, someone to enjoy the food with!

[Evelyn]

Thank you calidreaming. My doctor advised my against any throat exploration as the problem was probably anxiety induced which I would agree with. It was a disapointing trip, I was sent away with a printout of 3 CBT sites one of which was for practioners only, the other two were no help. I've been living on soup & Slimfast (which I'm finding increasingly difficult to stomach) then trying to very slowly eat a normal sauce based meal in the evening. Oddly the problem went away for a couple of days and I was able to eat normaly now I back to where I started.

a Chinese proverb states that "one who wishes to live a 100 years, must chew each bite a 100 times" - not only this will infuse the reflexes to absorb the tasty food, reduce the size to where it will feel like a spoon of thick soup and will be great for your digestive system.

Choose meals which are benefitial for your health, chew with enjoyment, eat slow, have some a large glass of water, some nice music, someone to enjoy the food with!

I practice Mindfulness and have been trying to apply it to this problem. Eating slowly and paying attention to my feelings and the eating process. It seems the longer food is in my mouth the more anxious I become about swallowing. Eating has been more of an ordeal than than a pleasure lately, I'll work on finding some enjoyment