Hi everyone!

This is my first post in the forum. I'm very glad that I found it as it seems to be the right place to get opinions and advice in regards to my situation.

I really need your opinion because although my situation fits the "globus sensation" diagnosis, from anxiety, as a somatization mechanism, it turns out very difficult to me to be sure (at least to some degree) about this diagnosis as the symptoms started with a specific event/accident, as I explain next.
I know it's going to be a long text, but I'll try to resume it as much as possible and it's long but it includes a complete exposition of the situation.


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Seven months ago (November 2020) I was having lobster for dinner. When I tried to smash one of the "claws", a spike of the lobster (hard as a rock and sharp as a needle) pierced my tongue, almost from one side to the other. It was a bit painful, but all good, in a minute or so the pain was gone. But I thought to myself: "maybe I should be careful as a bit of one of these spikes could go down with the food and get stuck in my throat".

About one minute later, I thought to myself: "...and it seems like something is already out of place in my throat".

Just another two or three minutes later, I finished the meal. After I swallowed all the food and had a sip of my drink to clear the throat, I thought to myself: "Something is not right". It really felt like a piece of the shell or a spike was stuck in the left side of my throat. And this slightly painful sensation, but very uncomfortable and unpleasant (as a "suffocation-like" agony) remained. By the third day, the pain got worse and even reached the chest and almost until my right elbow.

I decided to wait, because a few years ago I had a fish bone stuck in the throat which went away by itself in about 10 days. But this time it was not going away, so 20 days later I had an appointment with an otorhninolaryngologist. And that's when the nightmare really started....

Two laryngoscopies, two CT scans and one Magnetic Resonance, all came out fine and no foreign body was found. But the symptoms never resolved. My quality of life dropped to about 20% of what it was before. I started to have severe anxiety, not being able to sleep, I lost apetite, my life became unbearable.

I only thought that if there was no solution to the problem, I should better think about suicide. Something that I never thought before, even less for health reasons, although I had many difficult health-related situations before. The only thing that kept me going was the 3 wonderful daughters, a 9 year old one and two 2 year old twins. If it wasn't for them, I'd probably not be here now.


In the first week of March, I got even more anxious and desperate. As there was no improvement at all, I decided to visit another otorhninolaryngologist for a different approach. So I asked him, taking in consideration that given the results of the exams apparently there is no foreign body in my throat, what could be the reason for the symptoms. And he gave me the diagnosis that basically destroyed that last few emotional balance that I had by then.

He said that I have had a severe allergic reaction which made my body react in an exaggerate way (auto-immune response). And that reaction made my epiglottis get deformed and shrink in its left side. This is because he saw that my epiglottis is smaller in its left side. He said that it is irreversible, there is no treatment and there are no meds that I can take to soften the symptoms. He told me that I will have to deal with it as someone who had a stroke or a cancer and ended up with serious problems/damage for the rest of the life.

As this really is something that feels as "suffocation-like" agony, the idea of having to live with this for the rest of my life was (and is) terrible. I can't accept it. There is no euthanasia in my country right now (it was approved a few months ago but some major court ruled it out as unconstitutional), but if there was, I would be seriously looking into it.

That's how bad it is. I'd rather not have lived the last 7 months and the idea of having to live with this the next 7 months, and 7 more, and so on until the end of my life, is psychologically unbearable and gets me severely anxious, which makes it even worse.

After that, another otorhninolaryngologist, one allergy specialist and a gastroenterologist told me that the irreversibly damaged epiglottis theory does not make much sense in their opinion. My epiglottis is asymmetric, but that is normal, and it could well have this configuration since I was born. The fact that I have the symptoms (since day 1) in my left side of the throat and the epiglottis is also smaller in the left side could also be a coincidence.

I haven't given up yet. I can't give up. I'm still going to do an upper gastroesophageal endoscopy with biopsy's to discard any problems in the esophagus. I doubt it finds anything, but I'm in such distress that I have to do it, even knowing how uncomfortable it is (and also expensive). If it turns out to give the result I expect, not adding anything to the diagnosis, I don't know what to do next.

So, lately, a nurse that is specialist in mental health issues and clinic psychology, after knowing about my situation and also about other issues in my personal life, is very much convinced that it can well be a somatization problem. My personal stresses and anxieties, especially my relation with my wife and the way my wife deals with my problem, could make my unconscious mind come up with theses symptoms or aggravate and perpetuate any initial symptoms from the "accident".

The problem is that I would accept this theory much better if my problem had started from nothing. But it started from a specific event/accident, so it's much more difficult to accept this theory. But I really want to explore it, because it might be my last chance of getting my normal life back. If this was to be a somatization problem (or something like that), it could be treated. It could take a lot of time and effort, but it could be treated.

So I'm holding to this idea and I would like to listen to any opinion that any of you, users of this forum, could share with me.

Also, consider this reasoning: if it really is some sort of somatization problem, the diagnosis that I received of possible permanent damage to the epiglottis (as subjective and unprovable as it is), will become a major obstacle for my emotional balance during treatment.

Which means that the otorhninolaryngologist was very negligent to give me that possible diagnosis, as he was not sure but told me that he was almost sure, which after listening to other doctors after all does not make much sense. Or, at least, it would be a very rare situation.

Thanks and kind regards.

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