Obsessive swallowing

[bluebonquet]

Been suffering for years now, seems the only CURE is lowering your anxiety, all my life was been finding loop holes to avoid potential stressful situations, my advice is get help early before it becomes a nightmare and ruins your entire life, medication would of helped early on and potentially stop it, now that I am a adult, medication is only means to coop with it better....

My story...
From what information I've gathered, It seems specific memories, places, smells can cause you to remember things, this is true in my case, when I first had my swallowing habit, I ONLY DID IT IN ONE CLASS IN FIRST PERIOD IN FRESHMEN YEAR, BEFORE LONG IS SPREAD TO ALL MY CLASSES(the other classes I did it but it was not as bad as first period), DURING THE SUMMER IT GOT A LOT BETTER, THEN I STARTED SCHOOL AGAIN, EVERYTHING WAS FINE FOR THE FIRST FEW MONTHS, THEN IT GRADUALLY STARTED GETTING WORSE, AND WORSE, AND WORSE, AND AFTER 6 MONTHS IT TURNED INTO A MAD HOUSE OF THINKING OF SWALLOWING EVERY SECOND. during this time in school I always had a bad time sleeping, it was awful, I did learn however to hold my spit in forcing me to become mute, I told everyone I had lockjaw anyways. I had to drop out of high school sophmore year and finish online, but if I'd of only dropped out of school sooner I would of been able prevent this 24/7 manual swallowing.

THE CURE
People, places, smells, causes memories to trigger, avoid all stressful places that cause you to swallow, avoid all people that remind you to swallow, if you are in school or something try to get home-schooled

[jwknowsbest]

Ive been suffering with this issue for years too so your not alone. Some things I can suggest that will help is first off talk therapy with a psychologist, I did about 10 sessions and it really helped guide you on a path that will cope better with these symptoms. Learn techniques such as mindfulness which is simply acknowledging and observing rather than trying to change or influence the situation. Label it as 'just is' with no importance or value. The biggest struggle I had was trying stop, change and alter it. Its the stress and anxiety of trying to make it go by force and trying to find a complete cure where it would completely 'go away'. Acceptance is key, understand that its happening but you dont have to do anything with it and learning not to react to it. Avoidance is a negative strategy as it only creates more fear and anxiety. Learn that you can still enjoy people, places and situations while carrying it around with you. If you go for a walk and pass a house with a loud barking dog, avoiding would be going out of your way to walk around the block so you bypass the house all together. This is inconvenient and doesnt help with the fear of dogs but rather reinforces it. Exposure with Response prevention would be approaching the house with the barking dog and building up a tolerance until the situation isnt as fearful anymore. With enough practice you will still notice the barking dog but your reactions to the situation has changed and it doesnt bother you as much anymore. Another techniques would be Subjective Units of Distress - basically saying 'ya this kinda sucks and its annoying but it isnt as bad as the worst situation Ive ever encountered or say something like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc.' when you have something to compare it to re-evaluate your stress level and say ok my it has reduced to say 30%. Medication should be used as a tool for coping and not a cure. I found medication useful but the side effects outweighed the benefits for my situation. Some remedies I suggest would be exercise, chewing gum (keeps your mind busy while doing other things), sipping on water throughout the day and breathing exercises such as meditation. I wish you all the best and remember its only as important was we choose to make it.

[MyNameIsTerry]

THE CURE
People, places, smells, causes memories to trigger, avoid all stressful places that cause you to swallow, avoid all people that remind you to swallow, if you are in school or something try to get home-schooled

I completely disagree with you on this. Avoiding something out of fear is a well known reinforcing action in any anxiety disorder. There are patterns in OCD which can easily be seen to intensify due to avoidance. Just look at how a parent with POCD avoids their own child due to experiencing the thoughts around them and fearing they could abuse them. How is that a cure?

You will just shrink your world down and make it twice as hard to recover as your safe zone will be tiny. For many, there will be no such safe zone either as it will plague them at home or anywhere.