this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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42
Why can I sometimes not swallow if I wamt to? (lemmy.world)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
17 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Sometimes I malfunction and wamt to swallow but I cant. After a few tries it suddenly works. I usually bug when I breath heavily through my nose.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

This happens more frequently than you thought.

Even right now, if you try to swallow saliva multiple times as fast as you can, consecutively; you will hit a "bottleneck" :)

Oesophagus, operates on a rhythm, of which is initiated by the back of your tongue (where tonsils hit)

But, oesophagus, having mind of its own (involuntary); does not accept initiated rhythm, if it's "out of timing"

This "timing" is dictated by the way muscle contract and relax as they push saliva you just swallowed down into your tummy. Nasty yet brilliant ain't it?

[–] kinkles 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I just tried this and I’m absolutely mindblown. I can get about 3-4 swallows before my body just refuses another

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago
  1. I got one.

Sad times

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So you’ve never drank a big glass of water that takes more than four swallows?

The reason your body won’t do more than 3-4 swallows is there’s only so much saliva it can produce per unit time.

[–] kinkles 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It’s not the lack of saliva to swallow. After a certain point the top of my throat feels like it locks up and won’t let me even attempt a swallow.

I haven’t tried it with water but when drinking normally I’m not trying to swallow continuously as fast as possible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Ah. My own sense of thirst is completely missing, so I almost never enjoy water. I just chug it like I’m doing a chore, so I tend to drink as much as I can put down without running out of oxygen or giving myself the runs.

I can drink off a liter at a time if I choose, but I don’t because that much water does actually reach the other end of the tube before getting absorbed.

So for full absorption I usually do half a liter at a go, ideally a few times a day. It’s hard to remember to though because, like I said, no thirst.

[–] 0x4E4F 1 points 7 months ago

And this is why I love it when geeks gather in one place 😊. A lot of cool info gets shared 👍.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

Ask him to eat more fruit, drink water and give up cigarettes

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

You should get an endoscopy of your esophagus. A narrowed esophagus can have several reasons.

  • Reflux

  • Food intolerance

  • Fungal infection

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This post was a good deal more innocent than I thought it was going to be.

And quite interesting.

It's a bit of a nightmare though how sometimes it's the inability to swallow that sends people into care when they age or get crook.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I too had dirty thoughts when I read the title. My father had alzheimers and the inability to swallow was the point were the disease had progressed to where there was no real quality of life you could point to at all.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Swallowing problems can be serious, you should see a doctor urgently.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I tried explaining this to my ex-girlfriend, but she kept saying "you're not a real doctor!"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I bet you're Johny Sins level doctor! Which means expert obviously.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

You may want to look into a condition called EoE also known as Eosinophilic esophagitis. If that's the problem, you'll certainly want to see your doctor.

[–] 0x4E4F 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I usually bug when I breath heavily through my nose.

When IT people want to express their medical problems, but are stuck in a tech oriented lingo 😂.

I know, I'm the same. Could never remember the term for the regular medical checkup we have from work (it's requred by law), so I just say I'm going to my tech checkup for humans.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Swallowing requires coordination of a lot of different muscles. Do you mean that you can’t get the swallowing process to start or that you swallow and food doesn’t go down all the way?

I had a lot of problems with the latter when I was sick with undiagnosed celiac and later developing type 1 diabetes. I’d swallow fine, but it would feel like the food was stuck in my sternum and it was very miserable. They couldn’t find anything physically wrong with my esophagus at the time. My interpretation was the esophagus was inflamed from acid reflux and thus narrowed.