Barium swallow clear everything clear?!?

Posted , 5 users are following.

So ever since some lettuce went awkwardly down my throat I’ve been feeling something stuck in my throat or feel that food constantly gets stuck every time I swallow especially hard foods like burgers, raw oats 

My barium swallow and ct scan show nothing and the doctor thinks it’s stress and anxiety 

I’ve had things awkwardly go down my throat  before without it being voluntary but I’ve never experienced this feeling!!!

I need help I don’t know what to do sad

0 likes, 7 replies

7 Replies

  • Posted

    Keep bugging your doctor to have an encsoposy (camera crew) to look at the food pipe - stomach valve.
  • Posted

    Stay pro-active. It's your body!!! I had to have all the tests repeated twice by different doctors and they still showed that my LES muscle at the top of my stomach was "low pressure" which means loose. I said, "Then how come I can't eat anything? It all comes back up again." They finally decided that the tests hadn't been done properly. If you feel something is wrong, stay on them until they get to the bottom of it.

    I know it's frustrating.

    • Posted

      Thank you maya I am only 16 and having to through this they are treating as a psychological issue but the thing is I always use to choke on food but I would still go back to eating but somehow this incident has made swallowing food so discomforting and it’s so painful to know that docotors can’t do anything about it sad
    • Posted

      Whoops so many typos 
  • Posted

    Don't be discouraged. There are ways to address the problem. Things that doctors can do. There are other people on this discussion forum whose physicians and families thought it was a psychological problem and it turned out to be achalasia or severe acid reflux or IEM (Insufficient esophogeal motility) so don't give up or give in. There are a few more tests the doctors need to do. One is a manometry and the other is an endoscopy. 

    Hang in there. Read other people's discussions and you'll learn a lot about what we go through. Stay in touch.

  • Posted

    An endoscopy (the camera test) would indicate whether there is anything physical to be seen, and might also detect any residual food that has not got through into the stomach.   There is a possibility that there may be some issue around your lower oesophageal sphincter, the valve between your oesophagus and your stomach, but it is only examination that would be able to tell for sure.   After an endoscopy there may be a need for a manometry test for the pressures at various points down your oesophagus.

    ​Meanwhile I suggest that you stay clear of foods with difficult textures and skins, or food that congeals like rice or bread.    Try not to swallow the next mouthful until the last one has passed below your diaphragm.  

    ​It is possible for tension to create these swallowing difficulties, so the doctors may not be wrong;  sometimes anxiety and stress does make swallowing conditions like achalasia worse.   So trying to relax around eating may well help even if stress is not the  main cause of the problems.

  • Posted

    I went through the 'you're making it up' phase. It sounds like you 'might' have Acalasia. It can hit at any age and it is pretty rare (something like only 100 in every 1 million people have it) so not many doctors have even heard of it (like mine).

    Ask/demand your doctor checks the symptons against Acalasia. They probably won't know what it is and will have to look it up.

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