Esophagus Fears

[sTeaLth]

I posted a few weeks back regarding my throat and esophagus feeling when swallowing. It all started after some anxiety from pain while swallowing, which led me to swallow multiple times a minute while checking for the pain. The pain left after a few weeks but not before I checked symptoms online and found that feeling like something is stuck in your throat could be a bad sign going along with the pain. I didn't have any of those feelings so I was relieved. All was fine for about a week after the pain left but then this odd feeling like something was stuck in my lower esophagus started bothering me. It came and went for a few weeks and now it seems to be mostly just here all the time. Though sometimes it bothers me a lot less than other times. I notice in times of stress, or shortly after, it is much worse.

Keep in mind, this has ZERO effect on my actual swallowing. I can eat and drink with NO issues. The main issue is it makes me want to swallow air and force burps often to relieve the feeling for a second or two. Drinking hot drinks improves it, but doesn't always totally relieve it. When I wake up in the morning it is very often totally gone for about an hour or so. Once I think of it again though, it is back for most of the day. When I swallow I can often hear a gurgle come from my throat area and audibly out of my mouth, which sometimes freaks me out. I know I have noticed that happening before in my life before the anxiety came with all of the symptoms. It never bothered me before now. The fact that it is gone in the mornings gives me some peace. Worst case scenarios wouldn't go away in relaxed times or when I wake up... right? I have no other symptoms at all. No weight loss, no obvious changes in the back of my throat's look, no blood anywhere, no change in lymph nodes, no chronic cough or breathing issues. To me this seems like a very obvious case of stress, anxiety, and creating my own symptoms.

I can't help but think it has got to be where my focus is and where all my stress is manifesting this time around. Not long ago I was convinced I was going to die from the twitching... or the tingles in my feet... or the pressure in my head. It always turns out to be stress, anxiety, and focusing on the worst case scenarios. It seems that I have subconsciously created this symptom from my previous anxiety but I am having trouble moving passed it.

Any advice or reassurance that I am missing the obvious here? I am so sick of fighting this stuff day in and day out!

 

[Bobnnat]

Hi Stealth, nice to see you on this site!

First, it seems clear that you are over-focusing and making false relationships between what you think you feel and what the supposed cause is. Other than simply convince yourself of that (hard, I know) it's tough to know how to move on.

I was surprised a few years ago when I went to an ENT. I was concerned over a bump on the roof of my mouth. I opened my mouth, assuming he would be inspecting it with a bright lite, but he actually and very quickly ran a tube down my nasal passage and it went deep down my throat. He did his observation and pulled the thin string like tube up and out before I could even have a gag reflex. He had taken a look from my nose down my throat and into my esophagus and simply declared "no cancer today!".

Not sure if all ENT's would do this, but ENT is one of the easiest specialist to get to see, and with little waiting. Perhaps that little bit of reassurance could be what's needed to kick you out of this funk?

 

[sTeaLth]

Hi Stealth, nice to see you on this site!

First, it seems clear that you are over-focusing and making false relationships between what you think you feel and what the supposed cause is. Other than simply convince yourself of that (hard, I know) it's tough to know how to move on.

I was surprised a few years ago when I went to an ENT. I was concerned over a bump on the roof of my mouth. I opened my mouth, assuming he would be inspecting it with a bright lite, but he actually and very quickly ran a tube down my nasal passage and it went deep down my throat. He did his observation and pulled the thin string like tube up and out before I could even have a gag reflex. He had taken a look from my nose down my throat and into my esophagus and simply declared "no cancer today!".

Not sure if all ENT's would do this, but ENT is one of the easiest specialist to get to see, and with little waiting. Perhaps that little bit of reassurance could be what's needed to kick you out of this funk?

I have considered an ENT to just give my mind reassurance but going to a doctor and finding out the worst is one of my biggest fears. In many ways, it is worse than just trying to convince myself I am fine for months on end until I believe it or the symptoms disappear. It's hard to know what to do. :-/

 

[sTeaLth]

Is it a coincidence that when I become distracted by something else that I don't seem to notice this much. For example, I get bad calcium build up in my tonsils some times and attempt to extract it. When I've done this my throat seems to be fine for a while. Also, I tend to swallow air a lot on purpose because of this and I am wondering if that is contributing to the feeling I have. Hmm.

 

[Cuchculan]

You are simply thinking inwardly. Bit like hurting a finger. You know you hurt it. You feel the pain. You get distracted and you don't feel the pain any more. Until you think of the sore finger again. All your attention is focused on something you are going to hyper aware of it. That is inward thinking. Your mind finds something else to do and you are no longer thinking of your throat. So you feel nothing at all.

 

[Vandelsrock21]

I would go to the ent for peice of mind. I had it was like bob described. But i hope you can rake their word its been hard for me to do.