Choking on Saliva/ Uncontrollable swallowing and air in esophagus

It is very scary and has happened to me for only the 2nd time in many years. My boyfriend thought he was going to have to dial 911. LOL If we breath through our noses very slowly we can get our breath back but it really stinks that this happens.

I do experience the same thing. And I am so afraid, anytime of the day, I will die..

It could possibly be a nasal drip. This is when the stuff in your nose goes down your throat instead of out of your nose causing a clog and causing you to gasp for air while having these enormous cough attacks. There are special medications that can be taken to help relieve this such as a nasal steroid. Go to your family doctor immediately and have them prescribe it to you. Best of luck! Hope you feel better!

This same exact issue has been happening to me for the past six months or more. Most of my epepisodes happen when I am laying in bed watching TV at night, but a few have happened in different places. It happens just like you describe. A small little trickle of salvia drips into my windpipe and I start coughing and chocking for air. I have been diagnosed with sleep apnea a year ago so I'm going to my primary doctor in two weeks to talk to him. I had on last night and I am concerned. Also, I can tell you is I don't sleep well at all. I hope I can find out more information for both of us if you haven't found out anything yet.

This was posted in 2011 so this answer may just end up in limbo. My mother's amniuotic fluid broke when the foetus (which I now inhabit) was 23 weeks old, causing the contractions that brought it out. This was in 1950 so nothing was known about how to assist me to breathe properly. I'm now 64 and have lived all that time, choking on saliva. Over the years, clues began to line up and here they are: before the instinct to suck in air (after birth) comes the instinct to retain water in the lungs. So when the water drained out of the uterus, the foetus instinctually closed the throat passage to retain water in the lungs. It contracted and used water (whatever there was) to create an mucus plug sealing off the lungs. That gut-reaction has been overruling my need to breathe for 64 years. Only lately have I managed to consciously loosen the air tube (which by instinct still, not swallow, and loosen the throat muscles to not block the air passage. A deep breath occurs but then an immediate overpowering need to swallow saliva and block the tube again. I've never breathed one normal breath in 64 years. To sum up, the body I inhabit is ruled more by a pre-birth reflex to retain water than a post-birth reflex to suck in air.
So that's what going on with me. In my 20's I went to see several doctors, both western and eastern trained complaining of too much saliva in my air passage and the choking that it caused but they had no training in this.

It's called lyrangospasm usually caused by GERD acid reflux that triggers the vocal cords to shut. You will not die. The cords loosen to allow breath. It feels terrible. Slowly inhaling like through a straw, or forcing a cough usually clears it. There are also pressure points behind ears that help relax the vocal cords. Go to doc and get acid reflux meds, sleep elevated, avoid the trigger foods, lose weight.

I have suffered from this for years.  Every 3 or 4 months, I'll take a wee bit of saliva down the wrong tube, and then bang my windpipe closes and I'm left gasping for air.  The first few times it was very frightening, but I've become somewhat accustomed to it.  As others have said, I've wondered on occastion whether this wouldn't be the end of me on some occasion.

Despite the panic that ensues when the windpipe closes, I have found that the most effective technique for me is to force some air out of my lungs.  This is a bit counter-intuitive because you are ineffectively gasping for air and you are convinced that you'll drown.  But, forcing out a bit of air seems to open the airway a bit.  Attempting to suck in air seems to make it close more.  

The most difficult part is to remain calm, and work through the behaviours and techniques that seem to help.  Every instinct is screaming at you to suck in a deep breath of air, but that's about the worst thing for me to do.

Hello im a 13 year old boy and completely out of random sometimes i will start choking on my own saliva out of nowhere. I sleep fine at night but every month or so one minute im fine the next two seconds later im choking and gasping for air in the middle of class. Its never happened at night but it seems to only get worse. Just recently i was stepping out of the shower and putting on some acne cream and i starting to choke and for a second my throat was entirely blocked. I was choking and gasping for about 10 seconds. I want to know what is going on so i at least know what to tell my teacher when he asks whats wrong. I just need someone to tell me so its not as much as a problem. And im unsure its sleep apnea because its never happend at night and thats the only symptom i have thats related. Someone please answer because i need to know

Thanks for sharing and telling my story. Everything you said and described is how it happened to me. Had a episode tonight which made me go on line to see if others experience it. I will asked my doctor.

I have what is called larynospasms. That is when a bit of fluid,  mucus, or any thing, and it

doesn't have to be much at all starts to go down your wind pipe and that causes a spasm

of you vocal chords and then you only get a pencil point amount of air in as you are desperately trying to get enough air in which to violently cough out the problem.

A great deal of panic sets in but that won't help. After about 30 seconds to as long as

a minute or more of this and finally I get some headway of clearing my breathing situation.

Last time I was choking on a mouthful of chewed pecans. I thought that was it as I could not clear my throat until I laid on my side and a little bit on my stomach and I did get some air. One MUST drink and eat in smaller bites and swallow more completely to

avoid this problem. However, if you have allergies and lots of sinus drainage like I do, you could get it from that, too. This happens in my sleep, too.

Look up the term mentioned above for more information about this problem and read the symptoms.

I'll pray for you all that experience this

John

I have the sa me problem I all of a sudden can't breathe and gasp for air tear stream down my cheeks it is so painful .when you find out why please let me know Thanks

I'm 13 and I can't stop swallowing my saliva what can I do to stop I can't sleep or drink alot.What can I do to stop :(

WOW THIS IS WHAT HAPPEN TO ME THIS IS WHY I LOOK IT UP . It's bad  I just could not breath for a few seconds I

Hi everyone, Firts of all my native language it is not english, so sorry about wrong words. I am a physician, female, 50 years old, no smoking , no alcohhol health lifestyle etc etc... suffering with the same problem for 5 years. The last one yesterday at a restaurant! I had no tonsilas surgery however I had endoscopies before. Lets thinking about.Some saliva goes to the wrong place. This is the point. Why? Could be some nerve damage by, surgery, endoscopy or other? Is the saliva thicker than usualy? Why? Some foods is responsible for this? Cafeine?  Could be some allergy regard some foods? Could be some sinusitis or even reflux that change our salivation? Could be some auto-imune disease as  Sjogren Syndrom? Why? If the problem is the vocal cords  why it starts only after the saliva goes to the wrong palce? The laryngospasm cames after, in order to protect the lung to receive the saliva in the wrong place do you agree? In the most of time I am kind of angry, or in rushing or worry about some thing, and what about you? I feel better if I raise my both arms in the cirisis, if I drink water daily, so my saliva keeps more fluid. Lets starting investigating by ourselves. 

Hope we can discover something by ourselves as the medicine unfortnately has no answer for everything.

OKay, so I think I can shed some light on this with my own experience, at least somewhat. Last night for the first time and hopefully last time, this happened to me, but it was an incredibly severe case, I am 100% certain that it was mucus coming up from my lungs that caused this, I will give the full story shortly, but the primary reason I believe this is that I have problems with my mucus membranes and have problems with thick mucus sometimes. Here is my story: In the middle of the night last night I woke up unable to breathe. Thankfully I am not a person who panics, so as I lay there trying desperately to suck in air I started an analysis on the situation. My throat was clearly blocked by mucus and I needed to get it out, so while still unable to breathe I clawed my way out of the blankets and to the floor, where I crawled as fast as I could to the bathroom, terrifying my wife in the process. Upon making it to the toilet I started gagging over top of it, on purpose, which knocked loose the mucus enough that I could choke down enough air to start coughing, which I didn't have enough air to do previously. From there I proceeded to cough and vomit up about a full cup worth of thick mucus. I could still feel thick mucus in my throat when I tried to go back to sleep, but I was tired and went back to sleep anyway. Now I've recently woken up and feel fine, even though my throat is just a tiny bit sticky feeling, and I came online to research, finding this website. If I feel any build-up happening again, I am going to try mucinex, I recommend you do the same, and I'm hypothesizing that it will have a direct impact.