Choking on Saliva/ Uncontrollable swallowing and air in esophagus

I hate when this happens because it usually happens when i am talking to people at work.  All of a sudden, out of the blue, I feel THAT "little tickle" in my upper throat and i think "oh Noooo!!!"   It's just horrible and embarrassing.  I have also sat bolt straight up from a deep sleep, gasping & chocking like I am drowning - so very frightening.

I've read this whole thread of comments and have seen many suggestions that i will try next time to gain control over the ensuing horrendous coughing fit.

The suggestions to help make the episode pass more quickly were:  

1. breath short breaths through your nose

2. raise both arms straight up

3. press your fingers at the lower part of your throat - below the Adam's apple if u r a man

4. press the pressure points behind your ears (need to google that!)

5. and put peppermint oil on your tongue.

I am going to do all of these suggestions - it just so happens I have some peppermint oil in my desk! - the next time this stupid thing happens ... and hopefully i can do some damage-control so i'm not humilated in front of the next person who sees this happen to me.  

I will also look up Laryngospasm to understand what is going on and to try and find out more ways to stop this from happening.

I will report back on my findings ... everyone else - try these suggestions and tell us how they work for you!  

ok - as (bad) luck would have it, just an hour after I posted the comment above (with the suggestions on what to do to control the episode), i was out in the yard raking leaves (stirring up allergies of course!) and there was THAT TICKLE in my throat!  As i started coughing the first thing that i remembered from that list was TAP the lower part of your throat (tap NOT press) so i started doing that and low & behold the tickle stopped, I coughed only a couple of times, and went back to raking!  I was amazed ... and not 100% convinced ... but i just want to encourage everyone to do this when you feel it about to happen:

TAP gently with your fingers at the lower part of your throat. If you are a man, this will be the area just below your Adam's Apple.  

I would guess that it forces the larynx to relax - which is the main problem happening here.  

Good Luck Everyone!  Try this!

Ok - just saw this!

These throat spasms tend to last a short time but there are very scary and feel like they last a long time, so holding your breath during the spasm is a strategy for dealing with the spasm until it is over. Holding your breath and putting saline drops while holding your head back can give the sufferer something to do to both help the situation and distract the sufferer.

I also heard that holding your head back helps relax your throat's muscles ... so here's a few things we definitely can try!

Hello everyone, I would like to share my experience so far. BTW, I am an American in Taiwan covered by their medical system. So I dont have access as easy to american meds. I am physically fit 43 year old male, I go to the gym 3 times a week and eat healthy. No sleep issues in the past ever. Never had acid reflux. My main health problem is allergies.

I have bad allergies usually twice a year when the seasons change. My allergies usually cause Post Nasal Drip / stuffed up nose, and if I dont prevent the mucus from dripping badly in the back of my throat, I get a sore throat.

Which started to happen very fast, my coughing to get the mucus out of my throat and what felt like in my stomach was BRUTAL. At one point I coughed so hard dryly it felt like my face was going to come off. I had night sweat - a cold sweat, for the first time and a fever.

I went to the doctor who perscribed a cocktail of pills and Nasonex. At this point my throat was pretty bad him checking with a wooden stick(?) was instant gagging, I also had no appetite for two weeks. The saliva issue didnt start yet. I complained that yes my mucus stopped and my nose was clear, I never lost my voice... and had no longer a fever.  but that the sides of my mouth and below my adams apple hurt... his response was "probably a side effect of the antibiotic".  I went to another doctor... he perscribed codeine and coctail of pills including Zithromax. My throat cleared and my nose is dry... but then.. and now as I type this...

the feeling of saliva and swallowing constantly has started. I still cough randomly and you are not going to believe this.. but I literally just vomitted for the first time through this ordeal while i type this.

My sleep last night was impossible. I constantly feel saliva going up and down my throat.. I was not choking.. but I would try and breath through my mouth or my nose to counter it. Nothing seemed to work. I think that my coughing damaged my throat.  I already warned my wife about the possibilty of me choking and passing out. Any suggestions?

It might seem strange but after this vomiting, I feel a little anxious.. but good? I hope my sleep is well tonight. I will post in the morning. USA please remember I am 12 hours ahead of you for my reply. But any suggestions please post. I am so glad I found this website.

Ask your doctor for a referral to a pulmonologist 1st (they can do a sleep study), then if no answeres, a gastrenterologist. He can do an upper endoscopy to see if your esophagus needs dilating. You may have an esophageal stricture. Also, when u pray at night, or anytime for that matter, thank the Lord for healing you. The bible says to call those things that are not as though they wete. Thats faith in action. I stand in agreemnt with you that God will remove that mountain! YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE A CHANGE

Just a little FYI: To open your throat and relax you larnyx you do not tilt your head back. As a former nurse but more importantly as a patient who has had many Nasogastric tubes placed in me...you tilt you head forward, chin to chest to fully open your throat. This is the best way to help get air in.

I got on here to see if anyone had a diagnosis for this as I also suffer from it. I started about 2 years ago and its getting worse and more frequent. I was trying not to panic tonight but I was whistling my larnyx was so closed off. My mom was hitting my back, I was scrambling to an inhaler even though it was clearly not asthmatic in nature...I choked on a drop of saliva. My mother was panicking seeing me like this and nearly called 911...I was shaking my head no profusely. All I could do was think, I over came 6 major surgeries and over 20 blood transfusions to die at home from choking on my saliva and now I cant breathe...I really felt like I was going to die.

I see my gi soon ans will be asking if I need my esophagus dilated, as I hear my biological father needs to every few years...

I know this thread is a year old, but hopefully someone who knows something can come on by and shed some light on this topic as I am not the only one that has this problem.  Mine is a bit different though and I have sneezing fits which can last up to 5 minutes and, with every sneeze now, I have the swallowing reflex at the same time.  So it's air out and swallow, gasp for breath, get some when the new sneeze starts but it is abruptly cut off by the swallow so the air I get to take is is very little by the time the swallow reflex comes in.  I have been diagnosed with Hashimotos Thyroiditis just two months ago and I have a feeling that swelling in my throat (I have nodules that may be swelling and triggering this reflex to swallow) is triggering this reflex.  Many people have nodules around their throat, it's quite normal.  But these start by an allergen I suppose (they happen out of the blue, always when I am awake, never in bed, and only in my house so far).  Either way, I would check with a doctor and get a scan done to see if there is anything pressing on the throat triggering such "swallowing fits".  First thing that comes to mind with my experience is allergies, secondly, something swollen pressing on the throat to cause these auto reflexes to start and continue.  I feel you all; it feels like I am dying and can't breathe but gasp for whatever air gets to come in.  I try to meditate and stay calm during the event to end the reflex and it's starting to work.  When I can get a breath, I take nose spray (any allergy kind will do but I have since been given a cortiosteriod spray by my doctor to reduce swelling) down my nose which then trickles to my throat) to reduce any swelling and voila, the fit is over.  I too am looking for answers.  It sure is nice to know I am not alone in this, though I would not wish this on anyone.  God bless you all and I hope you find a solution to your problems soon!

I am also relieved to know that this happens to other people too. People tell me not to speak while I eat. I reply that it can happen when all I'm doing is breathing! The other day I had a really frightening time. I couldn't breath or swallow. I was outside a store waiting for my husband to come out. People asked if I was all right, if I wanted them to call an ambulance, if I wanted water (I had some and I had tried but it only made things worse), if I was having an asthma attack and if I had an inhaler. I remember thinking that by the time the ambulance arrived, I'd probably be dead. I am greatly relieved by the doctor's saying to the person that "the worst case scenario during an episode would be that I'd pass out. If that happened the body's natural reaction is to relax the muscles (including windpipe) so everything should sort itself out." Looking forward to an update.... The only time I've ever consulted a family doctor (GP), she was very sympathetic but had no advice or suggestion. She thought that it was "glottus hystericus".

Body to sort itself out?... Sounds great! I have these episodes every now and then where I sleep and all of a sudden have an acid reflux bad enough to make it come up and go into my airway. Usually I wake up, jump up, at least to make myself sit up (as fast as possible) to get the stuff out of my airway. Sometimes it makes me gasp for air a bit, but usually I will be able to breathe again within a few seconds. (and then a half an hour episode of coughing starts because of the allergic reaction to this ordeal, which creates mucus in my airway). This evening though I'm sitting on the couch, and swalling.... wrong. I feel the saliva going the wrong way, so I bend forward and try to fix the situation, but it doesn't help. So I run/crouch to the bathroom, so that IF I need to get 'stuff' out, at least it'll be in the toilet. Then I tried to breath in, but I can't... breathe out a little bi/cough and try to breathe in again, and can't. I had to really FORCE my lungs to breathe in, which made an awful noise and took forever. I thought I was going to pass out soon. Wife comes into the bathroom (is getting used to these episodes, but is this time worried, since I couldn't breathe at all) and asks me if she needs to call 911. By that time I realize that my lungs are by now half full of air, so I try to breathe out/cough carefully after which I I try to breathe in again, a little bit more careful and less forceful than last time.. and bit by bit I get my breath back. It was REALLY scary this time and not able to breathe normally at all. I just read the last page on here, with some tips.. (breathe through nose). Does anyone have this same problem of not being able to breathe though... and are there other tips to get my breath back? (tap under adams apple sounds really uncomfortable to me...)

During the day, I will feel air coming up my throat and it's hard to breathe. It's bad during the night AND day for me.

I have also been suffering the same as you. When asleep how ever it is sleep apnoea and when awake it is anxiety. Its a double ended sword, The more you choke the more you worry about choking and the more you worry about choking the more you feel like you are choking. I was constantly checking my throat in the mirror to see if there was an obstruction. I have found that chewing gum and drinking water helps me. For about 5 months it felt like I had a lump in my front that would not go away. I read up on anxiety and there was something that I felt really helpful to get rid of this lump, tight feeling that I had all the time. Take a tea towel and dip it in boiling water. Let it cool a little so it does not burn you and wrap it around your neck for a couple of minutes. When you take it off massage the front of your neck, thumb and for finger over the top of your Adams apple moving up and down over the throat area. Sounds silly but this and chewing gum as helped me a lot and with my airway feeling clearer I have not worried about choking and because I am not worrying about it I am not constantly putting pressure on myself to not choke which makes me not feel like I am choking

I suffer from anxiety and get the same feelings, the more anxious the worse the symptoms. I found that by working on my anxiety it has helped me with the choking sensation. Don't get me wrong I still get it but its much less and shorter lasting when it does occur. First thing is get checked out by your dr to make sure that there is no other causes for this. Sounds like you have done this already so that's good. I am not a Dr or an expert on this but from what you describe and from my own symptoms its sounds like you have the same sort of feeling I have when I have an anxiety / panic attack.

What will I take to stop this swallowing of air.

I experience the same thing,it feels like it's fluid coming from my lungs.I am having this happen everytime i go to sleep now and last couple of time I coughed up blood mixed with mucus.It almost feels like if you drank soda and it went down the wrong hole but worse,start coughing and gagging on what feels like vomit.I have no idea what this problem is or how to treat it.Mydoctor just changed the stomache pill for me but it's only gotten worse

It's good/not good to see that I am not going crazy, and that I am the only one who has been suffering from this debilitating "anomaly." It's been a week today that I started having the choking/drowning episodes. I finally went to the ER yesterday AM because I fear of drowning in my own sputum. After 4 hours there, I was discharged with one more bottle of medicine said to be a numbing agent for the throat. A CT scan showed no lung problems, as did an earlier x-ray, blood work showed no clot in the lungs, two breathing treatments, two types of cough medicines, and albuterol inhaler, and finally prednisone, which I did not take as I watched what happened to my wife a few years ago when they "thought" she had a liver disease. I have not had relief from this, in fact one of the worst bouts of choking was an hour or so after taking it in the hospital. I too have the constant post nasal drip at the back of the throat, as i have it right now as I write. I have experience 9 episodes since leaving the ER about this time yesterday AM, so that 9 in 24 hours. I know this is just more of the same and I am really sorry also that I have not gotten a definitive diagnosis, and some treatment plan that works. I just got a call from my doctors office asking how i am doing...and of course had an episode while on the phone. Has anyone out there had this "run it's course?" How long did it take and were there any medications etc provided to help? Thanks...