Feels like pill is stuck, upper chest pain, pain in low throat, pain swallowing, lasting a few days

I have had the same issue quite often with my current medication. The first time it happened, I went to Urgent Care. They did a bunch of x-rays and other tests to make sure I wasn't having a heart attack or suffering a collapsed lung or anything, and it was nothing severe.

They weren't certain, but in the end, they told me I had sprained one of the muscles between my ribs. There are a bunch of muscles there, and when swallowing, those muscles are slightly impacted. The doctor could press her fingers between two of my ribs (quite far in - it kinda hurt) and felt the muscle spasming. I was given muscle relaxant and told it would go away in the time it takes any sprain to heal.

I'm fairly sure that the medication (Prozac) somehow caused the sprain, since it has only ever happened to me while on this medication. It may have happened due to taking the meds with too dry of a throat or on an empty stomach. I've been on Doxycycline Hyclate once in the recent past, and when it was prescribed to me, I was told to take it with a full glass of water on a full stomach and to not lie down for at least an hour after taking the pill. They told me to do this because it can cause ulcers in the throat if it gets stuck there.

I'm wondering now if the Prozac is having the same (or a similar) effect. I'm planning to try only taking my pills with a full glass of water right after a meal and not lying down for at least an hour after taking it. Of course, the current pain and gas that I'm experiencing will take at least a week to subside...

Thank you, this was by far the most helpful post

I took a nitric oxide pill and I feel the same I just feel pain in my upper chest :( 

Yes same thing has happened to me while on this. You must take it with a full cup of water and wait an hour before going to bed, I've had chest pain and nasusa for about a week

Doxycycline is the most commonly reported tetracycline analogue that causes oesophagitis (irritation of espophogas and espophogas ulcers). More than 70 drugs have been reported in the literature to induce oesophageal disorders, however antibacterials such as doxycycline, tetracycline and clindamycin account for more than 50% of cases1.

Hot thick soup did the trick for me. 10 minutes before I couldn't hold down water when I drank it to fast.

I'm 15 and I took a pill, and felt like it didnt go all the way down, i told my mother this, because it wouldnt go down after numerous glasses of water. I ate an apple and felt better, but then on the weekend I got these horrible pains in my throat, that continued down until it reached sort of between my ribs.

I thought it was heartburn or something, but ant-acids wouldnt help. I was also burping a heap - and weird thing is that I could NEVER burp before hand. 

I woke up with pains, sort of in my throat, like a big lump is stuck down there, which then continued down to the middle of my ribs. They physically hurt to touch! 

When I breathe in and out deeply my chest hurts like total hell. I went to the doctor about it, and he sort of just thought it was from breathing too fast.

But I am going in today again, it seriously got worse, I cant breathe, this pain in my chest hurts so much, it just feels like something is stuck in my esophagus, I swear,

I will get back to you all!

Same thing happening to me. Thanks to these posts I knew to call the prescribing doctor. Same med and everything. Nurse said it was because I took pill without a lot of water, the pill sat in my esophagus and caused irritation. I took the pill without water in the middle of the night. It hurts to swallow and burp. No amount of water or liquid has helped. She said it will just take time to get better and that next time I need to take it with a lot of fluid.

I'm so glad I found this forum I thought this only happened to me! My antidepressant pill is big and if I don't swallow it with water it hurts so much like it's stuck in my throat, then my chest and ribs. It takes about an hour or a half to go away. I asked my dad about it and he said it never happened to him. I'm going to make sure that I always drink water with my medication even late at night when I forget. If that doesn't help I try breaking the pill in half. Maybe I could get a smaller pill too?  I hope you all find the answers to your questions!

Since we seem to have similar symptoms I'm going to share my experience. I took my Clindamycin with a few swigs of H20 the other night while lying on the sofa watching the News. I must've dozed off immediately because I woke up about 30 min later with  the most severe pain in my esophagus about mid-chest. Once I realized what I did- I noticed my H20 bottle was still sitting there full-so I never took more than those first sips.What a BIG MISTAKE! I started to down the H20 and the pain on swallowing was horrible. This has been the most intense heartburn/feel like something stuck in the middle of my chest/constant urge to burp/horrible pain every time I swallow, experience I have ever been throughNow I'm starting day#3 of it. Thanks to forums like this I feel kind of relieved that I'm not alone. According to what I've read, I can expect to feel this way anywhere from a few days up to 2 weeks! Yesterday was awful bad all day and this is now 48 hrs and it is still very much there but it does seem a little less intense as of this morning. So I guess time should heal the esophagus from the damage caused by the pill. Apparently certain meds have been shown to cause this if they are allowed to disolve in the more-delicate tissue of the esophagus and Clindamycin and Doxicycline are notorius among them from what I have read. So LESSON-LEARNED! It does matter. Take lots of H20 before and after you sawllow that pill. And DO NOT lie down for at least an hour. Make sure that pill gets to the stomach where it is supposed to be and the lining is alot less delicate. Good luck everyone!

 

I am having the same reaction from Doxyclcline. I went to the doctor and was told to take over-the-counter prescription acid reducers like Prevacid, which has not helped at all. Were you able to do anything to lessen the pain?

I can't believe this side effect is not more directly warned of as the drug side effect!

Antacids did not work for me at all either. I think that the damage to the esophagus just has to take it's natural course in healing itself. Probbaly helps to eat really bland stuff for a while, nothing that would irritate it like spicy stuff.

My RX bottle does say to take this pill with a full glass of water but nothing is mentioned about bedtime or staying upright for a while after ingesting and that is where I really messed up.

I was having very similar symptoms to those described in previous threads and spoke with an internal medicine doctor about the issue- he said it had more to do with the time of day the medicine was administered and that the stomach was causing the discomfort. That is, the symptoms are more equatable to acid reflux or just reflux in general, than having anything stuck in my esophagus.

I have been taking the antibiotic before bed for months, for skin care purposes, and did not realize that the reason I was experiencing the symptoms was that the drug was essentially sitting in my stomach overnight instead of being digested as it would with food during the day. The doctor advised me to stop the medication for a few days and then to take it around mid-day with a meal. Hopefully it helps!

I had those same symptoms before I realized I had a UTI - I went to the doctor for them, he said everything sounded clear, and I should get some other tests done and we found out I have a UTI. So do you all think that all of this could  just be symptoms of the UTI? Because that seems to be what everyone here has in common other than certain medications, I know mine also isn't from the medication because I have the liquid (No, I can't swallow pills - sigh.) Thanks for sharing this though, good to know there is some sort of connection between all of this.

Day two of big anti-biotic caps for me and just today it feels like one got stuck. Lots of water and coffee did not help. Four hours later the feeling is still there but less. Thank you for the web site! Very interesting.