Tightness in throat (cricopharyngeal spasm)

Hi Brouha (and welcome) and welcome back K.K.!

I am sorry that you are both dealing with this issue still...even after so much effort to find the answers that you have sought.

I hope that you can continue to work with your doctors to treat this from a phsyical perspective...as well as look into stress relief coping options to get at the root of the anxiety issues that may be there exacerbating the problem.

Therapy and self-help are both excellent options to consider...or re-visit. Often times returning to previously tried treatments yields great results the second or third time around!

Wishing you both the best, and keep posting with us for support.

Scaredy Cat

I can't tell you how (belatedly!) grateful I am to have come across this thread. For the past 4 months I have experienced the feeling of constriction, raspiness and extreme dryness in the throat and the uncomfortable sensation that there is a lump there just under the Adam's apple. Eating and drinking temporarily ease the feeling but it soon returns along with persistent indigestion and the feeling that I am 'swallowing air'. It always seems worse at night and I end up getting in a real panic and find it impossible to sleep. As a consequence I'm getting about 2 hours sleep at night and feel quite low. I also tend to get a lot of catarrh in the throat and am constantly clearing it.
For the record, I have a history of digestion and catarrhal problems and have always been prone to anxiety, to the extent that I'll brood on things excessively (particularly physical symptoms, such as the current 'lump in the throat problem'). 2 years ago I had a gastroscopy examination because of extreme digestive problems but it showed everything was normal. Similarly, I have seen an ENT specialist in the past who could find no reason for the catarrh (antihistamines, antibiotics and nasal sprays do nothing). Probably the most relevant factor of all is that I weaned myself off valium (after taking it for 5 years) just before these symptoms occurred and I really don't want to go back on them. Because of my anxious temperament, these throat symptoms have caused me to fear the worst but, having come across your forum and seen that other people experience these symptoms and that the ailment even has a name (cricopharyngeal spasm) is a huge comfort. Having checked this condition on Wikipedia, I find it describes my symptoms exactly!
I'm sorry to have gone on at such lengths. I'm normally quite upbeat and cheerful with a sense of humour (believe it or not!) but I really have been going through hell with this and I'm so grateful to have found this forum.

Thanks for the welcome, 'Scaredy Cat'! I think this forum is a wonderful resource and I shall try to give to it more than I take from it, if you see what I mean :)

I'm so glad I found this forum -- I haven't read through the entire thing yet, but wanted to say thank you to Scaredy Cat and everyone who has shared on here. I honestly felt alone in this. I've been overwhelmed with anxiety for the past few months, resulting in a variety of panic attacks and physical symptoms (over, really, not much of *anything* but my body doesn't seem to know that).

The worst of these has been the lump in the throat sensation. I went to the doctor yesterday for it and she assured me it was in my case most likely caused by stress, nothing that required GI tests as I've got no heartburn symptoms (I've been burping a lot lately, without burning or pain, but mainly because I think I started to do so at first as it alleviates the lump feeling, for a second).

I had one brief bout of globus hystericus about 8 years ago, but when I was told what it was, and that I wasn't going to choke, it went away like that.

I had more globus last month, where it felt like my windpipe was tied in a knot or pinched, and this was horrendous at night.

Thank God, that's gone, but it's since morphed into the feeling after eating that bits of food are stuck in a mucus blob or something at the back/bottom of my throat. Then it became more constant, feeling this lump that doesn't go away when I swallow, each time I swallow even just saliva. That's been happening since Thursday.

The GP visit yesterday helped. I took a Xanax the night before as a test (I only use them for long flights; never have had I had such constant panic before). Sure enough, my muscles relaxed completely and the feeling was gone, until morning. Since this yesterday, I've been able to eat without worrying of food getting caught. The lump sensation has lessened, but is still there, coming and going throughout the day.

Scaredy Cat: you mentioned, way back at the thread's start, a link to a video in the "Resource Guide" regarding progressive muscle relaxation, but I can't find it... I'm totally missing it -- any chance you could post a link to it?

I've got to read the rest of the posts in here more thoroughly, but even just finding this forum made me see that I'm not alone, and that this IS a thing... however maddening, it's some comfort to know others understand.

So far, tea and things haven't really helped. Distraction helps sometimes, but even so, I played a full outdoor volleyball tournament all weekend and still the lump bothered me constantly, so distraction isn't foolproof.

I'm reading a CBT book and have been to one class, planning to go to more. It seems like such a massive task to retrain both my muscles to learn to relax, and my brain to stop making mountains out of molehills, but I know that's probably the key to all of this.