Multiple sclerosis swallowing and respiratory issues

Multiple sclerosis swallowing and respiratory issues

I’d like to pretend this isn’t really happening. It’s much easier to live in ignorance. However, I’ve been noticing this symptom coming up more often than I’d like to see it. When I’m having dinner and it can be fish, beans, or rice, Sometimes the food doesn’t get all the way down my throat when I swallow. I almost have to drink a little water to push it down. It’s just almost feels like the food builds up and it’s just not going to get down all the way. Once I have some water it goes down. I’m not chocking, I can breathe it’s nothing like that, it just feels like the food just doesn’t travel down my esophagus the way it supposed to. It’s doesn’t happened at every meal, it doesn’t even happen daily, but it’s happening enough to take notice. I’ve learned to make sure when I’m eating anything other than my soup’s or fruit, to make sure I have some water. I take small bites and pause between those bites. I know this has something to do with MS. It scares me that one day i will choke. https://www.webmd.com/multiple-sclerosis/speech-swallowing

People with multiple sclerosis, or MS, often have trouble swallowing, a problem called dysphagia. It can also lead to speech problems. It happens when the disease damages the nerves in the brain and spinal cord that make these tasks happen.

I think this symptom coincides somehow with the heaviness that sometimes I get in my chest, which I’m starting to believe might be something like the MS hug symptom. https://www.mstrust.org.uk/a-z/ms-hug

The MS hug is a symptom of multiple sclerosis where you feel as if you have a tight band around your chest or ribs or it can be pressure on just one side of your torso. Some people find that it is painful to breathe.

Since I was recently checked for anything cardio, I know it’s not my heart. Sometimes I wake up feeling like i smoked a pack of cigarettes, but i quit many years ago. Sometimes at night right after dinner, I feel almost like I have a shortness of breath but I’m just sitting on a chair. The feelings pass. It’s almost like I’m having a spasm either first thing in the morning or in the evening and when the spasm passes I’m fine. I’m just not feeling the spasm just the effects of it. I’d explain this feeling more along these lines than even with the constant feelings of the MS hug. Just another of those strange things that’s hard to explain.

These Symptoms are scary. It’s no joke and truthfully they could become very dangerous. Luckily they could also be very mild, as far as the swallowing difficulty goes, as I believe I am at this point, but that doesn’t take away the fear. Both symptoms are something I pay very close attention to.

4 thoughts on “Multiple sclerosis swallowing and respiratory issues

  1. I don’t have a swallowing problem a lot. When it does come, it’s very scary. And I believe you are right, it is spasms in the swallowing muscles. I have to consciously and very deliberately try to calm those muscles down.

  2. I get the chest one and shortness of breath. I use to get a bit panicky about it, but I’ve learnt to just accept it as another weird MS thing. ?xxx

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