Has anyone here ever experienced difficulty initiating swallowing (even just swallowing saliva), as if it were more automatic and required a few seconds of concentration, causing stress and a feeling of fear of choking ?
What could be causing this?
I don’t know if it’s due to the CCI, or potentially eagles or HBS?
I have the same trouble. Also eager to hear if there are any ideas what’s going on.
We’ve had quite a number of members who’ve noted difficulty swallowing as a symptom they had. That includes people who felt like they couldn’t swallow their saliva without choking. I’m guessing your symptom could be related to your glossopharyngeal nerve (GPN) &/or vagus nerve both of which affect the ability to swallow. The GPN innervates the back of the tongue, & the vagus nerve innervates upper esophageal function. Since we know that both of those nerves are often irritated by elongated styloids, it seems like they could be causing the problems you’re having now.
Hi @Calista21269 I have exactly the same problem with swallowing, mostly saliva and liquids. I have been diagnosed with ES and IJV compression. The swallowing issues are worse when I am experiencing neck pain and the feeling of something stuck at the back of my tonsil/throat, which I assume is nerve related.
Hi, I have had for done years along with many other symptoms. I’m having c1/2 fusion for AAI in a couple of weeks, it’s been a long road and I won’t know what is relieved by this but hoping for SOME relief. I’ll report back …. Good luck xx
@Rosie - how are you getting on? Do I remember you said you were seeing JH or PA?
Hi @Mcwelly I had a video appt with JH who said my SP was normal. Have since seen PA privately and now via NHS who confirmed my SP is 3.5cm and I have IJV compression, now waiting for operation to remove SP & C1 transverse process, although 15 months wait under NHS, its a long wait.
I hope you get some relief from your surgery in a couple of weeks, wishing you all the best.
Feel free to keep in touch @Rosie . Thank you. Hmm it’s odd that JH completely at odds with PA. Neither of them saw my right IJV compression however.
Yes! I have had this on and off, like I go to swallow and it’s like just not happening and then I have to stop and sort of “stabilise myself” to get ready for the swallow and have to really concentrate. It happens very randomly but I’ve noticed it a lot more when I’m walking and also when I’m the shower, usually when my muscles are relaxed.
What I’ve found for myself is a possible non-eagles cause, my tongue is always sort of going back and forth (a bit like tongue thrust) and my jaw is never relaxed and the tongue is one of the muscles used for balance. My tongue isn’t always necessarily in the correct place in my mouth for the swallow - so for instance if you push your tongue forward and then try to swallow, you will probably find it difficult and will need more saliva. To correct this and next time you have issues swallowing, place the tip of your tongue just behind your upper teeth and then keep your lips open and swallow and you should find that you can do it. I also seem to push my lower jaw forward. When I do relax my jaw, I seem to need a bit of stability from my lower back region which is also a weak area of my body, so this is a possible cause (I have two discs that keep slipping, l4-5 and l5-6) and I seem to breathe quite shallow.
The reason for tongue thrust or incorrect position could be for a number of reasons, CCI, any neck instability, and also the one that I’m looking into at the moment is binocular vision dysfunction, which creates a sensation of imbalance because the eyes are not aligned (feel free to message me about this, I have a lot of info). This can also cause incorrect positioning of the hyoid bone, possibly tricking the brain into thinking the neck is unstable and causing things like tight muscles, eagles, HBS, etc and then causing tongue tension the brain tries to correct the imbalance. Any other eye related problem can contribute too, like needing reading glasses, high myopia prescription, switching between glasses and contact lenses.
I recently had an appointment with Speech and Language Therapy (NHS, UK) but this shed no light on it and she said everything seemed fine but my epiglottis sounded a bit loud.
If I ever actually get to the bottom of this I will come back to this thread and let you know.
That’s interesting @Skatkat , sounds like you’ve been doing alot of thinking about it all…I’m sorry that the speech therapy didn’t help at all, I hope that you do get answers one day 
