Throat tightness

[Aamir147147]

I suddenly felt a throat tightness on Saturday evening as you guys see my posts about it my different symptoms ....I right now am feeling so tightness in throat mostly left side and a little sore and 2/10 in swallowing food ... My one thing ends and another thing comes ... i am smoker and I am afraid that it should not be a throat cancer ... as I am felling pain in my throat ... right now I take anti anxiety pills .. which is not helping me either :.. please help me through .. I have been living in this from about a year .... help me

[Hidden]

I get this too, but is more of a dryness and feeling of a lump but no pain. Maybe your anxiety is causing stomach acid to build up which can make your throat feel like that. I spoke to a Dr a while back and he said that nicotine makes it worse, as does caffeine or alcohol on an empty stomach.. all my vices unfortunately! I really wanna quit smoking, I get scared of being sick. But right now I don't have the will power as I'm not in a great place mentally

[Jeff1943 in reply to Hidden]

Colani, the feeling of having a lump in your throat is a common symptom of anxiety disorder and at least one person a week reports having it on this forum. If you have had a doctor look at your throat and can find nothing wrong then I think you have this symptom of anxiety which is called Globus Hystericus. Although it can feel uncomfortable it is harmless and will pass so long as you don't stress and obsess about it. I myself had this some 20 years ago.

[Hidden in reply to Jeff1943]

I didn't know there was a name for it, so that's interesting to know. When I saw my dr about it over a year ago he said there was nothing there and yes it was anxiety. I get it from time to time still, knowing it's just anxiety helps me stop worrying about it and although it's a bit uncomfortable I don't dwell on it as I know it'll pass. Often if I go off and occupy myself with enjoyable activities it just disappears these days. I was awful for health anxiety before my therapy, every little sensation meant I went up the wall thinking I had some dreadful disease and running off to the Dr so many times and even hospital a few times. On almost every occasion it was anxiety related, and when not, a very minor condition.

It turned out that have GAD after screening, focussing on health wasn't my only symptom. I still have bad times (sometimes extremely bad), but I am always working to reduce them and understand better what is going on with me. Therapy has been the best thing for me, it has really helped, especially CBT. My next step is to spend less time on my own during the week (weekends are almost always filled) and get involved with more activities outside of work for more distraction. Im working on it (because naturally I'm quite reclusive), but like I said above if I'm busy with good things I just forget anxiety after a while.

[Jeff1943 in reply to Hidden]

Colani, when the lump in the throat thing happened to me I sort of suspected it was anxiety. It runs in the family, genetic, so I will never be completely free of it. But fortunately 40 years ago I read Claire Weekes' first book 'Self help for your nerves' in which she first described her Acceptance method for recovery from anxiety disorder. Over the years her method has helped untold thousands to recover or in my case control their anxiety.

On page 41 of that book she describes globus hystericus.

At the time I was sent for a barium meal scan of my throat and of course they found nothing. Anxiety doesn't show up on x-rays and scans of course. The reassurance stopped me stressing about it and that symptom went never to return.

Anxiety disorder begins when we experience worry, over-work, stress, disappointment etc and our nerves can't cope. So our nervous system becomes over sensitised and starts playing tricks on us.

One such is that it magnifies ten-fold every normal concern into an insummountable worry. Small problems easily coped with become major problems.

It also gives us symptoms that mimic real physical illness but are actually fake illnesses. Every ache becomes cancer and each twitch in the chest becomes a heart attack. There is hardly a part of the body that can't be affected by these fake illnesses.

Trouble is, we spend too much time trying to cure the symptoms - and not enough time trying to cure the common cause: anxiety due to over sensitised nerves.

But you can't cure yourself of an illness you don't have no matter how hard you try.

We respond to every symptom with fear and we flood our nervous system with fear hormones that maintain its sensitivity.

Fifty years ago Claire Weekes suggested that if we could stop bombarding our nerves with fear, if we could break the vicious cycle of fear causing symptoms causing more fear causing more symptoms then it gives our nervous system a chance to return to normal and we recover.

She said that we must stop fighting our symptoms of anxiety: fighting only causes more stress and tension. But more than that, in order to recover we must accept the symptoms for the time being and to accept them calmly and with the minimum of fear.

We must be prepared to co-exist with the symptoms and bad feelings caused by anxiety knowing that they are fake, not the real thing, and that their ability to harm us is strictly limited.

Fake symptoms cannot kill us, disable us or drive us insane. So we should accept them fearlessly despite how uncomfortable they make us feel.

And because we are no longer pumping fear hormones into our nervous system it eventually recovers - and so do we.

Claure Weekes died many years ago her work done. Her books continue her work - on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk combined there are 1,750 recent reader reviews for her books and 90% rate them Very Good or Excellent.

How lucky I am to have discovered her first book on my mother's bookshelf back in 1975.

[Hidden in reply to Jeff1943]

I have heard of this lady before, I think I should have a look at her books too! Acceptance of anxiety is helping me, but there are days when it will still take over, the more I can understand and accept the less importance I can give to the symptoms hopefully. Thanks for your input there, it really made sense.

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

unfortunately im facing the same symptoms

[Aamir147147 in reply to Hidden]

Colander do you take any medicine for your anxiety ... or anything else which can help me

[Hidden in reply to Aamir147147]

I chose not to use any medication, it's a personal choice as I saw how the medicines affected a close family member. It a personal choice though and if you find one that works for you that's great.

I chose talking therapy instead as for my case my anxiety was at a minimum until a very stressful event triggered it to go to high levels, that's exactly the same time as my health anxiety switched on. Had never really suffered that before, but it was DREADFUL so I completely understand what you're going through.

I don't know where you are based, but it may be worth looking at what therapy services are in your area. I referred myself to the NHS and although I had to wait a while and the treatment period was not so long I did find it so helpful, the CBT I had broke my pattern of thinking. I get anxiety in other ways too.. I'm still getting help, but that is to with keeping me able to keep working, I won't let this take over my life.

Best wishes and good luck to you!

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

u did the best choice

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

medication had many side effects

[Aamir147147]

The one important thing is that my symptoms change .... it never stays on one thing

[Hidden in reply to Aamir147147]

The same! It's almost like a rotation, a few days of this and then a few days of that before another new thing crops up. I was forever going to the Dr and over and over told nothing is wrong. One day he stood up to me and said that all of it was anxiety and I had to do anything I could do to get it under control. Two lots of therapy helped a lot, now I have a kind of a life coach to point me in the right direction.. It's hard work but it's worth it in the end. I still have bad days here and there and still notice body sensations, only I now just take them as the symptom of anxiety and try not to Google them and scare myself. It's the brain's misguided way of telling you something is wrong (just mental stress) and that you need to look after yourself.

[Jeff1943]

Aamir147147, I was hoping that your next post would report what positive steps you have taken to recover from your health anxiety.

I was disappointed that despite the extensive advice given to you by so many people in so many posts you once again only list your latest symptom and hope that someone will fix it for you.

As you know, you have health anxiety and have had many medical tests that found nothing physically wrong. So all the symptoms you have described are not real organic illnesses but fake symptoms caused by your over-sensitised nervous system.

You seem to think that by just listing your symptoms here you will recover and that others will do that for you.

I suggest to you that the time has come for you to take control of your own recovery and for you to decide on positive steps to bring this about. This involves concentrating firmly on the cause of your symptoms, which is anxiety, and pay less attention to the fake symptoms you constantly report.

Let me remind you of your options for taking control of your own recovery.

1. Medication - You are currently taking a medication that you say isn't helping. Why not swop it for a medication that will help? People often have to try several meds to find the one that works for them.

2. Therapy - If you are in a position to do so, you could benefit from face-to-face therapy with a psychiatrist or other mental health specialist.

3. Self-help study - several books have been recommended to you that many others have found extremely helpful leading to recovery with practice and persistance.

I look forward to hearing which of these options, or combination of them, you decide to use in your personal plan for recovery and of the progress you make in overcoming anxiety.

[Aamir147147 in reply to Jeff1943]

Jeff I am having sore throat on the left side with left ear pain .... I am so confused that these things make me fear as this symptom is an indication of serious issue ..😖

[Jeff1943 in reply to Aamir147147]

Aamir, this sounds like an ear and throat infection, nothing more, if it persists maybe see your doctor as a course of antibiotics may be called for. But I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, your immediate reaction that it is something serious is down to your anxiety. This will pass.

[Aamir147147]

I will indeed try to work on my anxiety I was almost fine for couple of weeks but this throat issue is making me thing about it constant