Small Food particles stuck in back of Throat

[DennisO]

I have had a problem for years.. I get mall particles of food that gets stuck in the back of my throat somewhere around the nasal passage area.  These are small particle of hard food like a part of a peanut shards after being chewed up.. or really small pills like 10mg lipitor (I don't know how many of the liptors have literally dissolved back there instead of my stomach)  Almost every night I have something stuck there it causes my sinus to swell in the during sleep and can sometimes get painful if it does not get dislodge.

Sometimes I can dislodge it by rattle my sinus on that side. (“snuffing in” which  drive my wife crazy)

I have seen a ENT and they find nothing. They did a Barium Swallow and gave be a "horse" pill.  It showed nothing…. But the problem is the small stuff.

This seems to be out of the ordinary and the Doctors don't have a clue. I even asked a pharmacist and he said he had never heard of people having problems with little pills only big pills..

Help.. if you have a similar problem and found someone that could help you I would appreciate the details..

[BorisU]

I've been suffering through something similar to what many of you have been describing and in my case, thanks to my Mom, I found that the culprit is a pharyngitis.

This has been happening to me for almost 3 weeks now, waking up with an extremely sore throat. About 4 days ago I was using some nose drops when something fell out of my mouth and half of my throat suddenly went back to normal. After I talked to my mom she immediately said it was pharyngitis.

I initially couldn't see anything in my throat but then I took a flashlight and really had to look deep in there and I found a small white dot.

So I just wanted to let people know that the symptoms for food trapped and pharyngitis are almost the same. For the last few days I really thought I had something stuck in my throat...turned out I'm sick without a fever

[JD95]

Hi Everyone,

-This is an old thread, but a lot of us seem to be suffering.

-Some of us seem to have the particles stuck "above" our mouths, in the sinuses. While some seem to have it stuck "lower" in the throat. I am one of the latter. It almost feels like I should be able to get to it, but it seems to be just out of reach. I can't see anything and I tried to feel around with my finger, gagging the whole time, but can't find anything. I improvised a homemade water pick by punching a small hole in the top of a water bottle. Again, it doesn't seem to do anything and gags me as I spray water forcefully in the back of my throat.

-In the scheme of things I know it's a small thing, but all I can do is focus on this and it even gets in the way of my sleep. It is so depressing that I have even had suicidal thoughts. So, while I acknowledge this is a small thing compared to someone in real pain, imagine having sand in your eye or a pebble in your shoe that you could never get out. Small things like this can compound upon themselves and turn into something big.

--I am 37 years old and this really was never a problem with me. Of course, on occasion things like this would happen, but now it's been happening for the past few days and its really terrible. I have been sick with a strep throat for about a week, so I am sure my throat is inflamed and that is causing this. I have no medical coverage, but even if I did it seems like doctors are pretty useless here. Unless the can somehow scrape your throat clean I don't see anything they can do and that is depressing as well.

I have tried various things posted here but nothing seems to do anything.

Sorry for the rambling, I am just very upset and have no one to talk to. :(

[Ok94cupid]

Hello I'm 22 years old and I'm suffering from choking phobia for a year after a choking incident. It's getting over my life and recently I started feeling food stuck behind my palates :(. Have you been treated yet ?

[denise831816]

I have the same problem - I think it's in part caused by mild acid reflux and maybe in part by allergies, and the one way that I've found to help is (because the food stuck in my mucus is worst overnight) #1 - not eating too late and #2 - drinking a lot of water in the hours before bed. The water REALLY helps, but it needs to be at least 2 glasses for me. It washes everything down, and I get a better sleep.

I have allergies and sinus issues, so I'm not sure this will go away.

I am glad that I'm not the only one who has it! The food particles hasn't been happening more than a few months I think, but I always tend to have a lot of mucus.

[freeman248]

Great Post.  I tried the breathing exercises and managed to clear the sinus pretty good!  

What I have found that seems to help quite a bit is taking a mouthful of clean water and then swishing it around between my teeth and in the back of my mouth/throat area while hanging my head UPSIDE DOWN!  (In a chair or touch your toes)This seems to rinse out the pocket that catches the food and my sinus and eustachen tube as well.  Gravity helps get the water where it needs to go.  You can use a saline rinse - 1 teaspoon to 1 cup clean water or just clean water.  Spit out the goo.

[Astromarmot]

I too suffer from this condition, I've traditionally had some sinus issues, but it only become evident about a year or so ago that some of it can affirmatively be attributed to these particles of food getting "stuck" somewhere behind my soft palate or the lower part of my sinus cavity.  I discovered at a relatively early age that I could coax out the tonsil stones with my tongue and relieve myself of those foul things, but this isn't stones, or at least not stones in the way I've had stones for decades.   My first experience with this was eating spicy pork rinds that basically explode into tiny shards of fried fat.  I had the worst sinus pain and eventual infection.  
I've tried the netti pot, gargling with salt water, H2O2, and even swabbing.  No relief other than the constant focus of removing the ultra-dense stringy mucus that forms once I get "stuck"  Eventually it seems that the mucus does its job and captures the offending particle(s) and when I clear a wad of it that has the particle in it, I experience nearly instant relief.  I would really like to find some treatment or effective measure to prevent or at least speed up the process for clearing these things.  I'm over 40, so I don't know if it's an age thing or why this only started later in life.  It's very frustrating.

[wetpancake]

Hey man,

Try neilmed sinus rinse. You can purchase this at Walmart or Walgreens.
I've had a similar problem and the sinus rinse really works.