Do you all experience a sort of "pop" when swallowing? My mouth isn't very dry these days, but my throat is super dry.
I think it is the sound of my soft palate "clicking" as it closes off my nose during a swallow. Fun.
Styx
Doesn't sound like fun at all. :P
Yeah, it's not >:( Sometimes the involuntary noises coming out of my throat freaks me out.
Styx
Gee, I thought those noises are normal. I will have to ask doctor about it and add it to my running symptom list. To me it feels like my adams apple pops when I swallow and sometimes I get this squeky sound and feeling coming out of my throat. Kind of like bubbles pushing up my throat and is audible to other people. Noisy intestine is embarassing enough, but noisy throat is just plain weird!
Here are a couple of links I found during a web search:
http://www.healthboards.com/boards/bone-disorders/431604-clicking-throat-when-swallowing-gerd-symptom.html
Clicking in the Throat: Cinematic Fiction or Surgical Fact?
Smith et al.
Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg.2001; 127: 1129-1131.
Actually, I didn't find this article directly in that journal (I'm not a subscriber, so couldn't open it up) - but then I found a copy of this same article on some other site - in response to a question from a doctor who had seen a 25 yr old patient with these same swallowing complaints and was at a loss as to how to deal with it.
Here's a summary of some of what I found in the article.
First of all, the authors of the article said that although this was an unusual complaint - it should not be passed off as simply psychogenic. It's a very real problem. A group of doctors saw and treated 11 patients from UCLA and University of Utah who came to them with the clicking, popping in their throats when swallowing. Often there was also pain and/or dysphagia involved. About half the patients had a previous injury to their throat because of an accident, and a few had just had some type of surgical procedure. Wiith the others there was no apparent explanation for what might have instigated the problem..
The good news is that all cases were treated successfully with surgery! Before surgery each patient's neck was examined and palpated (and sometimes a CT scan) while they swallowed to determine the exact spot where the clicking was coming from. Apparently, in most cases it was caused by an elongated or posteriorly oriented superior cornu of the thyroid cartilage. If the clicking seemed to be coming from the anterior region, rather than the side, then they directed their attention to the overlapping structures in the thyrohyoid space... So, during surgery (under local or general anasthaesia) it was simply a matter of trimming off the thyroid cartilage or hyoid bone area that was the cause of the clicking.
http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Digestive-Disorders---Gastroenterology/Bone-Popping-in-Throat/show/232614:
Finally, my brother in-law, who is a physical therapist checked me out and thought that it was cartlige popping in and out. He had me take my thumb and the the knuckel of my index finger and move the cartlage in my throat back and forth, gently. I did this several times a day for quite a few months,but it finally went away. Sometimes it comes back I do the exercise a few days and it leaves.
Egad, surgery! I'll just keep on popping! I can imagine if it is accompanied by a lot of pain then surgery would be an option.