dd getting upset when swallowing food

[mammabelleboo]

I'm becoming anxious about my dd who is nearly 5. Last week we went out for lunch and she had her favourite, spag bol. Suddenly she started gagging and initially, I thought she was choking, so I went into automatic pilot, tipped her horizontal and gave her a few sharp pats between the shoulder blades. When I got her upright again she reached into her mouth and pulled out a long string of spaghetti - I think she had half swallowed it, half down her throat and half still in her mouth, the feeling of which freaked her out. She got really upset and since won't touch spag bol.

Since then when eating dinner, she has on several occasions suddenly burst into tears, spitting out her food saying that she can't swallow it . I've asked her what happens and she won't say anything other than "I can't swallow, it dosn't work and it makes me go like this" (then makes the sort of motion with her head that a chicken makes when it's strutting) - hard to explain, like she's trying to swallow.

This is really upsetting me - dh and I think it's a nervous reaction to what happened last week and she's thinking about swallowing - you know like when you think about swallowing a tablet and then it dosn't come naturally and you faulter a bit - do you know what I mean? But I've watched her and she can be quite happily eating then all of a sudden she bursts into tears. I'm so worried - she starts school on Friday and am hoping this dosn't happen when she's having lunch there as I won't be with her. We really think it's phsychological as it dosn't happen all the time - if she had a mechanical problem, surely it would happen more frequently. It also seems odd it's happened since the spag bol episode. How can I deal with it when it happens? Do I just be bright and breezy and say never mind and hope the phase passes quickly - what I want to do is ask her if she's thinking about swallowing or is scared to swallow which makes it happen - but I don't want to put those thoughts into her head and make her think about it everytime she lifts the spoon to her mouth. Help! Thanks for reading if you've got this far!

I don't know the answer to this but I have heard of it before. Hopefully, someone with experience will be along shortly but please don't panic too much - it can be dealt with - promise.

Bump

hi - i know this is long after your post but i was searching to see if anyone else has experienced this and hey presto i saw your post. my ds choked on some bread last week and ever since seems to struggle to swallow certain foods. i too think it's psychological. what was the outcome with your dd? we are inclined to play it down and hope that his anxiety passes but perhaps it's something more? any tips much appreciated.

Hi
On browsing mumsnet, I opened this as it reminded me of when we had problems with dd - I was surprised to see it was my original thread from all that time ago!

Sorry to hear you are having similar problems with your ds. Dd's eating is now 99.9 percent OK. Once we were happy that there was nothing physically wrong with her swallowing mechanism (this was obvious as she never actually choked,it was purely the thinking about it too much that was stopping the natural swallowing motion) we decided we had to restore her confidence in eating again. We did this by telling her that if she ever felt like she couldn't swallow properly that she should tickle her nose and that feeling would go. Of course, I was slightly concerned that by telling her this she would then be in the habit of tickling her nose everytime she ate, but the most important thing was to get her confidence back and to get her enjoying food again as she was beginning to not want to eat. We told the school and the dinner ladies did their bit in encouraging and helping her.

She started by tickling her nose at every meal - I noticed mostly with bulky things like sandwiches or meat, almost like she'd risked assessed the likelihood of choking and instigated the tickling to stop it. With soft things, she never tickled and was fine - reassuring us once again that there was nothing physically wrong.

Gradually the tickling reduced and then stopped. Only very, very, very occasionally do I see her tickle and I just ignore it and just ask her if she's OK. She never gets panicky anymore. So she obviously hasn't completely forgotten - but then my dd is very sensitive and has a memory like you woudln't believe and dosn't let things go as easily as some people might - it's just he way she is.

Once your ds's confidence is restored, I'm sure he'll be fine and forget - you just need to restore that confidence - the tickling nose worked for us, hopefully it could work for you! Good luck x