u/dntworrybby

I’ve had dysphagia since November 2025. It wasn’t severe and only affected me with certain foods like potatoes and bread. As recently as last week I could eat most things. All of a sudden on Saturday I wasn’t able to eat my chick fil a biscuit sandwich because my throat kept refusing to swallow the food and ever since then it’s become severe. Just 5 days later, today, I am unable to even have puréed squash soup without difficulties. It’s like the issue starts in my mouth, where the food doesn’t feel safe to swallow. My mouth and throat feel too small. I get extreme anxiety when I chew and I have to force the swallow. The only thing I can handle right now are thin liquids. I think it’s related to sinusitis, which I’ve had for a year now and causes a lot of mucus and post nasal drip. I sometimes struggle to swallow just my spit and I have to swallow a lot.

I’m literally starving, I haven’t eaten a full meal in 5 days, and I’m close to a mental breakdown. I had a blood and urine test the other day and there were ketones in my urine. And now I think I’ve developed food aversion because when I’m attempting to eat, I’ll get the choking sensation and suddenly my desire to eat goes away, even if I’m actively starving. I’m sitting here after giving up on my squash soup, shaking from hunger and exhaustion. Just feeling so so hopeless. I’m seeing my ent next week but I don’t know if I can handle another 5 days like this. I’m considering going to the ER. I could probably do an endoscopy at any point because I’m essentially fasting already.

I’ve had chronic gut issues my whole life, primarily ibs. Recently I’ve been having reflux too, which makes it very hard to swallow food. I’m currently in a flare of ibs diarrhea lasting 2 weeks, so in between that and the difficulty swallowing, I’ve barely been eating at all. I’ve been eating about 1000 calories a day. I can’t eat breakfast anymore because I get diarrhea, and I don’t usually eat much lunch anyways, sometimes not at all. Today I had some cucumbers and ranch, half a bag of nettle chips, a few bites of tuna salad. That’s it. Then for dinner just had a few bites of potato salad and a hot dog. I can’t eat meat much anymore, or bread or potatoes, because I choke on it, so I’m eating mostly vegetables and chips and stuff like that. Which is maybe a good thing. I actually had a coffee after work for the first time this week but I don’t know what’s gonna happen to my stomach because of that.

Because of these two issues (the difficulty swallowing and the ibs) I’ve basically lost interest in eating all together because it’s awful going down and awful coming out. I recently started omeprazole for the acid reflux but I’ve also been dealing with air hunger and other symptoms that I can’t tell whether they’re reflux or anxiety, which I also suffer from. I recently went back on Zoloft after not taking it for two years so hopefully I will start to feel better and my ibs will improve.