Heaving True

If I have the least bit of congestion in my head, it all comes out of my sinus cavities by going down the back of my throat. I rarely, even under the most intense flu symptoms or colds, have to blow my nose. Nearly all of it always goes down the back of my throat and rarely comes out the nose. Which, ironically, makes people think I'm not sick, because we have all been trained that a red, runny nose is the primarily indicator of sickness. In addition, every single time I swallow, I swallow air. This combination of large amounts of air bubbles in the digestive system and a near-constant intake of mucus from my nasal passages means that I wake up a bit nauseated and often am triggered to vomit or dry heave each morning.

Take this morning as an example. I got up and went to take my shower. My stomach was rumbly from the night of air swallowing (anyone who says you stop swallowing when you are asleep is outright wrong) and my congestion issues slowly get worse during the night. During the shower, where the hot water made my congestion issues start really flowing, I started to feel a bit worse in the stomach.

Sure enough, after I was done with the shower and was starting to dress, I felt it come on: a strong desire to throw up. Unfortunately, after a night's rest, there simply wasn't anything in my stomach, so I dry-heaved into the sink for many moments until the most recent amount of mucus (snot, really) came up. This completely wore me out and made me feel worse for wear as my first activity in the morning. Most mornings I have to limit my speaking because the sheer act of moving air to speak can cause the regurgitation response to start; my guess is that mucus is around or on the vocal cords and the moving air causes it to irritate and start the regurgitation process because my body thinks there is an obstruction there.

The air-swallowing issue is an additional problem. I think that my epiglottis is not properly closing the flap that connects the nasal passages with the throat, causing more stuff to go down than is supposed to. This is also, in my estimation, why I swallow air with every single swallow that I make; due to the flap not properly closing, a little bit of air is passed through the opening during the swallowing processes, and then gets sent to my stomach with the saliva, drink, or food that I'm eating.

In general, it takes about 30 minutes up to about two hours before I feel in control of my gag reflex enough to eat or drink something. Once I can eat or drink a little something, my stomach calms down and the gag reflex eases back into a controllable area. At this point, I can then take my medications or finish eating/drinking and have a fairly normal day. If I actually reach the point of vomiting or dry-heaving, however, it takes longer for me to get control and get going on my day.

I have talked with my doctor about this twice now. He pretty much completely ignored it the first time and the second time he felt that a nasal spray would solve the problem. I plan to make an appointment, press the issue, and insist on a referral to an ear/nose/throat specialist to help me with this problem, as the spray was completely and totally ineffective. I think I need a specialist to figure out why my congestion always goes down my throat, why I have so many bloody noses (a side issue that I don't think is related), and why I am swallowing so much air. In figuring this out, I feel, the doctor can do something that will ease these issues and help me have normal mornings again.

ADDENDUM:
I have an appointment with the doctor for April 2. I also asked the receptionist to take a note to the doctor reminding him that he promised to provide a referral at the last appointment if things didn't improve. Hopefully he wrote it in his notes or remembers, so we can skip this appointment and go straight to seeing the specialist and solving this problem. We'll see.