How exactly do we choke on our own spit all of a sudden?
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Haha, I do this, too! I think that I go so long without talking, that as soon as I take a big inhalation to speak I inhale all the spit that has accumulated in my mouth. I need to be more mindful and make sure I swallow before jumping in to respond to people when they pop in and ask me questions. Do you think this is an introverted/isolated person problem?
The food things go through the breathy tube which works best if it’s slippery with drool.
Bad design, really.
The question should really be, how do we NOT choke on our own spit all of the time?
The act of swallowing is a very delicate, very well timed, highly choreographed sequence of muscle movements involving many different muscle groups.
Starting at the muscles in the front of your mouth, to the back of your tongue, to the upper throat, and so on … each of these segments has different muscles that have to act in precise harmony, the next section doing its thing at precisely the right moment after the prior section.
If any one of those segments isn’t timed perfectly, you might have stuff “go down the wrong pipe”.
Case in point: I had my uvula removed via surgery. This was supposed to aid in sleep apnea but it never helped.
Anyway, the removal of my uvula changes the entire throat structure just enough to make me “choke” more often than I used to. The muscles have to re-learn the proper dance steps in the proper order, and things have changed enough that it’s still practicing on getting it right.
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