What is actually happening when you drink something and it get’s “caught” in your chest/throat and it’s really painful?
In: Biology
So the muscles in your esophagus push food and drink to the stomach by contracting and relaxing in “waves”. Think of trying to push a small piece of food through a drinking straw: you can squeeze the straw just behind it, and it’ll move forward a bit. Then move your fingers forward a little bit and squeeze again. Eventually you can push it all the way through.
The muscles in your esophagus do that over and over again, but instead of squeezing one spot, it’s squeezing lots of places all at once, and there are “pouches” of loose spots between the squeezy spots; the food rides down in each of these “pouches” as the squeezy spot behind it pushes forward.
Sometimes, a piece of food or drink can get stuck in a squeezy spot. Then the esophagus muscle tries to squeeze to push it down but since there’s something in the way, it HURTS, like any strained muscle. Sometimes the food can stay stuck with that squeezy spot, and it’ll hurt all the way down to your stomach.
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