Constant Mucus and Throat clearing!

[christine25]

chemical toxicity is what caused my contsant mucus in my throat.
I was exposed to a mineral supplement that contained lithium and arsenic iodine and other trace minerals or colloidal metal mixture, its toxic stuff, at least it was to me.

I had developed thyroiditis too as a result, both the mucus and thryoid problem happened around the same time.

im only 25 and have been dealing with this for 2 years now.

I get thick sticky mucus, or Post nasal drip after eating drinking, exercising, putting on makeup or perfumes, anthing that stimulates my body. The mucus isnt so much a problem as is the pain that goes along with it.

If I dont hack up the phlegm I get facial swelling and pain in my face, jaw and cheeks and sometimes hands feet and eyes.

The headaches come on about 20 min after I eat and my jaw really hurts and cracks and the mucus starts flowing.

Its depressing and makes me feel less attractive.

I have tried many diets and pills and sprays and supplements.
I think that avoiding gluten and dairy helps a little bit.

Im still trying to find relief for myself, maybe there are some sort of emzymes I can take or somthing....

DOes anyone else have JAW pain or facial swelling, headaches with their mucus? Id really like to know.

I have already been evaluted for TMJ, hasnt helped.

[aswander]

Christine,

Constant throat clearing and mucous is a horrible troublesome condition. Like you, I developed this after a toxic exposure (in my case, it was to exhaust fumes backdrafting from my my furnace after I moved into an old house). Like you, the throat problems were coupled with the development of thyroid problems (Beginning Graves/multi-nodular thyroid - I have to watch it and make sure it doesn't turn into a goiter)

This happened when I was 28, 3 1/2 years ago.

Well, it took over 6 months for me to find a diagnosis for the counstant throat clearing - and I actually had an Environmental Health doctor at Yale send me to his colleague who is an ENT at Yale. She diagnosed me with a condition called "laryngeal pharyngeal reflux" or "LPR". No doctor has ever been able to prove how I developed the LPR when I was previously healthy, but I know that whenever I was in that house on the 1st floor above the basement area, I would have horrendous coughing fits that would go away if I went outside or up to the 2nd floor. Apparently, the toxic exhaust would relax my esophageal spinchters and allow acid to flow into my esophogous and up my throat. After 3 months of this, I believe that my esophogeal spinchters became permanently weakened and all of a sudden I couldn't stop couging and throat clearing no matter where I was - and it was constant all the time.

You may have heard of GERD before. GERD is the best-known form of acid reflux. It stands for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. The big symptom that everyone has heard of is heartburn. Heartburn is simply acid flowing upwards from your stomach into the esophogous because the lower esophageal spinchter muscle isn't working properly and doing it's job.

Well there is a 2nd form of acid reflux called "LPR", which is laryngeal pharyngeal reflux. Most LPR patients don't get heartburn - instead they complain of 1 or more of the following "chronic throat clearing", "constant cough", sinusistis-like symptoms, "lump-in-throat" sensation". And 90% of LPR patients don't have any heartburn. Doctors aren't exactly sure how the acid gets all the way into the throat - it's thought that maybe it goes up the esophous too quickly to cause damage there, then exits the esophogous via the upper esophageal spinchter muscle and into the throat. But once it's in the throat, you get the horrible throat symptoms. Mostly because the larynx itself is in the throat and has no natural protection against acid. So the larynx swells up and becomes candy-apple red. The mucous in your throat then begins spreading the acid throughout your sinuses, causing weird irritations, erosions, sometimes high levels of sensitivity to smells, etc. For some people a little acid can even get aspirated into the lungs from the throat and mimic asthma.

Treatment is simple. It's 2 doses of a PPI a day. A PPI is a proton-pump inhibitor. One ion of acid is just a naked Hydrogen ion - a proton. So PPIs work by decreasing the amount of acid that you produce, lowering concentration. This way, less acid gets out of your stomach and into your throat. They are very effective.

There are 4 Prescription PPIs available under the brand names: Nexium, Aciphex, Prevacid and Protonix. Nexium is the "latest and greatest to market". I've been on it 3.5 years every since it came out and I have done great. 95-99% of my symptoms on any given day are gone. But I have to take it every day.

Most doctors have never heard of LPR. The ones that do are typically ENTs at large university hospitals in metropolitan areas. However, knowing what you know now about LPR, you can still have local ENT test you. Because the diagnsotic procedure is the same.

You go to an ENT and inhale a numbing spray into your nose. The ENT then gently slides a thin wire with a miniature camera at the end up your nose and into your throat. The camera provides a video of your larynx and you see it on a monitor. If the larynx is red and swollen - then the doctor will go "AHA! Acid Reflux". It's just that most doctors don't know how LPR differs from GERD, and often don't know to prescribe 2 pills a day instead of one.

This is important! If you have LPR (red, swollen laryx), you MUST take 2 doses of a PPI a day. 1 will simply not work.

If the nexium doesn't work, go onto the next drug. I'd give each drug at least a week to work. I was one of the luck ones. After 6 months of PPI treatment at the 1 a day level, I still had every symptom. When the Yale doctor put me on 2 pills a day, the symptoms disappeared within 30 minutes of the double dose.

Also, either your PCP or ENT should be able to give you some free samples of NExium to get you started - the drug reps always give them loads of free samples. Don't hesitate to ask. Also, doctors get cozy with certain drug reps and will sometimes recommend whatever drug their favorite rep (ie: rep who's taking them to more golf games) is pushing. Demand Nexium, regardless of their opionion. Don't waste any more time. I want to see you feeling better!

I don't know where you live - but the doctors familiar with LPR that I have seen are Dr. Eugenia Vining in New Haven, CT (with Yale) and Dr. David Katzka (Gastroenterologist, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia)

But you might as well go to a local ENT first and at least have them scope your throat. Just demand 2 pills a day if you indeed have a red and swollen laryx.

[aswander]

I almost forgot - you can find lots of other people with LPR at the GERD message board. We don't have our own board and have to share it with the heartburn crowd - but you'll find that most people there have some form of LPR.

[christine25]

wow. thank you hon!!
I hope you are right that nexuim will help. Its actually somthing I havent tried yet. And I happen to have some samples in my medicine cabinet!
I can totally go and get scoped from my ENT and if it works take it every day.

So you had thyroid problems too? How is your thyroid now, has it recovered?
I hope so.

I truly believe in environmental toxicity induces a lot of problems, did you get out of that basement I hope!!!

When I took the supplement it came in liquid form, I swallowed it and it burnt my mouth and throat really bad on the way down, and I got the most herrendous metallic taste in my mouth like poison, nothing ive ever tasted before.

My neck swelled up started getting tired after that and had hasmotos and constant mucus.

No one has ever thought of treating me with Nexium beofre and I had dismissed thoughts about reflux because I dont have heart burn. But I do hiccup and burp somtimes if I eat too fast.

Im so glad I found you here, thanks for resonding, I hope your right.

I will ask my doctor to scope me and about it.

Im in Columbus, OH.

Thats great that you got to see an ENT from Yale, im sure there the best in the country.,,,, ohh and where can I find an environmental helath doctor.

I have to try the nexium, are there any other foods I should avoid, and also do you still have any symptoms....

sorry for asking so many questions, im just excited!

Christina

[aswander]

Hi Christine,

You asked: "So you had thyroid problems too? How is your thyroid now, has it recovered?"

I haven't recovered from the thyroid problem and don't think I will. I've been told that enlarged thyroids don't get smaller on their own. I've had no physical symptoms yet (it was discovered by manual palpitation, and then confirmed with ultrasound), but they could come on any day due to the amount of enlargement.

The LPR and the thyroid developed simultaneously, which might be a coincidence, but I just can't believe it given what I was going through. I can tell you that the exhaust exposure caused me a lot of stress, because I could smell it, and I knew it was making me cough, so I was totally panicked because I couldn't escape it - it was my house. Stress coupled with sickness can just lead to even more sickness. And obviously the stress weakened my immune system somehow.

It took 6 months to fix the damn furnace. I can't tell you how many people I had come to the house to look at it and tell me there was nothing wrong. As it turned out, the backdrafting was intermittant, and only occured after the furnace turned on (which is just ever 20 minutes or so). So if the person isn't there at that exact moment, they weren't able to detect the exhaust.

Finally someone figured it out and we installed a special fan on the furnace, then moved the hell out of that house -too many horrible memories. Found another wonderful house that is comfortable to live. in.


You said "When I took the supplement it came in liquid form, I swallowed it and it burnt my mouth and throat really bad on the way down, and I got the most herrendous metallic taste in my mouth like poison, nothing ive ever tasted before." I'm really sorry this happened to you. I fully believe that there are a lot of really dangerous things out there that are supposedly "safe" and really aren't.

Many doctors believe that stress has something to do with GERD, if not LPR for sure. Apparently, stress can contribute to the weakening of the esophageal spinchters. If this is the case, perhaps your body had an immune reaction to the supplement, and in addition to developing the Hashimotos, maybe it also weakened the spinchters, or possibly caused the larynx to begin expressing acid.

My question for you is - is it possible that the mucus and coughing is separate from the hashimotos? Are mucus and clearing/coughing ever associated with Hashimotos?

You said "No one has ever thought of treating me with Nexium beofre and I had dismissed thoughts about reflux because I dont have heart burn. But I do hiccup and burp somtimes if I eat too fast.". Why would anyone associate what you have with acid reflux? Most people (and rightfully so) think "heartburn" when they think of reflux. And even most doctors haven't heard of larygeal reflux. I don't have heartburn, and I have acid reflux.


You said "Thats great that you got to see an ENT from Yale, im sure there the best in the country.,,,, ohh and where can I find an environmental helath doctor". It wasn't easy at all to find a doctor who could help me. I saw what I thought were "the best of the best" many times and they had no clue. From those experiences, I learned that young doctors are morons. They don't have enough experience, and they also don't get enough experience in their internships treating very basic conditions. The only doctors I found that helped me and could identify the problem were highly experiened doctors at university hospitals in major metropolitan areas.

I haven't seen an environmental health doctor since that time because there is nothing they can do to help. The reason I saw one to begin with is that the reflux was making me horribly sensitive to all smells, and it was so maddening. But I got lucky in that the environmental health doctor at yale could kind of recognize the symptoms of reflux and refer me on to his colleague.

If you feel that you need to find an environmental health doctor, you should look to the "American Academy of Environmental Medicine". They should be able to give you a referral or a list of doctors in your area.

However, I'd recommend seeing the ENT first. You might want to consider going to a very experienced physician at Ohio State Universtiy Medical Center's Otolaryngology department.

If you do have LPR and the medicine works but you have breakthrough coughing (which almost everybody does, but at a manageable level) you can try diet modification. But the trigger foods are different in many people. The worst for me are any kind of carbonated beverage, fatty meats, anything fried, and most chocolate.

But I have terrible willpower and will frequently indulge in the above, just in very small portions.

General small portions (in meals) is another way I control the LPR.

Do you ever feel like there is something stuck in your throat? It's another symptom of LPR that not everybody gets.

Usually people either have the "lump/stuck in throat feeling" OR the coughing/clearing/sore throat. Sometimes people have both but not all.