Issues with food sticking, pain in chest and blood pressure

[nick211]

I started having issues about 9 months ago - when I eat a full meal, I feel like my food is sticking in my throat and moving up and down, at times cutting off my air flow, causing me pain and making me feel light headed and very ill.

Then anywhere from 30-60 minutes after I eat my face and neck will feel tight and turn red and get hot and my heart beats super fast. After about 1-2 hours of this, most of the symptoms go away although I still feel somewhat ill.

Then when my stomach gets empty several hours later, and I'm hungry again, some of the same issues come back with me feeling light headed, my ears and face turning red and getting hot and feeling sick.

One time when I was feeling exceptionally ill, I went to the emergency room and my blood pressure had spiked to 210/180 when they checked me in, but by the time they brought me back, 4 hours after I arrived, they found nothing wrong and my blood pressure had dropped back to normal. They did find that my potassium level was extremely low, but that was about it.

I've also found that when the symptoms are the worse, that if I chug 1-2 bottles of water, that sometimes it will help lessen the systems. It won't make them go away, but at least I don't feel like I'm dying.  

I have had 2 separate endoscopic exams, 2 Colonoscopies, and I can't tell you how many blood tests. They've conducted ultra sounds on all of my digestive organs, run tests for H-pilorie, taken stool samples and basically done every test they can think of, including swallow tests and stomach dumping, etc. The only problem is that they only do these tests when I have  an empty stomach, so they're not looking at me under the same conditions when I have most of the trouble.

Needless to say every test has come back fine, including those for acid reflux and GERD and I am at the end of my rope. They've previously prescribed acid blockers, muscle relaxers, and pain killers for me, and nothing has made me feel any better.

My family wants me to look at perhaps muscle spasms in my throat and see someone about my blood pressure which temporarily spikes up and then is normal the rest of the time. I'm not sure, because would either muscle spasms or blood pressure make me feel like my food is sticking in my throat and cause my lightheadedness and red face and ears and a hot face?

Anything anyone can suggest would be greatly appreciated - I need help.

- Nick

[ed34]

I'm not trying to scare you, but I think I should share my experience which sounds very similar. In 2006 I found that every time I ate something I felt quite ill. I had trouble getting food to go down too, like it was stuck. I had to drink lots of water with my food. After a couple of months, I started to get bad stomach cramps after eating. I thought it was an Ulcer or something. If I drank cold water it seemed to ease it. Then another month passed and the pains became unbearable, but would only occur after eating and last for anywhere between 20 mins to an hour. I went to the hospital and they ran loads of tests. I'm surprised I had any blood left from the amount they took for tests. My EKG was fine, echo scan was fine, they couldn't find anything wrong. Mainly because the pains were gone by the time they investigated. They diagnosed (I think guessed) at a stomach virus and it would go away. I suffered with this until the summer months and for some reason the warmer air made the problem go away. When winter returned, so did my problems. I was referred to the hospital by my Doctor to have a camera down my throat, something I was dreading. Within 2 mins of talking to the consultant he said it was nothing to do with my gut, it was my heart. The introduction of food, kicked in digestion, putting more stress on the heart. I was booked to see a cardiologist. Three days before my appointment I had three attacks of MI and had to have emergency stenting. No EKG or echo scan ever picked up my problem, but all my arteries looked a mess. After a stent was put into the blockage causing the MI, even though there were serious problems with my other arteries, even nuclear scans were coming up with fantastic results. The only test which revealed my problem was the angiogram, actually getting inside the arteries for observation. The Cardiologist said "Ive learned from your case because if I had gone by your test results and never seen your angiogram, you would have been signed off as having no cardiac issues".
Also, if your pottassium is very low, they should be monitoring this. Low pot can cause issues with the heart because it's an important electrolyte for the electrical conductivity across the heart. Just eat a couple of bananas a day for a week and it will raise to normal if it's your diet that's causing the problem.