Slice of Chaotic Life

I have the more acute throat thing again that I have from time to time, where it feels like there is some kind of particles on my vocal cords that I just can’t get off. I cough and harrumph, I drink water and yogurt, but I can still feel it, as if I had inhaled some kind of coarse powder and it settled on my vocal cords. In some extreme cases in the past, my vocal cords reacted by locking up completely so I could not breathe in or out for about half a minute. Those were among the most scary moments in my life. Usually that happens right at the onset, though. Obviously they unlocked each time, or I would not be here to write about it.  But will that happen every time?

This is episodic, not chronic like the soreness when I speak more than a few paragraphs in one day. But it is the same part of the body, so the specialist should have noticed if there were any irregularities of the vocal cords when I was there a couple years ago. They looked OK, he said, except for being red. No polyps or other deformities. So it is probably not related to that. But I have no idea what it is. This time it came shortly after eating my favorite ice cream. I have never had any allergic reactions to it, and I doubt allergy would give these symptoms anyway. Even so, the episodes are so bad, I tend to never again eat whatever it was I ate shortly before they happen. That’s a fairly long list now, since these episodes have been scattered across several years.