Globus sensation -- lump in throat

[cathyf]

Anybody here have experience with globus sensation? 

Last summer I gave up on the cervical collar because it was giving me this feeling of something pressing on my throat, which made sleep impossible! The collar wasn't the only thing that I did to help with the positional clustering, and all of the other things from pillow arrangement to mask fit seem to be keeping the clustering more or less under control, so I made the decision to live with the occasional small cluster and gave up on the collar.

Now I realize that I've been having this feeling of something in my throat during the day that's been getting worse and worse for a couple of months now, and it's now all the time.

(Google "globus sensation" -- it's described as "maddening" and that's a great word for it. I KNOW that there's nothing there, but the irritation is constant!)

I have a history of goiter and thyroid nodules, although my goiter has basically been gone for a decade+ of treatment, and the nodules have been small enough not to biopsy since 2011. And I don't remember the constant feeling of strangulation from back then.

I have my regular appointment with the endocrinologist on Friday, so hopefully if it's a thyroid thing he can get to the bottom of it and fix it.

Several things have all happened at the same time. Basically over the same time frame I have a new AirSense11, and I have a new symptom of having very long obstructive apneas (like 45-60 seconds long!) many nights. Before the probe on my pulse-ox failed (for the third time! ) these long apneas were accompanied by short, deep desats. (Including a desat to 78% during a 53-second long apnea that is the lowest oxygen saturation that I've ever measured.) I can tell that I've been doing this even before I look at the data, because a single long apnea -- even if it was the only event all night -- has me waking up with vertigo, and nausea and headache lasting the whole day.

So anybody else out there have any experience where you were getting apneas from your thyroid choking off your windpipe? Or have experience with really long apneas?

I'm trying to figure out what is related to what, and what is just coincidence!

[sawinglogz]

Oof, sounds rough!

If you get an x-ray, have them look for an aberrant right subclavian artery. It's a "rare" (but not all that rare) congenital variation in which an artery develops behind the esophagus rather where it normally does. It's usually asymptomatic, but it can cause issues with swallowing, or at least the sensation of something in your throat.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32815461/

[cathyf]

Hmmm... That made me think of something else.

Back in 2009 when I first got diagnosed with the goiter, they did a radioactive imaging of my thyroid. The tech mentioned that my thyroid is significantly lower than the average. Not worrisome out of position, but more a "that's odd" individual variation.

I wonder if there's more weirdness to my anatomy there?