Can you swallow something down your windpipe?
Category:
medical health
lung and respiratory health
When you swallow food, liquid, or an object, what is swallowed passes from your mouth through your throat and esophagus into your stomach. Sometimes when you try to swallow, the swallowed substance "goes down the wrong way" and gets inhaled into your windpipe or lungs (aspirated).
Keeping this in view, what happens if food goes down your windpipe?
When somebody feels like something went down the wrong pipe, it usually means that it went into his or her trachea, a process known as aspiration. "In otherwise healthy people, the presence of foreign material in the airway is extremely uncomfortable and will stimulate immediate gag and coughing reflexes," says Kim.
One may also ask, how do you get something out of your windpipe?
Ways to remove food stuck in throat
- The 'Coca-Cola' trick. Research suggests that drinking a can of Coke, or another carbonated beverage, can help dislodge food stuck in the esophagus.
- Simethicone.
- Water.
- A moist piece of food.
- Alka-Seltzer or baking soda.
- Butter.
- Wait it out.
As part of the swallowing response, the upper esophageal sphincter relaxes and opens to allow the food to pass from the throat into the esophagus. Aspiration occurs whenever secretions, food or liquid goes down "the wrong pipe” and enters the airway or lungs. This often results in coughing or choking sensation.