I take pictures of my food and blog about it. It makes DH laugh a lot, but it really keeps me accountable and gives me a place to store recipes and stuff.
I even took pictures of all the food I ate in New Orleans

Hey Amanda, it was really scary. The doctor started ticking off stuff on his fingers, the third tick was "cancer." Eeep! I ended up getting an upper GI exam, which found nothing (drink the barium, they take xrays of everything going down). I was scheduled for an...um, the thing where the scope goes down your throat where you have to be semi-sedated and get a ride home.

While they were prepping for that second test, they did some tests and found out I had...mono! Turns out the mono made my throat swell, which made swallowing difficult. Mono takes about 8 weeks to clear up (and they couldn't tell me where I was in the 8 week duration). The swallowing problems slowly disappeared. (I never did get the scope test). I was pretty lucky, except for some tiredness (and I didn't feel so tired I couldn't function) I was spared the rest of the terrible mono symptoms, I would never have known I had it.

I did a lot of research into it. Some of the other possibilities were:

1. Gastric reflux -which would burn the esophagus and damage it. I tried Tums and cutting back on diet soda
2. A stricture of the esophagus, it just gets narrow and needs to be gently widened, out patient procedure

I think Barbara had a swallowing difficulty and she ended up having to have her esophagus gently widened which fixed her problem (sorry if I am misremembering Barbara). I found out later that my step father also had to have this procedure (it must be more common than we think??)

Sorry for the derail! I just know what it's like to have to have the water ON HAND.

I did something really weird this afternoon. I felt like a kid in a very weird candy store (I guess two weird candy stores, actually). We did our first paycheck of the month shopping trip - which is to an overstock store (like a private Big Lots) and picked up anything that was on our list, or could substitute for items on our list (you've got to stop these shores with an open mind). We were lucky that they'd just received their big gourmet and health food shipment yesterday so we picked up whole wheat pasta, cans of whole water chestnuts, no salt added green beans, and diced beets (they got a HUGE beet shipment in about a month ago, and it looks like I'm the only one buying them sliced, diced, and even pickled), and a few unexpected finds (some protein and whole grain breakfast bars, and some flavored almonds all in individual bags). We got about $200 to $400 worth of groceries for $40. I can't really say that exactly, because I would never pay the health food store price, so in my mind, we got maybe $80 worth of groceries.

If that wasn't exciting enough, we went to the oriental grocery nearby, and I only needed gourmet soy sauce (I love buying soy sauce in small oriental groceries, you get a quart or more of gourmet soy sauce for the same price as a 12oz bottle of Kikkoman's - not that there's anything wrong with Kikkoman's). I bought green onions and cilantro while I was there, but an aisle caught my eye that hadn't before. They had a whole aisle of canned fish, and since I've been watching carbs, I've been eating sardines as a snack, especially if I can find them canned in liquids other than oil. Tomato paste, water and mustard are the only varieties I've found in the large grocery chains, but the oriental grocery had six or more flavors in just one brand. Three different curries, tomato sauce, and chili paste.

My husband thought I had flipped my lid that I was so excited over canned sardines. They even had smoked eek, which I LOVE (but I didn't buy, because I'd already picked out the sardines, besides it's often packed in a sweetened soy sauce that can be full of sugar).

I hope the ones I picked are good, because if they are, I'll be stocking up next time. At about a dollar a can, the price isn't too bad, either.

I should probably go to a doctor, huh?

ETA: I know it isn't mono, I had that already almost 8 years ago...and the problem is newer...

Yeah, I would definitely go. There's a chance it could be one of the easy to fix things - like gastric reflux or a stricture! It was a very scary time when I felt afraid to swallow, I remember asking my boyfriend "what if they can't fix me?" I dreaded having to live with it!

OH

If you get the stupid barium test, let me just warn you what they did NOT warn me. Okay, I'm an idiot. I drink two big ole cups of radioactive barium AND some carbon dioxide to bubble my stomach (you know, make it big so they can see). I get done and the techs and everybody just say "buh bye!" I say "I'm going to work!" and they smile and say "buh bye!" and I skip out singing "la la la la I drank two cups of barium and now I'm going to work!"

Jason had driven me and we ended going to the Original Pancake House for pancakes since I couldn't eat before the procedure. Then, I was going to run home to pick something up before heading to work ( I had told my boss I was going to take a half day). I get about two stoplights from the house and WOW extreme bathroom urgency!

I barely made it to the home and to the bathroom. I will spare you the extent of the gruesome details, but let me just say it was a very MEMORABLE bathroom visit - and STARK WHITE due to the barium (apologies for any delicate readers but DAMN).

So, I'm shaking and trembly and go sit down for a minute thinking I would feel better soon. NOPE! After the second episode, I called my boss and let him know I was feeling "indisposed." I look online and guess what a potential side effect of the procedure is? Constipation or the opposite!

I think it would have been NICE of the doctors to have WARNED me I wouldn't want to be 3 feet from a bathroom the rest of the day.

Mandalinn,
FYI my hubby suffered from this too, his was an acid reflux problem, food would get stuck daily & he would gag it got so bad, he had to drink a ton too wash things down. He was so miserable, he had ortho surgery a few years ago and it is way better now.
His surgery was called a Nissen Fundoplication, if you google it, maybe your symptoms are similar to his, it certainly sounds like the same misery as his was.

On any given day, there is more food than anything else in my purse. Today's emergency stash included: herbal tea, "Tide Me Over" drink pouch, raw sugar snap peas, Balance bar, and light string cheese.

Othere purse regulars: baby carrots, Fiber One (in a baggie), South Beach bars, cocoa roast almonds, walnuts, raw green beans, raw colored peppers, clementine, banana, hard boiled egg.

I have been known to pull out food at the strangest times.

Maybe I need to try them! Never heard of eating Green Beans Raw. Love them cooked though!

Hmmmmm, honestly the strangest thing I carry with me is a bottle of water. Not too strange at all folks, its pretty normal to stay hydrated!

Amanda, yeah, I too think you should check it out with a doctor.

Glory, dried mango is just like candy or should I say cocaine to me. I can NOT eat that moderately. MAN is that stuff good.

Mel, dried green beans? Oh I gotta look for these.

Megan, I you said something that rang out to me. That your friends think you are a picky eater. Yup, mine too. They just don't GET me. They think I'm being, well - picky. At a restaurant, I really question the waiter about what's in the food. How much oil/fat and stuff. They also see me at times completely refraining from ANYTHING that is remotely high calorie and they just don't - GET me.

Countingdown, I also keep Fiber One in a little baggie with me. Oh the faces I get about THAT one. I'll never forget when Megan once stated, sorry if I don't remember it exactly "Why does it have to look like rabbit food? Why oh why couldn't they have made it a flake?. Certainly would have elminated lots of comments on it.

I did say that once! Maybe one day I'll make Fiber One-like cereal that looks like lucky charms. I'll be rich!

Amanda, definitely check it out. Could be a liver problem, could be that your mono has reactivated, just really hard to know. Sometimes a drug can cause it. I once had this happen because of tetracycline I was taking, and I can't take tetracycline any more as a result.

Jay

I was just thinking about this. If people think what I do now is a bit, ummm, "odd", imagine what they would think of what I was doing BEFORE I started doing all this. Now that WAS bizarre.

I know what you mean about lists. If I try to go to the store with just a straight list, I'll miss 3-5 items. This may seem over the top, but I organize my list by the way the store is set up. I've been going there since I was around 6, so I even know what order the vegetables are in.

I don't usually snack, so I only carry sugar free peppermint gum for sudden cravings for junk food.

Amanda and Glory~my Mom had a swallowing problem also and after her upper GI they determined she had an esophageal ulcer probably due to meds not getting all the way down when she took them (note to self, always drink plenty of water when taking any meds). Anyway, she was put on Prilosec (I think) and within a couple of days she stopped having the difficulty swallowing.