When someone drinks a liquid and immediately starts coughing/choking and does so for a few seconds, what is actually happening inside the body to cause the physiological response? I always heard people say the liquid "went down the wrong tube/pipe".
To add to Sarah Reyes's excellent answer, there is a valve-like thing at the top of both tubes at the back of our mouths (the epiglottis) which is located behind /below and beyond our uvula. The uvula is that punching-bag shaped thing that moves when we say AHHHH at the doctor's office so the doctor can look at the back of our throats when we have a physical examination performed by our internist or ENT.The valve is located above the larynx. It opens and closes so we can breathe or eat, but not both at the same time. That is why we sometimes choke: the valve doesn't close all the way and the bolus (the thing we are swallowing, be it saliva, water or food) goes down the wrong 'pipe' -- just as Sarah said.One example: people who have tracheostomies breathe through their trachea (air tube) and not through their nose or mouth. Their swallowing mechanisms are affected by the tracheostomy tube and they are at a greater risk for aspiration because the trach tube changes the angle of Os, and swallowing becomes something more difficult to accomplish.The need to breathe is greater than the need to swallow, and the airway needs to be protected. People with tracheotomies carry suction machines or have them handy so that they can clear the airway in the event of aspiration (aspiration is defined as inhaling into the trachea any solid or liquid thing, including saliva). Aspiration of non-sterile matter creates risk of infection, and aspiration pneumonia is a dangerous and common occurrence among people with trachs.People who have trouble swallowing pills intuitively understand this: when they place their heads in certain positions, it makes the pill easier to swallow and they minimize with their postural changes the possibility of choking on the pills.So when someone without a tracheostomy is drinking or eating and immediately starts coughing or choking and does so for a few seconds, the cough is clearing the airway (without using a suction machine to vacuum the contents out of the airway). Instead, the cough forces out the contents of the airway with a rush of powerful air flowing out of the lungs and hopefully out of the airway. Often whatever was there ends up in the mouth, and is then swallowed or spit out.
Why does my bearded dragon seem to be gasping for air/choking?
Spraying with water to hydrate is just stupid. It stresses them out a bit and barely hydrates them at all. Best way to hydrate is to give them a 10-15 minute soak in 90-100 degree Fahrenheit water, halfway up their belly. To the gasping/choking... apparently people didn't read your question properly. Gaping is when they get hot enough and want to cool off a little by holding their mouth open. Almost like a dog panting. What you described though isn't gaping. What's the humidity in your dragon's tank? It might be a respiratory infection. Or it could be trying to loosen a shed on the beard by puffing it out slightly. My girl Blaze did the same thing when she was shedding it... Here's the video I made of her doing it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JUWCAcQU...
Why do I wake up gasping for breath?
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and its like I,ve forgotton how to breathe! I have to force myself to draw in breath, or cough or something.It's quite a scary thing at the time.
What is the best thing to do when someone chokes on water?
To complement Liang-Hai's excellent answer... if they begin to recover (if they're coughing and gasping but breathing), do not pound them on the back, and especially do not attempt a Heimlich manouver; doing so may provoke them to vomit, which will make the problem much worse in a big hurry. Leave them alone physically and encourage them to breathe slowly and as deeply as they can as they expel the last of the water from their throat. The head-down face-down position is important, even if the head is only hung between the knees, permitting any water collected in their throat to drain out the mouth. You absolutely do not want their larynx to spasm shut in response to water intrusion.Expect full recovery to take quite some time, possibly as long as several hours if they were swimming when this happened and they were badly weakened by the event.
Why does my infant gasp for air sometimes and why did milk come out her nose?
This is normal.....she is still learning how to breath and she also does this in her sleep as well. It's nothing to really worry about but if it will make you feel better call the pediatrician and talk with a nurse and as for the milk through the nose thing. It's also normal both my girls did it. But if it is a continual thing talk to your pediatrician. Hope this helps....
Baby 3 months and 9 days old with a cough?
that's what i thoought too that it was for rehydrating i did call them back and they said to give him pedilyte. i did gi8ve him a tiny bit of infant drops of robatussim and that seemed to calm the cough down! i have tryed the vaporizer and that didn't do much, the steam in the shower works to get the mucus out his nose and belive it or not he likes it he laughs :)
What happens when water goes "down the wrong pipe"?
In a mild case, you’d start coughing which is the most effective way of getting the water out of the esophogus (the wrong pipe). In more severe cases, water gets stuck where it won’t seem to get out. You can’t even get a deep enough breath to cough.I’ve had clients who’ve gotten to this point. Trying to initiate coughing is essential. Raising the hands above the head helps. The heimlich may help.It happened to me once while driving. My passenger was terrified. As I’ve had training, I simply pulled the car over, forced myself to take a deep breath, managed to get air in the lungs and was able to cough it up. Taking the breath in is very hard to do. I assume that many people wouldn’t be able to do it.
What is your “when my child had croup symptoms” story?
My middle daughter had bronchitis that developed into pneumonia when she was about 6 months old.I still remember vividly (it has been 28 years) the night she first got sick. She had been fine, but when I picked her up from grandma's that afternoon, she was sounding a little wheezy and congested. It got worse as the night wore on. I sat in our tiny bathroom with her for what seemed like hours, with the shower going full blast, because the steam helped her breathing and loosened her cough.We took her to her pediatrician first thing the next morning, and he diagnosed her with bronchitis. He sent us home with a cough medicine and amoxicillin.She didn't seem to improve much over the next couple of days, so we went back to the pediatrician, and he told us it had progressed into pneumonia. I was terrified. But once again, he sent us home with a different cough medicine (this one with hydrocodone) and more amoxicillin.He told me to keep a close eye on her because the cough medicine would make her sleepy. Boy, was he wrong! That cough medicine had her bouncing off the walls!We didn't have a rocking chair, and the only thing that would soothe her at night was if I sat on the edge of our bed holding her, while gently bouncing up and down and singing to her. I must have sang every song that I ever knew the words to.Thankfully, within just a few days, she started to recover and bounced back like she had never been sick.But it was a terrifying few days for her dad and me.Thanks for the A2A, Elizabeth Quatro.