Issue swallowing without water
I noticed an issue with my swallowing back a few months ago in april when i was house sitting at my friends house alone where it seemed like i was unable to eat like i used to. it seemed like it took effort to swallow and i would get full very quickly and the last bites of food i had to force myself to swallow it and it would take a long time to finish it and a lot of times i couldn’t even finish my meals. i thought maybe it was just anxiety about being alone and that i was afraid of choking alone with nobody to help me, but then when i got home i noticed i still had this issue. i wasn’t eating much at the time, i was only eating maybe 1-2 meals a day and i had been like this for a while and the lack of eating initially began when my cat got sick and i diverted all my attention to her and stopped caring about my own health. she then passed away which caused extreme depression so i just didn’t want to eat in general, and this was in december so after about 4 months of barely eating i had began to notice issues with me eating. i used to be able to eat those 1-2 meals a day perfectly fine but then it got to where we are at in april, with those meals becoming an issue too. i tried to just ignore the swallowing issue and passed it off as anxiety still and just began eating my leftovers later so id still get two meals in instead of throwing it away. in the middle of may, i decided to check the scale and i realized i had lost about 25 pounds, and i only weighed 104 lbs despite being 5’9. i then began to stress about being severely underweight so i tried to start eating more and just phsyically couldn’t so i switched to drinking smoothies very often to force calories in until i could get my appetite back up, because at this point it was a combination of not having an appetite along with the swallowing issue. after a couple weeks of drinking 1-2 smoothies a day my appetite was up to where i could eat food, but i had to either chew it up forever until it was just a paste of saliva, or drink water to initiate the swallow. i then thought maybe it was just i needed more time and i needed to increase my appetite further to get my body used to eating food again, so i kept forcing more and more food and started eating small meals with water 5-6 times a day, along with a smoothie in the morning which was my breakfast. i then got to where i could eat 3000 calories a day, but i still had the issue where i needed water to swallow. i can even finish the full meals in 1 sitting now’ so i only need to eat 3 times a day like normal, but every bite requires water to initiate the swallow. i used to be able to eat a wawa burger without any water because i didn’t wanna look crazy in front of my dad drinking water with every bite, but i was taking forever to eat (like an hour) so i started just using the water trick there too bc i felt like i was inconveniencing him by spending so much time eating as he would finish in like 15 minutes like normal and id take an hour. and now that i dont eat any of my meals without water, if i even try to swallow something without water that isnt super watery or juicy, like a burrito filled with salsa and sour cream, or something like hot cheetos that kinda turn into a mush in your mouth, im just unable to swallow it. its like i chew it up and it gets to the part where normally you’d swallow, and theres just nothing. i dont get the feeling to swallow and it has to turn into a bunch of saliva-y liquid stuff in my mouth before i can swallow or i can take a couple drinks of water and that initiates the reflex and i can force swallow the food with the water. i dont have any troubles swallowing when i do so, it goes down normal i dont feel any pain and it doesnt get stuck or anything its just like my mouth physically wont let me swallow until its super liquified or i use the water to activate it. i dont feel anxiety about choking bc as soon as i get the water in my mouth i can just swallow it without second thoughts its just the feeling doesnt come up without it, so i dont think its anxiety like i used to. does anybody know what this is or how to fix it bc it makes me not want to eat out with my friends and stuff bc ill look crazy drinking water with every bite , especially at a nice place where you should just enjoy the food. if anybody has any tips or suggestions please let me know i really dont wanna see a doctor or go to anybody, i just wanna be able to eat like a normal person again. i am 16 years old by the way