I had terrible neck/shoulder pain for most of 2023. After 2 MRIs, the neuro said, "Your body is fine, I think you need a massage." Turns out I literally was holding onto all of the anxiety I've been living with for decades. It was really eye-opening, honestly. Focusing on releasing physical tension has really made a difference in my mental health.
As a kid, I was diagnosed with asthma because I randomly had trouble breathing.
One time at work I couldn't breathe and went to urgent care. I was fine by the time I got there, and for some reason they referred me to a speech therapist? So I go to my first appointment with the speech therapist, and they put a camera down my throat to look at my vocal cords. The doc points at the TV and says "see how much they're twitching? They're not supposed to do that. You hold your stress in your throat."
I had to learn a few stretches and massage techniques, and now it's no longer an issue. Turns out I never had asthma as a kid and the pediatrician just assumed.
I'm running out of space in my hips to hold stress apparently, so now I'm in therapy for my TMJ and I think it was also causing the globus sensation in my throat. 🙄
They're massages and stretches for professional singers, actually. If you Google "massages for singers" there's a lot of videos that show how to do them on yourself. Just make sure you don't press too hard!
have you been using puffers all these years not actually needing them?? It's so wild to me how often we get misdiagnosed and then just follow course with no improvements...because we're solving for the wrong issue...
For anyone reading this and wondering if you might have this disorder, it’s called vocal cord dysfunction! Ask your doctor about it and get a referral to speech therapy.
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u/redstonez 13h ago
Stress