| Shari Kubitz 2004-10-03, 10:17 pm |
| In February I had an exacerbation of MS and, for the first time, my
speech and swallowing were affected. At first, I was unable to
swallow anything as it would go down wrong and I ended up with a PEG
tube.
Now, almost 8 months later, when I can swallow, it goes down the right
way, but I am having trouble moving food around my mouth so I get it
into a place where I can swallow. It seems to be related to tongue
movement as I don't really have a good sense of where my tongue
is--when I try to stick it out, it hardly moves but feels like it is
all the way out.
The only way I can swallow is to put something (a pureed consistency)
directly on the back of my tongue and after several swallows it goes
down. If it is too thin, it goes other places in my mouth and I can't
control it. The same applies to chewing. My jaw goes up and down but
the food doesn't move around.
My speech is better than it was but is still pretty bad. Some letters
(like "L") I can't say--also may be related to tongue movement.
Has anyone experienced anything like this? I am desperate for any
ideas or resources.
Thanks.
Shari
|