Hi friends, and thanks for stopping by to read The Day a Sandwich Scared Me Straight – and What a Barium Test Revealed.
Yup health issues. Blood sugar, stubborn sandwiches, and why I’m glad I had that weird barium test.
Health issues. Cue a big sigh. My priority is keeping myself as healthy as I can as I get older, and one of my ongoing lifetime health issues has to do with my weight. I struggle so much eating healthy and cutting back on sugar. I watch what I eat and it is so disheartening to step on the scale week after week and not see it budge.
Down at least. The scale doesn’t seem to have problems going up.
Fear can be a great motivator for weight loss. At least, it was for me.
In July 2018, my doctor told me my blood sugar level was creeping toward the high end of the normal range. She warned me I didn’t want to cross over into diabetes territory. She was right. I sure don’t want to get diabetes if I can do something to prevent it!
That was enough to light a fire under me. I made a big effort to lose weight, and while I always seem to have a few pounds to reach what I consider my “ideal,” I’ve been maintaining my weight loss for several years now. Yay me!
Another thing that’s always been in the back of my mind is my mother’s Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not considered hereditary, and doctors still haven’t isolated a cause or figured out which parts of the population are most at risk. If we had those answers, we could be more proactive about prevention. Until then, I figure the healthier I am overall, the better.
But a few years before the blood sugar scare, I had another health mystery.
When lunch decided to go on strike
Every so often while eating – almost always lunch, usually a sandwich – it felt like food got stuck partway down my throat. At first, I didn’t notice something was happening. I’d keep taking bites or sips of iced tea, thinking everything was fine. But then it would hit me: nothing was going down.
I couldn’t swallow, not even liquids. I’d start drooling because I couldn’t swallow my own spit. That’s when the panic would set in. My breathing was never blocked, but I’d feel a sharp pain in my chest as the food and my esophagus decided who was boss.
I’m not much of a burper, but I’d try. Usually, I couldn’t until 30 seconds or so later, when a burp would finally escape and the blockage would clear. Sometimes, if the food was close enough to my mouth, I could cough and spit it back out (gross, I know but it’s not like vomiting, more like ejecting an unwelcome guest).
Once it cleared, I could finish my meal without another problem. Sometimes it happened again the next day, sometimes not for months.
The weirdest places it happened
A couple of episodes really stood out:
- Once, I was riding my horse, Whistler, eating an apple, and – bam – it got stuck. Nothing like a little panic on horseback.
- Another time, I was in a sushi restaurant and had to excuse myself to the parking lot to try to clear the blockage.
I tried researching the symptoms and became convinced I might have esophageal cancer.
The barium test
About 15 years ago, my doctor scheduled me for a barium swallow test at Langley Hospital. This is an X-ray taken while you drink a chalky barium solution (yuck), which shows up on a moving X-ray image.
Here’s more about the test if you’re curious: Barium Swallow Overview.
The results explained everything:
- A “ledge” in my esophagus – a little pocket where swallowed food sometimes gets trapped before continuing its downward journey. Once food stops there, everything behind it gets backed up.
- A stomach “tug” – as I swallow, part of my stomach gets briefly pulled up into the esophagus before settling back down.
I don’t have heartburn, acid reflux, or other symptoms, and I barely burp. My doctor prescribed medication to take as needed, but I never filled it. The problem happened so rarely I decided to live with it.
Why it probably stopped
It’s been at least ten years since I’ve had repetitive episodes. I rarely eat sandwiches anymore as part of my weight-loss plan (cutting back on bread), but honestly, the problem had already been fading before that change.
Maybe my esophagus just decided to behave. Maybe it’s my diet. Or maybe it’s just one of those medical mysteries. Either way, I was grateful it was no longer a regular part of my life.
Why I’m writing about it again
Unfortunately, it looks like my old “sandwich standoff” problem might be making a comeback.
These days, I buy tortillas instead of bread and often make a peanut butter and banana wrap for lunch. One afternoon in the summer of 2025, I was enjoying one along with some crackers when – hello, old friend – that stuck-in-my-throat, can’t-burp feeling returned. I hoped it was a one-off. The next day, I made the same lunch, and it happened again.
So then I switched to softer foods like smoothies, cottage cheese, and yogurt for a couple of weeks and ditched the crackers. So far, so good.
Until I decided to stop for lunch at a local restaurant I’d been eyeballing while housesitting in the area.
I ordered a salmon burger with fries. Yeah, bread, but I had a strategy. I ate very slowly, but I could feel my throat might have been on the verge of another episode. Thankfully, slowing down, putting the burger down and waiting a bit before taking another bite seemed to prevent an episode.
Looks like I’ll be paying closer attention again and maybe scheduling a check-in with my doctor.
Sigh. And it’s a different doctor than the one I used 15 years ago. I’m worried I might have to do that barium test again!
Mindful eating
My main health issue is arthritis in my fingers that keeps worsening. I’m right handed and it’s difficult (painful) for me to write now. I can’t curl my fingers into a fist. A couple of the fingers have joints that don’t bend any more.
Vancouver Coastal Health offers several online information sessions for people with arthritis and one of the sessions I took is called Mindful Eating.
I remembered some of the advice in this session. Though it didn’t apply to my esophagus spasms, I thought it could be helpful. This was what I applied at the restaurant while eating the salmon burger.
- Eating slower
- Putting down the fork (burger) between bites
- Chewing more
Lifetime of being a fast eater. Being mindful of what I’m eating and slowing down the chewing and swallowing may help.
The day a sandwich scared me straight …
Takeaway: Sometimes, health scares are the wake-up call we need, whether it’s blood sugar levels, a strange swallowing problem, or something else entirely. Fear may not be a pleasant motivator, but in my case, it worked. And staying healthy means I’m more prepared for whatever comes next. Preferably something a lot less dramatic than a tortilla showdown.
Published by Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs on September 25, 2025.
