Sore throat, burning sensation, thrush treatments, acid reflux treatments, post nasal drip treatments

Posted on Fri, 25 May 2012

Question: Hi I am a 46 year old female and have suffered from a sore, burning throat for 4 months. Have been to doctor on numerous occasions and been prescribed antibiotics, thrush treatments, acid reflux treatments and post nasal drip treatments. Nothing has worked. I have seen a ENT specialist who has carried out bloods, (all normal) and looked up my nose and down into my throat with a scope. Nothing looked abnormal. I can eat fine and nothing hurts when I eat. I wake up with soreness right at the back of my throat and during the day it comes and goes and moves down my throat past the voice box. My chest and throat also ache when I laugh.

Answered by Dr. Naveen Kumar (3 hours later)

Hi

Thanks for the query

Sore throat can be due to various reasons, and you have been treated for all those suspected conditions and various investigations have also been performed on you to find the actual cause.

Presuming you do not have snoring or reduced hemoglobin then the other probable factors could be depression, treatment with Citalopram. Depression by itself can cause globus sensation (foreign body sensation) in the throat. Citalopram given for depression by its antihistaminic like effects can cause dryness of the oral cavity leading to burning sensation in the throat. And, you have noticed these symptoms since past 4 months only. So it cannot be attributed to any other conditions like sinusitis or acid reflux because, the symptoms would have got subsided with the treatment. As you have not found any improvement with those medications, then the other most probable cause for your symptoms could be the Citalopram only.

You can discuss this with your psychologist and request him to change the medicine for you. Hope the symptoms might improve with change of the medicine. Secondly, if the symptoms do not improve even after changing the medications you will require a CT scan of the neck to rule out any growth in the neck or upper thorax which are producing these symptoms. Drink plenty of XXXXXXX warm water to keep the throat moist, avoid chilled items, fizzy drinks and oily food for few days.

Hope I have answered your query, if you have any doubts, I am available to follow up.

Regards

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar