Hi,
Thanks for posting your query.
With the available described symptoms, there appears to be possibility of middle ear with throat infection.
Middle ear and throat are connected by each other via Eustachian tube and infection may spread from one place to other.
There appears also possibility of abscess formation in neck as you have difficulty in moving neck.
Difficulty in neck movement could be a part of myalgia, a common prodromal symptom of viral infection.
You should consult with internal medicine specialist and ENT surgeon simultaneously and should go for thorough check up.
You should also go for complete blood count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, chest x ray and x ray PNS view.
You should take complete antibiotic course under guidance of your treating doctor.
You should also take analgesics along with muscle relaxants.
Take care,
Dr. Mayank Bhargava

Hello Mary Anneeley,

Thanks for posting on HCM,
There are a numerous number of causes of excessive phlegm/sputum besides flu and if you have been having these symptoms for over a year now, it is indication that clinical investigations should be carried out to identify the specific cause of the phlegm.
There are multiple factors that can contribute to an excess of phlegm in the throat or larynx.

- Vocal abuse: Vocal abuse is the misuse or overuse of the voice in an unhealthy fashion such as clearing the throat, yelling, screaming, talking loudly, or singing incorrectly.
* Clearing the throat: Clearing the throat removes or loosens phlegm but the vocal cords hit together causing inflammation and therefore more phlegm.
* Yelling/screaming: Yelling and screaming both cause the vocal chords to hit against each other causing inflammation and phlegm.
* Nodules: Excessive yelling, screaming, and incorrect singing as well as other vocal abusive habits can cause vocal nodules.
- Smoking (i assume you do not smoke so I keep this aside, but make sure you are not a secondary smoker or having people that smoke constantly around you)
- Illness: During illness like the flu and cold, phlegm becomes more excessive as an attempt to get rid of the bacteria or viral particles within the body. A major illness associated with excess phlegm is acute bronchitis (other symptoms such as cough, fever will need to be associated to oriented towards that).
- Hay fever, asthma: In hay fever and asthma, inner lining in bronchioles become inflamed and create an excess amount of phlegm that can clog up air pathways.
- Air pollution: In studies of children, air pollutants have been found to increase phlegm by drying out and irritating parts of the throat.
Considering all of the above, your doctor will need to do a careful physical examination, and run some laboratory tests to identify the cause so that it may be treated.

Hope this helps