And Swallow

Today I had my Modified Barium Swallow today which means that I went to the hospital and met with a speech therapist who was really very sweet. She had me stick out my tongue a few times and discovered it has a natural tendency to go towards the left.

This is not really a problem, just good to know in case someday they think I have a stroke, and use my tongue as a guide. At which point I should tell them, not to worry my tongue has always been like that.

Basically I have more muscle on the right side of my tongue, so I guess I could just start some tongue workouts and be just fine and dandy. ;)


After all the tongue checks I got to sit inside a X-ray machine and eat different foods all of which had Barium mixed into them. First straight up drinking the stuff...

(in case you were wondering this stuff tasted like spicy pepto)

Then came peach puree', followed by a tuna fish sandwich and finally a gram cracker with peanut butter. Then I had to repeat a few of those, just to be sure.
The whole time I and the therapist could watch as I chewed and swallowed, on a monitor. I asked for a copy of the DVD so I could post it here, but she wasn't able to make that happen. So the picture here, is not me, but it is pretty close to what it looked like. Each time I would swallow you could watch this black stuff move through me. It was actually pretty cool. If I ever get a copy I will try to post it.

The results have to be sent back to the ENT, but it looked pretty normal other than my strong right muscle in my tongue, and that my tongue does not touch the back of my throat when I swallow, neither do my tonsils move up as they should. But I guess that is not a big deal.