Globus Hystericus

Deborah’s medical ailments have proven stubborn. Her version of “our” head cold seems to be worse than mine. She started taking the antibiotics we brought with us, which seemed to help initially, but the last few nights she has had trouble getting to sleep. She has felt like she had a lump in her throat that made it hard to swallow and was very distressing. Last night she couldn’t get her antibiotic to go all the way down and was ingesting glass after glass of water, followed by cups of tea to melt the pill, and lots of soda pop to generate burps, which, however undainty, seemed to provide some relief. Not surprisingly, all that intake of fluids led to fourteen trips to the bathroom (yes, she counted). She didn’t get to sleep until 4am. Between all the flushing and belching I didn’t get much sleep either.

Today she paid a visit to the local physician Dr. Joeli, who is eighty years old but, according to Deborah, looks sixty. He patiently listened to her list of complaints and, while refraining from rolling his eyes and muttering “spoiled, high-strung, American hypochondriac,” he instead diagnosed Global Hystericus. That sounds like a psychiatric illness, and it is sort of, but it’s brought about by a physical condition related to acid reflux or indigestion or some other gastroenterological annoyance. Between her head cold, food allergies, and the fact that she was opening up certain capsules to make them easier to swallow, she may have had just too much irritation going on in her esophagus. And part of Globus Hystericus is that you feel this lump in your throat, get worried about it, which makes the lump feel worse, which makes you worry more, and so on. Dr. Joeli gave her some throat lozenges (or lozengers, in Deborah’s Maryland accent) and recommended she continue to eat a healthy diet (avoiding allergy foods of course), drink lots of water, meditate to lower her stress level, and get out of the hammock and exercise to ensure a feeling of tiredness at night. He wasn’t sure he would have recommended taking the antibiotics but thought she should go ahead and finish those anyway. And she should think about having her swallowing problem looked at in more detail when she gets home. The 25-30 minute doctor visit was only US$15 plus US$1.50 for the lozenges.

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When she got back to the house Deborah did some online research which mentioned the possible treatment with antacids and she remembered some Zantac she had packed and decided to take that to combat her indigestion and reports almost immediate relief, including the diminishment of the mysterious throat lump. We may actually sleep tonight. And from now on I can, when it suits me, point out to Deborah that she has been officially diagnosed as "hysterical."