Pharyngeal paresthesia: causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
Paresthesias are related to sensitivity disorders that are not associated with any external effect and are characterized by the appearance of various, often unusual, outwardly unmotivated sensations, such as the sensation of runniness, numbness, stiffness of certain areas of the skin or mucous membrane, pain in the roots of the hair (trichalgia) , a feeling of skin moisture, movement of drops of liquid over it (hygaparesthesia). Especially often, a variety of paresthesias are observed in spinal cord and other diseases of the nervous system, in which the roots of sensitive cranial nerves or the posterior roots of the spinal nerves are involved.
When paresthesias occur in the bucopharyngeal region, the patients, as a rule, localize them in the area of the tongue and throat, and often can not give them a clear qualitative definition. When examining the patient any obvious objective (organic) causes of paresthesia can not be identified. Typically, such patients complain of sensations of a lump in the throat, burning, tingling, pain in various areas of the pharynx or oral cavity. Sensations can be insignificant or intolerable, depriving sick sleep and rest. These pains can be irradiated to the nasopharynx, ear, temporal region or larynx. The general (physical) state of the patients does not suffer, but most of them have varying degrees of neurosis-like conditions, irritability, as well as carcinophobia, fear of tuberculosis and other diseases known to them, which leads to anxious-hypochondria, pessimism, etc. Quite often, psychogenic paresthesias are caused by some common disease of the pharynx, which does not have the feelings that the patient complains of.
The most common form of pharynx paresthesia is the sensation of unilateral pain in the lower parts of the pharynx at the level of the thyroid cartilage. The reason for most of these paresthesias are diseases of the lower teeth and periodontal disease, as well as an enlarged styloid process, which irritates with its end the reflexogenic zones of the glossopharyngeal nerve. Often paresthesia of the pharynx is caused by diseases of the cervical spine.
A special place among paresthesia of the oral cavity is occupied by pseudo-algic states of the tongue (glossodynia), the cause of which in the overwhelming majority of cases is the individual hypersensitivity to the materials from which the plates of dentures are made, as well as the presence of artificial teeth made of different metals that generate galvanic currents in the cavity mouth.
Often glossalgia occur in anemia and gastrointestinal diseases. Some of the glossalgias are accompanied by atrophy of the tongue, as, for example, in the case of glossitis of Gunther, arising from pernicious anemia. In some forms of hypochromic anemia (essential or achilicous, associated with the defeat of the stomach), very pronounced changes in the oropharyngeal region may occur, with numerous concomitant lesions of other organs. An example of such a disease may be the Plummer-Vinson syndrome, manifested by hypochromic anemia and other changes in the blood constituents, atrophy of the oral cavity, pharynx and esophagus with dysphagia, burning sensation in the tongue, functional spasm of the esophagus and cardia, superficial glossitis and many other pathological phenomena in different parts of the body. Diseases of the tongue such as glossodynia observed with avitaminosis, especially with a deficiency of vitamin B6.
[What do need to examine?