{"id":3206,"date":"2024-09-06T09:32:11","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T06:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/niwthete-kompo-sto-laimo-einai-stres-i-axalasia-oisofagou\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T14:42:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T11:42:06","slug":"lump-in-throat-stress-or-achalasia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/lump-in-throat-stress-or-achalasia\/","title":{"rendered":"Feeling a Lump in Your Throat? Is It Stress or Esophageal Achalasia?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you feel a strange, persistent lump in your throat? What could be causing it? Is it stress, or could it be esophageal achalasia?<\/em><\/p>\n

The pace of daily life keeps getting more demanding, and more and more people develop psychosomatic symptoms. When should we assume that the lump we feel in our throat is caused by stress, and when should we worry that it may come from another condition, such as esophageal achalasia<\/a>?<\/p>\n

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What is achalasia?<\/h2>\n

The feeling of a “lump” in the throat is not unusual, and most people are familiar with it. Even so, we are not always sure whether it comes from stress or from another condition, such as gastroesophageal reflux<\/a> or esophageal achalasia. So what is achalasia?<\/p>\n

This condition affects the esophagus, the muscular tube that connects the throat to the stomach. At first, its symptoms are mild, and we tend to ignore them. Most patients say the problem appeared suddenly, but in fact it is a slow, progressive swallowing disorder. Early on, we may find it hard to swallow while chewing a bite of bread, for example, and feel that we need a sip of water to help the food “go down.” Over time, as the condition progresses, swallowing solids and liquids becomes even more difficult.<\/p>\n

What are the symptoms, and who does it affect?<\/h3>\n

Swallowing depends on the relaxation of the muscle at the lower end of the esophagus (the lower esophageal sphincter). Achalasia occurs when this muscle fails to relax and keeps food from entering the stomach.<\/p>\n

Esophageal achalasia is not hereditary. It can affect both adults and children and is somewhat more common in middle-aged people. The exact causes of achalasia are not known. The main symptoms of esophageal achalasia are difficulty swallowing, regurgitation of undigested food, chest pain, respiratory infections and weight loss.<\/p>\n

What is the best treatment for esophageal achalasia?<\/h2>\n

There are several ways to treat achalasia, and a specialized general surgeon will explain them to you in full after first making the diagnosis. Conservative options include specific medication and endoscopic procedures, such as botulinum toxin injection, but these offer temporary and less satisfactory relief.<\/p>\n

The most definitive treatment of esophageal achalasia is surgical: a myotomy, performed laparoscopically or robotically for the best medical outcome. Robotic surgery<\/a> is the most advanced approach available in surgery today and the evolution of laparoscopic surgery<\/a>. It allows complex cases to be treated with millimeter precision. During an operation with the Da Vinci\u00ae robotic system, the specialized surgeon<\/a> can treat each case with precision, safety and remarkable effectiveness.<\/p>\n

Its many advantages include minimal postoperative complications, rapid recovery, less trauma to the tissues and an excellent cosmetic result, since the incisions are only a few centimeters long.<\/p>\n

Dr. Konstantinos Konstantinidis<\/a> and his team have extensive experience in laparoscopic and robotic surgery. Dr. Konstantinidis pioneered laparoscopic and robotic surgery in Greece and has performed more than 3,000 robotic and 16,500 laparoscopic procedures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Feel a lump in your throat? Learn when it is caused by stress and when it may be a sign of esophageal achalasia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kkonstantinidis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}