Diet taboos for chronic pharyngitis

Does your throat discomfort worsen after eating? There is no need to blindly follow the trend and quit all cold, sweet, and spicy foods.

To be honest, many people go to extremes when it comes to dietary taboos for chronic pharyngitis, either not daring to eat anything, or not tabooing anything. In the end, their quality of life is greatly reduced, or they cannot find the reason for recurring pharyngitis.

Take the most common highly irritating foods as an example. Chili peppers are not the only ones that can be considered irritating. Liquor with a concentration of more than 40 degrees, strong tea and black coffee with too high a concentration, and even the super cool mints that many people like to eat when they have pharyngitis are all in the category that can directly irritate fragile mucous membranes. I met a patient who was a teacher before. When he had pharyngitis, he always felt his throat was dry and itchy, so he carried around a lozenge with a very high mint content. At most, he could hold ten lozenges a day. As a result, the more he held it, the tighter his throat became, and the foreign body sensation became worse than before. Later, he stopped using the lozenge and replaced it with warm salt water and occasionally gargled his mouth. In about a week, most of the discomfort disappeared.

Interestingly, there are indeed differences in opinions in different fields regarding taboos on foods high in sugar, high salt, and seafood. Western medicine generally believes that as long as you do not have food allergies, high-quality protein such as seafood can help repair mucous membranes, and there is no need to deliberately avoid foods. What you really need to pay attention to is high-osmolar foods such as full-sugar milk tea and pickled products. Eating too much will dehydrate the pharyngeal mucosal cells, making the already thin mucosal membrane more susceptible to dryness, itching and stinging. However, traditional Chinese medicine often classifies seafood and mangoes as "hair-producing substances" and recommends eating as little as possible during inflammation to avoid aggravating edema. Both sides of the argument are actually reasonable. There is no need to argue about right or wrong. If you don’t have an itchy throat, cough, or foreign body sensation after eating it, it’s absolutely fine to eat normally. If you feel really uncomfortable after eating it, just avoid it next time.

There are also extreme temperature stimuli that many people tend to ignore. This is the trigger for sudden and acute attacks of pharyngitis in many people. Last time I went to eat Chongqing hot pot with my friend, he just took a chopstick of the freshly boiled stuffed belly and stuffed it into his mouth, then turned around and drank half a cup of iced Coke. That night, he sent me a message saying that his throat was so sore that he could not speak. He went to the emergency room to check that the pharyngeal mucosa had been stimulated by alternating cold and heat, leading to acute congestion and edema. For people with chronic pharyngitis, their mucosal tolerance is inherently worse than that of ordinary people. The hot porridge just out of the pot, the ice drink just taken out of the refrigerator, and the collision of cold and hot can easily cause problems in the mucous membrane.

Of course, don’t be intimidated by these taboos. Not all patients with chronic pharyngitis need to be completely insulated from spicy and cold foods. I once knew a patient from Hunan who had been accustomed to eating spicy food since he was a child. Even if he has chronic pharyngitis, it is perfectly fine to eat some mildly spicy food. I heard people say that spicy food should be avoided for pharyngitis. He quit for a month, but he felt sticky and stuck with phlegm in his throat every day. Later, he resumed his normal diet, and the discomfort disappeared. Some people have no problem eating iced watermelon in the summer, and some people feel their throats tighten even if they drink room-temperature yogurt. These are all very personal reactions, and there is really no need to apply other people's taboo lists to yourself.

Finally, I would like to give you some practical advice: If it is an acute attack of pharyngitis and the mucous membrane has obvious redness, swelling, pain, and cough, then try to eat moderately during this period and do not actively stimulate it. If you are in the stable period, you really don’t need to be too harsh on yourself. After all, you can’t eat what you want and suffer from a bad mood all day long, which will easily induce repeated attacks of pharyngitis, which is not worth the loss. Ultimately, your voice is the best judge, more accurate than any unified guide.