Choking Episodes

There are few experiences as raw as this one: you cannot get air. Not a little less — none at all. Your throat constricts, your chest refuses to rise, and for a moment everything stands still. No thought, no plan, no role — only the bare, desperate struggle for the next breath.

A choking episode is not the same as asthma or chronic breathlessness. It is more radical. It often arrives without the typical history of narrowed bronchi. Sometimes there is a physical cause — a foreign object, an allergic reaction, a laryngospasm. And sometimes the throat closes without medicine finding a clear explanation. The body shuts down, as if someone has thrown a switch. Not slowly, not gradually — immediately.