“There’s a reason your gallbladder sits so close to your liver, your body’s largest internal organ. Think of your liver as a factory. And your gallbladder as a warehouse next door. Your liver makes a powerful digestive juice called bile.  Bile helps break down the food you eat.  The gallbladder plays a key role in digesting food and getting energy from it.  Bile’s most important role is breaking down fats.  Your bile travels down your cystic duct into your small intestine. Then another branch of ductwork, called the pancreatic duct, joins the channel. The pancreatic duct carries enzymes from your pancreas. Think of this as 2 rivers coming together. The digestive juices from the liver and the pancreas play a clear role in digestion. So do other enzymes in the small intestine. ”

University Hospitals/The Science of Health

“Vocal cord dysfunction is the abnormal closing of the vocal cords when you breathe in or out. It’s also called laryngeal dysfunction, paradoxical vocal cord movement disorder or paradoxical vocal fold motion. Like asthma, vocal cord dysfunction can be triggered by breathing in lung irritants, having an upper respiratory infection or exercising. However, unlike asthma, vocal cord dysfunction isn’t an immune system reaction and doesn’t involve the lower airways.”

MAYO CLINIC

Symptoms of vocal damage include. Breathiness, huskiness, hoarseness, loss of vocal power, monotone, sore or tense throat, losing the voice, pitch breaks and easy vocal fatigue.

Vocal cord dysfunction or paradoxical vocal fold motion (PVFM) is an episodic condition that results when vocal cord movement is dysfunctional. We open our vocal cords when we breathe, and we close them when we speak, sing, swallow or lift heavy items. Vocal cord dysfunction describes what is occurring when our vocal cords close when we intended them to open to breathe. This incorrect vocal cord motion causes an abnormal narrowing of the voice box. The voice box narrowing leaves only a small opening for air to flow through the vocal cords, which can result in a sensation of difficulty moving air into or out of the lungs.

People who suffer PVFM episodes often have a very sensitive or reactive airway. Common triggers include:

• Acid reflux
• Exercise
• Postnasal drip or allergy to airborne particles
• Strong emotion
• Voice overuse
• Cough or fumes

Vocal cord dysfunction is sometimes misdiagnosed as asthma because the symptoms and triggers for PVFM and asthma can be similar. The difference between PVFM and asthma is that if you have asthma, medicines that open your breathing tubes (bronchodilators such as albuterol) will improve your breathing. If you have PVFM alone, the bronchodilator will likely not work.

To make it even more confusing, you may have both PVFM and asthma co-occurring.

What are the symptoms of vocal cord dysfunction?

• Throat or chest tightness
• Noisy inhalation
• Difficulty getting air “in”
• Feeling of throat closing
• Feeling of being “strangled”
• Intermittent shortness of breath
• Chronic cough
• Voice change/Inability to speak

Vocal Cord Dysfunction Treatment

Treatment for vocal cord dysfunction is often nonmedicinal and involves respiratory retraining therapy with a qualified speech-language pathologist. Therapy generally requires two to six 60-minute sessions. These sessions aim to:

• Identify and eliminate sources of chronic throat irritation.
• Identify and control triggers for PVFM episodes.
• Provide an exercise program to give patients better control over breathing, reduce the discomfort and fear that comes with being short of breath, and lessen PVFM episode frequency and duration.
• Include feedback to help the individual learn to relax the throat and keep the vocal cords apart when breathing.

“Functional diseases are those in which the GI tract looks normal when examined, but doesn’t move properly. They are the most common problems affecting the GI tract (including the colon and rectum).”.

Cleveland Clinic

“Digestive Diseases. The digestive system made up of the gastrointestinal tract (GI), liver, pancreas, and gallbladder helps the body digest food. Digestion is important for breaking down food into nutrients, which your body uses for energy, growth, and cell repair. Some digestive diseases and conditions are acute, lasting only a short time, while others are chronic, or long-lasting.”

NIH National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases

“Sudden cardiac arrest is the abrupt loss of heart function, breathing and consciousness. The condition usually results from a problem with your heart’s electrical system, which disrupts your heart’s pumping action and stops blood flow to your body.

Sudden cardiac arrest isn’t the same as a heart attack, when blood flow to a part of the heart is blocked. However, a heart attack can sometimes trigger an electrical disturbance that leads to sudden cardiac arrest.”

MAYO CLINIC

“Sarcoma is a rare cancer in adults and accounts for just 1% of all cancer diagnoses in the United States, where there will be estimated 13,130 new cases in 2020. Worldwide, the most common form of this cancer type is Kaposi’s sarcoma, which was diagnosed in an estimated 42,000 people and caused about 20,000 deaths in 2018. ”

Cancer Research Institute

“During Sarcoma Awareness Month we aim to further highlight the extraordinary challenges that sarcoma patients face and the need for more sarcoma research and better sarcoma therapies.”

Sarcoma Foundation of America SFA

“Moebius syndrome was originally described by German ophthalmologist Alfred Graefe in 1880, but is named for German neurologist Paul Julius Moebius, who reported features of this condition in 1888.

The incidence of Moebius syndrome is roughly 2 to 20 cases per million births. The condition occurs in all ethnicities. There is no gender bias (males and females are affected equally). At present, the etiology of Moebius syndrome is currently poorly understood, but may be due to genetic and/or environmental factors.

In very rare cases, a change in specific genes may be causative of Moebius syndrome.  Additionally, there are several other separate conditions with similarities to Moebius syndrome that have identified genetic etiologies.”

MOEBIUS syndrome foundation  (https://moebiussyndrome.org)