My onset of Epiglottitis, started with the feeling of a sore throat, which lead to difficulty swallowing, and a few hours later difficulty breathing and speaking. By the time my husband drove me to ER, I started drooling and choking. The ER Physician took an x-ray of the soft tissues of the neck and the film revealed epiglottitis. I am most Thankful for My husband prompt attention of taking me to the ER and the physician for properly diagnosing and treating my symptoms. The smallest things could lead to a serious or fatal incident. Seeking medical attention for small things such as a "sore throat" seems huge to me now, whereas before I would try and treat myself with OTC medication...Not Anymore!!!

I experienced stinging feelings in the back of my throat, which I thought it was merely something happening, perhaps, with my tonsils. Over a period of nearly three days, my throat had been swelling as was quite apparent inside and out. On the third day, I experienced a sudden blockage of my windpipe resulting in a severe inability to breathe normally. I then called 911 and received attention within minutes and an ambulance transported me to our local hospital. I received an emergency tracheotomy in that facility allowing me to then breathe. I was in our hospital for 8 days recovering, and am still weak and experience very little appetite and I have lost about 15% of my body weight. Epiglottitis is finally the diagnosis, but I've researched my situation and the illness herein described also points to respiratory diphtheria being also quite rare. However, since I had not looked into my throat as it continued to swell, I could not see if a "gray" coating existed at the back of the throat thereby indicating said diphtheria possibility; however, something suddenly had blocked my throat as stated above.

I was diagnosed with supraepiglottitis after getting off a cruise ship. It started with a cough then the last 3 days of the cruise I had fever, sore throat, muffled voice, and one day of vomiting. I thought I had strep. I started on antibiotics but kept getting worse. I went to and ENT specialist and he put a scope down my nose and diagnosed me with epiglottitis. I've never heard of it. The doctor put me on steroids and amoxicillin for almost two weeks. Recently my ear and jaw started hurting and now I'm on new antibiotics. It's been three weeks and I'm still dealing with it. I still feel an obstruction in my throat. It's scary to think this could be fatal.

I had a sore throat, extremely painful earache, with pressure, fever, body aches, difficulty swallowing, difficulty breathing while lying down, and drooling. I was unable to swallow and I was given pain meds and antibiotics, and eventually an emergency tracheotomy

The only symptom I had was extreme pain swallowing. I had no fever or problems breathing, but I couldn't drink or eat anything because of the pain. I dreaded having to swallow. I went first to the urgent care where they did a strep test which came up negative. The next day I went to an ENT who put a scope up my nose to get to my throat and he immediately diagnosed epiglottitis. Steroids helped the swelling immensely. I needed no hospitalization. I had never head of this before.

I have had a nagging sore throat that seems to radiate from the back right of my mouth beyond the base of my tongue. It is very lumpy back there. I also have some painful indentations on the same side of my tongue. They do not seem to be "sores," per se, but they are sore. When I explored where the pain seemed to originate I made it all the way to the very back, right side base of the tongue. I recently saw my doctor for other things and mentioned the ache across my face to my ear and on swallowing. She found no enlargement of lymph nodes though my neck feels a bit stiff again on that right side. I had dental work and asked if my face-earache could be from a tooth infection. I'm a little worried as I found a large flap back there. Because it doesn't cover the whole back area I wasn't sure if it is my epiglottis. The article was informative yet not helpful. I don't have any trouble breathing but have some difficulty swallowing, no high fever.