Like most people, I have swallowed water down the "wrong pipe." However, in the past 6 or 7 years - I have had an experience where a drink goes down the wrong pipe" and I literally cannot breath. This is distinctly different from other experiences I have had where water went down the wrong pipe -- and different from what I have witnessed in others. I cannot cough and my throat seems to completely close -- I can gasp somewhat -- my instinct is to breath in, but I have found it works better to try to exhale. On 2 occurrences -- it got so bad I began to feel a tingling in my body. Eventually, the muscles in my throat seem to loosen a bit to where I can get small amounts of air in and out; within a minute it frees up completely. A couple of times, my son did the abdominal thrust maneuver - which did force air out -- and seemed to help. It doesn't happen a lot -- perhaps 7 -10 times in that six year period. It's happened with water, iced tea, soda - so that doesn't seem to play a role (more with water, but that's probably because I drink water more than anything else).

Any thoughts on causes -- interventions (e.g., inhaler to open throat, "epi-pin" etc.)