Hi Kate, I must have been unclear somewhere. I am swallowing liquids and things up to the consistency of pudding and yogurt--as long as they are smooth or only have very small bits of stuff that don't styick to my very-scarred mouth and throat. But I can't swallow a lot at a time--it's partly because my esophagus is narrower than normal but it's also that my epiglottis is worn away so I actually have to do kind of a "double swallow" for every mouthful to push it back to the esophagus--and that works with liquids but not with anythings solid--including even tiny pills.

And ebcause that double-swallowing thing takes longer, and takes concentration, it takes me half an hour to have a bowl of soup. So unless I am swallowing all day I can;'t get all my nutrition that way (especially when my job gets busy-I used to barely have time for a piece of pizza at my desk as I worked--now I barely have time for a can of Jevity ir Ensure.

I do use the protein drinks and Ensure some but I really can't stand them and I just can't make them the mainstay of an oral diet. I have found lots of soups I can have and I add yogurt, ricotta cheese, sour cream, etc. to add calories.

If I had to, with lots of fatty food and carnation VHC I could probably come close to doing all my calories orally but I could not get medication down well I don't think. I have a couple of things I have to take on an empty stomach, they aren't supposed to be taken with food, so I can't mix them into a drink or something (and one is part of my breast cancer treatment so I don't want to mess around with getting it down right). That's really the biggest hurdle right now I think. That and my fear that my throat might close up so much and so quickly that I would really need to supplement with the tube and wouldn't have it. Swallowing alone, at least when it's liquids, doesn't seem to be enough to keep my esophagus open. I was swallowing regularly before and it didn't keep it from almost totally closing up.

Nelie