The Importance of Clinical Examination in a Patient with Dysphagia: a Case Report

The aim of this paper is to emphasize the importance of careful history taking in patients with dysphagia. Dysphagia is defined as the difficulty in forming or moving the foods and liquids safely from the mouth to the stomach. Traditionally, swallowing can be divided into four stages: oral preparatory stage, oral stage, pharyngeal stage, and esophageal stage. However, it has to be emphasized that the division of swallowing into different stages is artificial and the act of swallowing should be considered as a whole process. Therefore, a careful history taking will yield the likely underlying pathophysiologic process and anatomic site of the problem in most patients. Although patients explain their disease-related symptoms undoubtedly, it is necessary for the clinicians to be aware of some other suspicious pathologies. Herein, we present the case of a patient with Schatzki ring (SR) who had a feeling “something stuck in the throat” during ingestion of solid foods.