Feeling of a lump in my throat, please help?

My gum and throat hurt - frequent heartburn and lump in throat?

• Hey. So, the weather recently changed in FL from disgustingly hot to freezing which might be a contributing factor. Anyway, here is what I am experiencing: My gum is swelling around my wisdom tooth and when you use a toothpick or brush it bleeds a bit. I tried to see if perhaps food was stuck around my gum causing it to swell which has happened in the past but from what I could tell there was nothing. My throat on the right side (the same side as the swelling of my gum) is sore when I swallow. It's a bit hard to open my mouth all of the way without experiencing a slight sting. When I tilt my head to the right and feel along the right side of my neck I feel a lump after a moment which I am guessing could be my lymph node which is also swollen in my throat which I thought could be contributing to the soreness. There are small white things on my lymph node - maybe three of them - which I'm not really concerned about because I've had those in the past and they have gone away. I keep myself on a very strict diet except I splurge twice a week. And I eat probably 3,000 calories when I splurge so it's a LOT of food. But I noticed I feel like the food isnt going down all of the way and it's really gross but sometimes I think I throw a little of it up and then I get incessant heartburn for awhile (like that burning feeling in your throat that's stuck and a pain in the ***). This might just be my excessive eating, though. The only reason I'm concerned - since I've had all of these symptoms at one point or another - is because I've never had them all together. I have been taking ibuprofen to help with the swelling but this morning I took some excedrins instead. The only thing I have really changed dramatically is my diet. I eat extremely healthy during the week and on two days I cheat pretty dang bad. I also stopped smoking (after ten years!!!!!!) and switched over to Nicotene gum to help with my cravings. I chew maybe 1-3 pieces of gum on bad days. I usually don't chew any. Idk if maybe these are known side effects. If anyone knows what this is or if this is a sign of something really bad, please let me know. If you know how to get this to go away let me know that too. :) Thanks.

• Answer:

  If you still have your wisdom teeth it could be a cavity in it that is causing an infection. because it is hard to get a tooth brush all the way to the back of your mouth. That is why they want you to remove them. the roots are very long and can go up into you sinus cavity and when infected it can symptoms of can make you feel like a bad sinus infection or flu. Can make your gums swell up and make it hard to open you mouth or chew. Also because of the infection it can cause lymph nod swelling which can make it had to swallow. This happen to me and I had it removed by my dentist and put on antibiotic felt much better after. I was also told you dont want to mess around with you teeth because it can cause heart problems if the infection gets in to your blood stream. Good luck