If you are suffering from a throat infection or injury, yawning can be painful. Most pain while yawning is caused by a common cold or flu, but some may be a sign of life-threatening conditions like throat cancer and epiglottitis. In this article, we’ll explore why does yawning hurt my throat and how you can treat it.
Yawning is often associated with the feeling of pressure in your ears, and this is likely because yawning helps open your ear’s Eustachian tubes. It is also thought that yawning is a way to equalize the different pressures in your body, which is why people yawn when traveling at high altitudes or taking off and landing on an airplane.
Another reason for yawning is to help us breathe in fresh oxygen and expel carbon dioxide, which we need to do to survive. However, scientists do not believe this is the primary cause of yawning, and instead think that it might be an unconscious response to deprivation of oxygen in our brains.
Throat pain when yawning can be caused by many things, including viruses like the common cold or flu, bacterial infections such as strep throat, and fungal infections like oral thrush. Depending on the underlying health problem, your doctor may prescribe different treatments. For example, if your yawning is due to acid reflux, your doctor might recommend lifestyle changes and possibly reduce certain medications. For infections, your doctor might suggest a treatment like antibiotics.