Cartilage destruction from acute infectious arthritis. Is it possible?

Hi everyone!

I recently started a discussion in the ENT Group section where I explained my situation in great detail. This discussion is sort of parallel to the other one, as I just want to use this one to see if I can find answers to this specific question.

Consider this possibility:

- A person is eating a meal which has bacteria or toxins on it. Possibly something like Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, from crab from deep oceans. Accidentally the person perforates the tongue with a spike from a mandible of the animal. Then, the person eats from the part of the animal where bacteria or toxins are located.

- The bateria enters into the bloodstream through the injury in the tongue. Then migrates to the base of the tongue and into the larynx, close to the epiglottis. An acute infectious arthritis occurs and the cartilage of the epiglottis is destroyed within the next 4 or 5 days, leaving the epiglottis shorter in its left side, as if it kind of shrunk.

- After the meal there was no pain, just discomfort as if there was a small foreign body lodged in the throat, left side. The next day, the same. By the third day there was pain but tolerable enough to deal with it without taking pills. The day after that, the pain irradiated to lower areas, close to the clavicle and also a bit in the chest. No fever.

- Then a few more days with slight pain and discomfort, followed by 14 months of permanent and unchanged symptoms: foreign body sensation, pain that is mild but very uncomfortable and the terrible feeling of something scratching in the back of the throat as if something is damaged (when swallowing). The main symptom is always there but seems to be more terrible some days than others.

-> Is it possible that part of the cartilage of the epiglottis was destroyed by bacteria/toxins?

-> If so, would it leave signs of the destruction, as for example fibrosis, necrosis or calcification?

-> Which exam or tests could help to turn this theory into and actual diagnosis?

Any opinion or guidance would mean a lot to me. Thanks.
Anthony.