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@docsarepatients2

Hi all, I am a doctor (Internal Medicine, not an ENT), not affiliated in any way with Mayo. Sharing my experience because I too have been dealing with similar symptoms for almost 10 years now. I've had these same sort of dark yellow - light brown crusts, concave shape often with a "tail" of moister mucous (see photos), that seem to form on a regular basis, perhaps more often in drier environments, that feel like they are coming from midline pharynx (back of nose, upper throat). When they do fall off, I notice an unpleasant almost "yeasty" odor. Saline sprays and nasal irrigation help when it's close to falling off but is stubbornly stuck. From what I've recently read, this seems like a pretty close match for crusting-type nasopharyngeal bursitis. I think one of the strongest indicators is that it always seems to come from the same spot which is exactly midline - this makes sense for embryological reasons, as this pocket called the nasopharyngeal bursa (which in some of us seems to openly drain into our throats) is a remnant of the notochord. The notochord is a long thin tube that develops when embryos are only 3 weeks old, and forms straight down the middle of an embryo to help mark the place where our spines and spinal cords should eventually form. I've found some literature suggesting this condition is hard to diagnose since a) the area is a little too small to be seen well on CT scan, sometimes can be seen on MRI, and 2) if a crust isn't actively present the day you have your nasal endoscopy, it's probably quite hard for ENT to visually detect the opening. Anyway, it seems like the experience of folks on this forum has generally been that many ENT specialists are either unaware of this condition (which is unfortunate, as crusting-type pharyngeal bursae were first described way back in 1939), or offering procedures which may be at best unnecessary, or at worst, unhelpful. Multiple scholarly articles suggest that relatively minor procedures like electrocautery could be successful in dealing with this. Has anyone been offered or undergone this approach? This article suggests that these may sometimes heal on their own, but it sounds like thats the exception rather than the rule (good photo of a 'crust' as seen by nasal endoscopy, search for DOI: 10.1177/0145561320980189). Best to all.

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Replies to "Hi all, I am a doctor (Internal Medicine, not an ENT), not affiliated in any way..."

Welcome @docsarepatients2, I noticed that you wished to post a URL to a journal article with your post. You will be able to add URLs to your posts in a few days. There is a brief period where new members can't post links. We do this to deter spammers and keep the community safe.

Allow me to post it for you:
- Spontaneous Healing of the Crust Type of Nasopharyngeal Bursitis (2020) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0145561320980189

Hey! I also have this crust forming in the middle of my nasopharynx, always exactly at the same spot. I often remove them myself because the feeling of it being there is too unpleasant. It comes together with post nasal drip all the time, but I'm not sure the post nasal drip is 100% related to the scab forming, because the drip is always there. Do you also experience a lot of post nasal drip? I'll be visiting a new ENT for 2nd opinion later this month and mentioning thornwaldt crust is on my list to discuss with him. I'll update here. I talked to a girl on Reddit who also suffered from the crusts and hers turned out to be a thornwaldt crust type. She had the electrocautery and since then she hasn't had one.

Did you ever find out what was wrong? I have two more ENT opinions this month. The first one said infected adenoids. Your images and description are exactly like mine.