Hi...
Glad that you are OK now..!
Here is some background.
The main purpose of the larynx is, as you may be surprised to learn, not speech! The larynx (the vocal cords, to be more specific), is a structure that keeps us from choking on food and other liquids (such as saliva, etc..).
Evolutionarily speaking, the larynx developed to allow us to have the food and air passages share a single common space in the back of the throat (the pharynx). Most mammals have this configuration. Food from the mouth, and air from the nose and mouth both pass through the pharynx before being directed into the food passage (the esophagus) or the airway ( the trachea) respectively.
Whales and dolphins don't have this problem, even though they are mammals. The air passage is routed out through the top of the head (the blowhole), although they need another mechanism (the sphincter) to keep from drowning. People who have had their larynx removed because of cancer are in a similar situation, with the trachea routed out of the skin of the neck (a tracheostomy) and being completely sepertated from the food passage.
Swallowing is a fairly complex series of maneuvers that involves the larynx elevating, the esophagus (the food tube) opening, and the vocal cords closing together. Sometimes it doesn't work as well as it should, and you can aspirate (food or liquids going through the larynx into the lungs). We all have experienced this when something "goes down the wrong pipe". This results if food or liquid in the airway (the trachea), causing our next line of defense to kick in - a powerful cough - which usually propels whatever you have aspirated out of the lungs. However, sometimes this backup mechanism fails too. That is when I have to get up in the middle of the night and fish a piece of a toy or a peanut out of some kid's trachea...
In some cases, the vocal cord protection doesn't work well. This can happen after a stroke, when the sensation of the larynx is diminished, or the motion of the vocal cords are impaired. Some stroke patients can't eat without aspirating, or in lesser cases, can't drink think liquids (which are more easily aspirated than thick stuff).
In other cases, the vocal cord protective mechanism works "too well", or rather lasts too long. This is laryngospasm, which is what it sounds like the OP had. Laryngospasm almost always is self limited, since even if it lasted long enough for you to lose consciousness, once you were unconscious (and presumably not diving!), the larynx would open again. Nevertheless, there are reports of people who had emergency tracheotomies for laryngospasm. A variant of this - spasmodic croup - can be similar to this, and even though there is no actual physical problem with the larynx, the patient can feel like they are suffocating. The maneuvers to break laryngospasm described in Wikipedia really apply more to patients undergoing surgery, who often go into laryngospasm as they emerge from the deeper stages of anesthesia.
An ENT exam (flexible fiberoptic examination of the larynx in the office) is usually recommended in these situations, although there usually isn't much to see. It would be important to find out if a foreign body (piece of chicken, etc..) was actually aspirated, since this can cause serious problems if not removed. It can be hard to make this diagnosis without bronchoscopy (examination of the trachea and lower airway under anesthesia), x-rays can miss the signs of a foreign body.
Good luck! Sorry, I don't know any ENT docs in Thailand...
