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Experiencing chronic burping, where do I go from here?

About two years ago I quite suddenly developed chronic belching. This was during a time that I was bedridden for unrelated reasons and I wonder if perhaps the extremely long time in bed (24 hours a day for about 3 months) is what began it.

Originally I would have 4 hour, 6, or even longer sessions of constant, repeated burps. One burp every 4-5 seconds for hours at a time. Often very small amounts of food will come up with this. Sometimes it will feel like the burp gets 'stuck' and slowly builds into a single very large one, this is very uncomfortable/borderline painful. These episodes are also usually accompanied by a sort of 'pressure' in my chest, I think it's just from the muscles that are used to burp being constantly engaged/disengaged.

I saw multiple specialists in this time and one of them was able to prescribe nortriptyline (2x25mg per day)  which is thus far the only thing I've tried that has any effect, significantly reducing both the amount of time these 'episodes' seem to occur for and how bad they are when they do, although all the other aspects (chest pressure, food regurgitation) persist. With the symptoms being so reduced it became clear that it's *generally* based on when I've eaten, and eating very small meals can help it but it'll often still happen regardless of any other factors, sometimes even waking up with it happening when my stomach is empty (aside from gastroparesis concerns, see below).

I'm also on esomeprazole for laryngopharyngeal reflux. Unsure if this is related.

I had an endoscopy done when first seeing specialists; it found both signs of mild gastroparesis and a haital hernia, but all specialists so far have said they think these are unlikely to be causing my problem. I tried domperidone with one of them just to be sure, with no results.

I've seen five different specialists now and most of them have said it's probably stress and just go to extremely expensive therapy sessions for years on end. I'm skeptical that it's stress and I don't think therapy is liable to help me even if it is, so I'm looking for other options since, other than that, specialists all seem to be out of ideas.

Please ask if you need more info and thanks for any and all help.
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973741 tn?1342342773
This sounds like it has been quite an ordeal for you.  I'm sorry about that!  You've worked with a lot of doctors but they've not been much help.  Sigh.  That's unfortunate.  I mean, I tend to think of GERD with the symptoms you describe. You have reflux.  Two of the most common causes of excessive belching is acid reflux or ulcers.  I'm wondering if another trip to the gi doctor would be beneficial to review medications.  Are you overweight by the way?  I had issues with gerd when I'm heavier.  They get significantly better when I lose weight.  
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1 Comments
My reflux has always been very easy to control via esomeprazole but it could have gotten worse. I'm not overweight no. About 75kg at 172cm. I've done a lot of experimenting with different reflux meds to see if they change anything but no luck. Esomeprazole, pantaprozole, ranitidine (before it got recalled and cancelled oops lol), and just about every over-the-counter one I could try. Esomeprazole works best and none of the others do anything for the burping.
Avatar universal
I also have a hiatal hernia and severe reflux. Esomeprazole is a necessity, however the blocking of stomach acid affects digestion. Digestive enzymes and probiotics help me. My GI doctors never suggested this. They also never told me that PPI's would cause a severe lack of nutrients due to malabsorption.
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