Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

This is my first post and I must admit that I'm a little embarrassed at having to disgust you all with an in-depth analysis of my symptoms!

Thanks to Heather's diet and a change of job, my symptoms have improved a lot. But I was hoping that someone out there might be able to help me with one particularly stubborn symptom...

As embarrasing as it is to admit, I have a serious belching problem! I've always suffered from it but recently it seems to have gotten worse. It's not wind from anything I've eaten but feels like air trapped in my chest and stomach, across my belly button. I'm trying to control it by eating and drinking very very slowly and doing yoga, which does help. I don't smoke or chew gum or drink from bottles etc etc but I still seem to get this air trapped somehow.

I sometimes feel that I need to catch a deep breath when I'm eating but can't. Then I get a feeling of trapped air in my chest which is not painful but uncomfortable enough for me to want to get it out of there! With a few yoga moves the air comes up and I'm not talking little girlie burps here! All too often I sound like a human drain, gurgling and belching like you wouldn't believe! At these times I'm anything but a Welsh lady! The air can be heard gurgling back up my oesophagus and relieves the discomfort. The only trouble is that once I start burping I don't feel that all the air escapes and have read on the web that burping just causes you to burp even more because of air swallowed during the first burp. But I need to get the air out or else it causes pain lower down in my stomach and back. It's uncomfortable across my belly button and just above and to the left of the belly button - if I press here the air seems to come up - could this be where the oesophagus meets the stomach or am I way off? Could I have some kind of blockage?

It sounds silly but it's starting to get a bit debilitating as I'm becoming over-careful about taking sips of drink and beginning to worry about going out etc. A few weeks ago I went out for a meal and I woke up during the night with a mild stomach ache and nausea which I presume was just indigestion as I stuck to safe foods but did indulge in a mouthful of chocolate cake. I had a bad bout of wind for a couple of weeks after this. It cleared up a bit but has worsened over the past couple of days. I can tolerate chocolate after safe foods so I can't think that this triggered it. I just can't work out why it's gotten so much worse all of a sudden.

Have been to Doctor who prescribed Zantax(antacid) and took a blood sample for testing. I don't suffer from any heartburn though and only get acid reflux if I've been burping a lot.

Anyway, sorry to bore you all with this long message - I hope that there's someone else out there who's as freaky as me!

Thanks

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