What causes excessive burping?

Zascar

For the last year or so I occasionally suffer bursts of quite excessive belching/burping. There is very little pattern around it, it seems to be pretty sporadic. Sometimes I eat a big meal and get pressure in the upper stomach / chest, nothing too bad, but I start burping, and can literally sometimes belt out giant Homer Simpson type burps every 30 seconds on average for hours at a time. Sometimes I can do it every 10 seconds for a while. Generally its not that bad, just annoying more than anything. However other times its gets dam uncomfortable and a few times it has caused me to actually vomit.

The only things I can be relatively sure causes it are: Beer, Cigarettes, Bread and Onions - but I very often have lots of them with no problem at all! Other times I get massive burping fits when I have not eaten any of these, or anything at all! Its weird!

I have been to my doctor about it - he said I probably have nothing much to worry about it. He gave me "Protuim" which I took for a month or so. Because it is so sporadic it may or may not have worked, but certanly did not cure me!

The other day i ate a Kebab and was feeling terrible. I got some Motilium in the chemist and took one every few hours and it seems to help a lot. I was also advised to try gaviscon, but have not done it yet.

Was out with a friend who is a doctor and she said it could be a Hiatus Hernia - but a search on the web says nothing about burping being a symptom.

I have an appointment with an allergy doctor www.allergy.ie so maybe he will be able to help me make some sense of this. But I'm hoping someone here might be able to give me some advice too?

Thanks

DrIndy

excessive burping is most commonly caused by air-swallowing and as such is a benign thing. There are other conditions which can cause excessive burping though and if it troublesome, you should talk to your doctor about a gastroenterological referra for consideration of a scope/ ultrasound to outrule other causes.