Any doctors? Burping and nausea for months

[Corah5]

Posting for traffic. I can’t stop burping and feeling sick for months so I’m hoping someone might have an idea what’s going on?

I had a short period of intense stress at Christmas due to a family member who nearly died. I started burping uncontrollably. A couple of months have passed and the stress situation has resolved but I’m still burping. And it’s getting worse - I’m feeling nausea, acid in my throat, diarrhoea, and pain when eating. I’ve lost a stone because eating hurts.

The doctor tested for helicobacter (clear) and sent me for an abdominal ultrasound (wind in my stomach but otherwise clear). Now they’re saying the stress event caused stomach irritation and it’s a vicious cycle, so they aim to reduce the stomach acid with medication (lansoprazole) and give it time to heal itself.

Does this sound reasonable? I’m still worried there’s an underlying cause which is being ignored.

Yes sounds like GORD / GERD. I have the same issues and found taking the PPI to reduce the stomach acid helped loads. Hopefully coming off it soon and I hoping it’s had time to heal,

Try to avoid coke or any acidic for a while too and let the inflammation calm down. I’ve also been taking gaviscon to help sooth the area when it’s really bad.

Gall bladder?

Ultrasound was clear, internal organs including gall bladder look fine.

Stress can cause so many physical problems, so yes, it is definitely possible that it's stress related. Actually, I went through something similar. I was experiencing awful bloating and stomach discomfort, and at the time, I was going through a very stressful period in my life. I was sent for an ultra sound that found nothing.
When I'd sort of dealt with the stress in my life, the symptoms disappeared. Stress is crazy on the body!

That does sound reasonable, yes - but I know it’s horrible and you have my sympathies. My DH has a hiatus hernia and stress exacerbates it massively. Have a good look at your diet and how much you’re eating/when you’re eating and also consider meditation for the anxiety.

Yes it sounds right. Have a close look at what you are eating and try eliminating the main causes of GERD and them slowly reintroduce them. Taking Gaviscon or Peptac after meals will help, but not within two hours either side of the tablets they have given you. I have also found Calcium Propionate causes symptoms, it is a preservative in most bread.

Have they looked at your stomach emptying speed at all? Are you actually being sick and if so does the vomit contain food eaten some time earlier?

Thank you. No I’m not being sick. Just feel sick because of acid and wind. I just feel like there must be some underlying cause? GP says no, you can just have acid which causes nausea and wind, there doesn’t have to be a cause. She thinks 2-4 weeks of PPI medication will give my stomach a chance to heal and then the problem will stop.

You could be air swallowing because of anxiety. Happens to me a lot. It’s awful

Symptoms are same as mine (GERD) have always had a sensitive stomach and is aggravated by stress, have to watch what I eat as alcohol, greasy and spicy food make it worse.

Lansoprazole is what I survive on, but be careful as it can deplete your vitamin b12.

It sounds like Acid Reflux and maybe IBS. I'm on Lansoprazole for Acid Reflux, though it reduces the problem I occasionally have a gaviscon at night. My gp also told me to sleep with an extra pillow, to reduce acid getting up in my throat overnight.

With my IBS it's tricky to treat because mine is triggered by stress and I can't always avoid situations where I do get stressed or anxious.

I’ve never had tummy problems before. I was just super stressed for a week or two and I started to burp and have acid. And it never stopped, it’s just got worse and worse, even though the stressful situation was resolved several weeks ago.

So the GP says temporarily take the pills to reduce acid, give my tummy time to heal, hopefully that will fix it. But if I google tummy problems the results are all saying various types of cancer. And it’s making me think there must be an underlying issue, because it seems weird for a previously healthy person to suddenly just have acid/pain/wind for no reason.

Three years ago during the most stressful time in my life I had exactly this, it was AWFUL. All that worked was trying to reduce stress and letting time do it's healing. Took about 2-3 months of conscious stress reduction and watching what I ate. I also had dizzy spells with it and waking in the night sort of startled? All stress related x

I have similar - started after a period of high stress, peri-meno & covid! Had loads of tests and on lansaprazole too.

Gastritis

I am not a doctor but had similar and was put on a PPI for a month and it helped. I'm guessing they rule out really dangerous stuff then look at common stuff that might help.

I have had spells which sound very similar (and almost always in the winter too) - kept thinking there must be an underlying and serious reason, but all tests including endoscopy came back negative and diagnosis was gastritis caused by stress. Lanzoprozole seems to resolve it for me within a couple of months.

Sympathy as it's really miserable, and like you I kept thinking "there must be something physical causing this"!

Sympathy as it's really miserable, and like you I kept thinking "there must be something physical causing this"!
Yes exactly! That’s what’s getting to me. Google says it’s symptomatic of various cancers and I keep thinking there must be a cause. How can it be stress when I’m not stressed any more?

I get this when stressed and anxious. Also started out of the the blue a few years ago.
Never had issues before.
Now flairs up any time I’m anxious. Omeprezole mostly keeps its under controls.
My body produces all sorts of weird physical symptoms when stressed.

F

You’re anxious - you think it must be caused by something, googling is giving you cancer symptoms - so you are actually stressed!

Think of it like an injury like a wound - something happened e.g. you cut yourself and sustained a wound (you got stressed last Dec and your body reacted acutely to the stress). Then the thing that causes the injury is fine, it’s over, but the wound (symptoms) remains while it heals.

Like I say, my DH suffers badly from stress and the gastric symptoms act in a vicious circle - he feels anxious/stressed and gets reflux & nausea, the reflex/nausea makes him more stressed. You need to deal with taking the focus away from it if you can. Step away from google, take the meds and trust that the investigations showed nothing sinister.

My son had similar, teen after food poisoning. Took long time to heal and he still has occasionally periods of it. Prescribed same medicine but also told to take peppermint oil and charcoal which I actually think helped more and was cheap to buy. Peppermint tea good too he just hated it