A WOMAN endured years of making ’embarrassing’ noises like a ‘dinosaur’ and breaking wind in front of her boyfriend as she couldn’t burp.
Lauren Petrie has never been able to burp and as a result, has suffered from extreme bloating, cramping and loud gurgling noises coming from her throat for years – and would “fart a lot”.
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The 34-year-old, from Kettering, Northamptonshire, first noticed her symptoms at 17-years-old, but she said they have become debilitating over the last two years.
Footage shows Lauren, a content creator and YouTuber’s, opening her mouth and a mini “dinosaur roar”-like sound emerging.
Her symptoms became so severe and frequent that it “consumed her whole life” as she began to fear going out.
Lauren eventually discovered she suffers from a rare condition called Retrograde Cricopharyngeus Dysfunction (RCPD), where the muscle at the back of her throat cannot relax to allow air to escape from her stomach.
Because those who suffer from RCPD are unable to burp, symptoms can include abdominal and chest bloating and pain, excessive flatulence, nausea and gurgling noises from the neck and chest.
The influencer ended up splashing out £6,000 on private Botox injections in her neck and throat to relax the muscle and finally saw her painful and embarrassing symptoms drastically improve.
Lauren said: “It’s so embarrassing. My throat would make this very loud gurgle noise. It kind of sounds like a frog.
“It would always happen in the most awkward situations you know even in school in assemblies, you know when it’s meant to be quiet and all of a sudden my throat was making this weird noise.
“It was really loud and embarrassing. It sounded like a dinosaur.
“Obviously because air couldn’t come up through my mouth it goes down the other way. The air has to come out some way.
“[Breaking wind] was obviously quite awkward as well. Luckily my boyfriend has a good sense of humour.
“Obviously for most people that’s really socially awkward, but I have a potty humour so for me it’s fine.
“I started to notice it when I would go out all day. So if I had been like going out having a meal, having fizzy drinks and what have you, talking, laughing, walking about, just taking in air.
“I would get very very bloated and very uncomfortable and it would get to the point where it was so bad that I had to lay down because it was so painful.
Sometimes it would be so bad that it would feel like I was kind of drowning in my own air
Lauren
“I’ve got loads of people around me that don’t really care, they know my situation.”
It got to the point where Lauren’s symptoms became debilitating.
“Two and a half years ago it just became like a chronic illness for me, no matter what I ate or drank.
“I’d wake up, I’d have two good hours and then I’d have all my symptoms. It’s not been pretty, it’s not been fun.
“Sometimes it would be so bad that it would feel like I was kind of drowning in my own air, my chest felt awful.”
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The content creator began structuring her day around the inevitable onset of her symptoms.
“If I had to do my job I wouldn’t eat until afterwards because otherwise I would just be miserable,” Lauren said.
“So I would eat after I had done my job and then I would have to lay down for six, seven, eight hours afterwards just for some relief.
“It basically just consumed my whole life. It got to the point when I was in my mid-20s when I would dread going out all day.
“But obviously you don’t want to put your life on hold, especially when you’re in your mid-20s, you want to go out and have fun.
“When I turned 32 a couple of years ago and it was like all day every day.
“I just put my whole life on hold, I didn’t do much of anything.”
No escape from symptoms
Lauren described the condition that made her unable to burp.
“It’s basically just a muscle in the throat that just doesn’t work properly.
“So it allows things to go down like food, drink, I can swallow perfectly fine but it then doesn’t allow things to come back up, like air basically.
“It just doesn’t relax and let that come up.
“It’s just a muscle that just doesn’t know how to behave, something as simple as that.”
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Lauren first went to her GP about her symptoms in November 2022 but said her doctor could not help so she decided to pursue private treatment with an ENT specialist.
In March 2023 had her first round of 50 units of Botox injected into her neck but said the treatment did not cure her.
Lauren said: “I know I’m covered in tattoos but I don’t like needles. I was terrified. I don’t like medical things anyway, it gives me pretty big anxiety.
“Talking to someone who was actually very knowledgeable about what I had was like a breath of fresh air and it really calmed me down.
“It felt incredibly weird, it felt like someone was kind of squeezing my throat a little bit.
“Some people can just have one dose of Botox and they’re good to go. They never have to have anything ever again, especially at a low dose.”
What is retrograde cricopharyngeus dysfunction?
Retrograde cricopharyngeus dysfunction – also known as no burp syndrome – is a rare condition in which people are unable to burp or belch.
It occurs when the cricopharyngeus muscle, a sphincter muscle that sits at the top of the oesophagus, can’t relax.
As a result, it doesn’t open to allow air to exit the oesophagus.
Belching is a normal biological process that allows the body to ejects air from the oesophagus and stomach into the throat, pushing it out from the mouth or nose.
Because people with RCPD can’t burp, they get a buildup of air in their stomach and oesophagus.
This causes loud gurgling noises from the neck and chest, bloating and discomfort in the neck, chest, and abdomen, and excessive flatulence.
People suffering these symptoms may experience social anxiety as a result.
For many, this is a lifelong condition.
The main treatment for RCPD is a Botox injection into the cricopharyngeus muscle.
Most patients are able to burp and experience significant symptom relief within a week after a single injection.
In some cases, however, doctors may recommend an additional Botox injection given several months later to patients whose symptoms continue.
After getting a Botox injection into the cricopharyngeus muscle, people may experience one or more of the following side effects:
- A feeling that food “hangs” or gets stuck in the throat
- A feeling of a lump in the throat
- Acid reflux
These side effects typically resolve on their own after a few days or weeks.
Source: Yale Medicine
In June 2023 she had a second round of 100 units of Botox and although this helped for a while, by February of this year her symptoms had returned.
She then had a further 100 units but said this wore off very quickly.
Lauren said: “I went back to basically square one, suffering every day. All my symptoms came back.
“I felt very very helpless because I was just like, if these a hundred units aren’t working what is going to help me?”
She a particularly painful ordeal after meeting a friend in London for a meal.
“By the time I got on the train I was in so much pain that when my boyfriend picked me up from the train station I literally laid in the back of his car and I was just sobbing because I was just like why isn’t this working the way it should be working.
“It was frustrating.”
‘Freeing’
She went to another private ENT doctor in London and opted to be put under general anaesthetic so 150 units of Botox could be injected directly into her throat.
After having the surgery on October 4 Lauren said she has been able to burp successfully and hopes the procedure has permanently fixed her condition – after spending around £6,000 in total on her treatments.
Lauren said: “It does feel freeing. I was so happy. This higher dosage is working so much better. That’s why I’m praying this is the dose that sticks.
“Now because I can burp, yesterday I managed to have breakfast and an early late lunch/dinner, which is something I couldn’t do for years.
“I was just like ‘oh my god this is amazing’ and I didn’t feel like garbage afterwards either.
“It sucks you have to pay that much money for such a simple thing. But I’m very grateful and fortunate that I can afford it.
“Fingers crossed this is the last one because this is getting expensive
“I can’t believe this is how people live because I’ve never lived like this.
“To be able to eat and not be uncomfortable is just like ‘wow’. People that can burp are so lucky.”
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