What's the opposite of a burp (air into stomach, not out)?

October 15, 2020 5:27 AM

For the past few years, I've suffered from occasional, spontaneous, painless but very noisy intakes of air into my stomach. They feel somewhat like a cross between a burp and a hiccup, but with air solely going in and not out (and none of the pain or repetition of hiccups). I've raised this with medical professionals who are stumped as I cannot reproduce it in a clinical setting. Does this action have a name?

I've Googled this all manner of which ways and always tend to stumble across gasping or paradoxical breathing, but I've had recently a medical that shows I'm as fit as a fiddle, and this air is stomach, not lung, bound. It's painless and last seconds, but is extremely loud and surprising to anyone around me at the time. Anyone got any ideas what this could be?

Unlike with 'swallowing air' (aerophagia) there is no noticeable increase in flatulence or belching around these incidents and I do not feel like I'm bloated.

Weird explanation ahead, but.. if it feels like anything, it's as if my stomach needs the air to reshape/reposition itself. A bit like if you crush a plastic bottle then you take the lid off and air rushes in as the bottle reshapes itself.

posted by wackybrit to Health & Fitness (4 answers total)

I can do this, to some extent, on command. (When I was a kid, the coolest kids could belch like crazy. So I taught myself to draw in air to produce belches. However, I was never going to be cool.)

Basically, there's a moment in the peristaltic action of the esophogus where the seal is weakest, and a diaphragm action at this moment draws air into the stomach instead of the lungs.
posted by notsnot at 6:37 AM on October 15, 2020

If it helps in your research, you asked if it had a name. The term borborygmus appears a bit general where what you're experiencing is quite specific. But you might want to review Google hits for "causes borborygmi" in case any description "clicks" with your experience.
posted by forthright at 8:06 AM on October 15, 2020

It ("throat growl" is the term a doctor used with me but that doesn't return any better name when I search it) is generally caused by a momentary spasm/loosening of the lower esophageal sphincter. It's the same movement involved in acid reflux, which for a lot of people is only acid-y when you're laying down, so if you're upright you're primarily getting air only.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:14 AM on October 15, 2020

Similar to notsnot I taught myself to do this when I was a kid/early teen, for the purposes of then being able to produce really astonishing belches. Kind of like just aligning things and willing some seal in my body (hard to explain) to unseal. It was very impressive. But eventually I would get trapped in a maddening cycle of doing it and belching a bunch of times to try and find the right level of, uh, inflation for my stomach. You say yours does not result in burps, but it sure sounds like a similar thing.

God, even now talking about it, 30 years later, I can feel EXACTLY the muscle to flex/loosen to have this happen. I'm tempted but don't want to get caught in that normalization cycle again.
posted by dirtdirt at 11:38 AM on October 15, 2020