Comments on: Perhaps I'm a cow? Why do I regurgitate my food?

Question: Perhaps I'm a cow? Why do I regurgitate my food?

HopStopDon'tShop — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:03:46 -0800

YANMD digestion filter: I regurgitate food. Regularly. If I do any vaguely strenuous exercise within 2 hours of eating, or sometimes longer, up come bite-sized portions of my meal, intact, into my mouth. WTF?

It also happens if I go to the toilet (for, you know, a bowel movement) within 1 or 2 hours of eating. It doesn't seem to matter whether I ate a lot or a little, spicy or non-spicy, fruits, veggies, meat, whatever. And if I exercise, particularly if there's any abdominal exercise involved, I can count on having to re-chew my food and swallow it again. Does anybody have any idea what could be going on here.

(I've read that this could relate to some sort of allergy but I was hoping there might be someone with experience here - I've spoken to my doctor and he doesn't seem to care much as there's no pain or discomfort, really - there's no bile in there or anything.)

By: Ruthless Bunny

Ruthless Bunny — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:10:13 -0800

Go to a doctor and get an upper GI series.

You could have a twist in your intestine that can cause this. It's not normal and you need to find a doctor who will take you seriously and help you get to the bottom of this pronto.

By: SMPA

SMPA — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:14:05 -0800

My sister had this as a little kid - she'd puke whenever she exercised, laughed, cried, etc. It was diagnosed as GERD - a major cause of heartburn. You don't have to have pain for it to be GERD, however. She didn't report it hurting, most times. It all just came right back up.

They said the big chunks indicated it never got to her stomach, so that's probably where they'll focus testing. They also said she wasn't chewing things right - she swallowed things that were too big (and also a lot of air.) We all had to practice chewing twenty times before swallowing.

By: Medieval Maven

Medieval Maven — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:15:44 -0800

My aunt had a regurgitation problem, and ultimately it turned out that part of her stomach had died and food was literally sitting in her stomach and rotting.

Bodies are weird.

Go to a doctor. Be obnoxious if necessary.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:21:44 -0800

Get a referral to a gastroenterologist. This could be the start of a potentially serious gastric motility issue.

By: Ruthless Bunny

Ruthless Bunny — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:22:57 -0800

Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction

I saw it on an episode of Mystery Diagnosis.

By: scaryblackdeath

scaryblackdeath — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:30:33 -0800

Can't diagnose for you, but I get acid reflux pretty frequently. I recently discovered that apples go a long way to reducing this. I read it on an online article (Web MD or something), and while I found the "scientific" explanation for it drastically wanting -- it was way too simple an explanation to be accurate -- it turns out that eating apples actually works pretty well.

But yeah, Nthing the suggestions that you see a specialist if at all possible. I would not be satisfied by the answer your doc gave if I were in your shoes.

By: windykites

windykites — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:32:17 -0800

Go to a doctor as soon as reasonably possible, you might have a hernia.

By: davejay

davejay — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:41:47 -0800

See a specialist, without question. Short and long term, however, you should also be chewing your food better; bite-sized isn't chewed-size, you know.

By: kadia_a

kadia_a — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:03:15 -0800

The people who I work with who have this often have something about their oesophagus that is causing the food to sit in there for longer.

If it doesn't taste of sick or acid then it probably hasn't made it as far as your stomach.

There are many causes for oesophageal difficulties, many of which are not a big deal, healthwise. However, some of them are and they will probably want to check it out.

As you'll have realised, coughing, straining, doing physical activity involving your abs all involve increasing the pressure inside your abdomen, which will tend to squeeze your stomach and could be pushing things back up (but chewable, normal tasting food will not have come from your stomach).

By: hydatius

hydatius — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:36:08 -0800

If there's no bile, then the chances of it being a hiatus hernia are lowered. There's a condition called achalasia which is essentially the restriction of your oesophagus' motility: it has ceased to move food down itself as efficiently as it should. Oesophageal problems generally are diagnosed by either barium swallows or endoscopies. Neither are pleasant exactly, but it's extremely important that you go to a doctor with your condition: repeated damage to the oesophagus through regurgitation, even when unaccompanied by bile and unassociated with discomfort, can cause you more serious complications over the longer term.

By: sarcasticah

sarcasticah — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:57:16 -0800

Seconding scaryblackdeath on the apples -- I have GERD, and used to have a lot of trouble with food coming back up when I was lying down trying to sleep at night. Eating an apple at night has really helped with that -- something in apples seems to help with digestion. Plus, yummy nighttime snack!

But definitely, get to a doctor and have it checked out.

By: getawaysticks

getawaysticks — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:43:11 -0800

nthing Achalasia - I went through 3.5 years of wrong diagnoses before the 3rd or 4th specialist figured it out. Near the end I couldn't even keep water or Gatorade down with any consistency.

By: HopStopDon'tShop

HopStopDon'tShop — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 05:51:21 -0800

Thanks all. I will get a referral tomorrow morning and go see what can be done. I'll post results here for posterity.

Just to add further detail given all the helpful notes above, I do, coincidentally, eat at least one apple every day, and I have done for a long time. I also chew my food fairly well and am a notoriously slow eater - some of the bite-sized foods that come up include yoghurt, oatmeal, smoothies etc, so while I will focus a bit more on chewing I suspect that it is not going to help too much.

And it pretty much always comes up bile-free and, frankly, tasting as if I'd just put it into my mouth so I guess that means it's just been sitting in my oesophagus the whole time. Which is clearly pretty messed up as sometimes this is as much as 3 hours after I've eaten.

Thanks!