Part 2 of 5 – It’s Just Gas – Excessive Belching
When this burping or belching occurs excessively, it is usually due to the swallowing of air, very often from hastily eaten food or hastily swallowed fluids. Not infrequently, belching gets to be a habit, a nervous habit, similar in its psychological background to nail chewing in children. Occasionally, people troubled with gall bladder disorders acquire this symptom of excessive belching.
Though belching in itself is not serious, there are times when it is indicative, if excessive belching is pronounced, of coronary disease of the heart or an unstable nervous system. Only a qualified doctor can determine whether the symptom is harmless or serious.
Actually there are many people who give lengthy descriptions of what they believe to be symptoms of gas and distention, yet often these very cases show but little air in the intestines during x-ray examination. In this type of case, we know that the discomfort, chiefly a sense of bloating, is caused by a spasm somewhere along the food digestion canal. Very often there are areas in the skin of the abdomen, so tender that a tight girdle or belt cannot be worn.
Such a condition is certainly not one to be dismissed lightly. Should it occur excessively more than occasionally, it would be well to seek out your health counselor, the family doctor, for a general physical examination. Certainly this is much to be preferred to the amateur efforts at relief such as “taking bicarb.” Excessive Belching part 3.
