How Reddit is convincing people to get Botox to cure their burping disorder

Reddit users are banding together to spread the word about an unorthodox treatment that uses injections of Botox to ease an often-overlooked condition that prevents people from being able to burp.

On pages like r/noburp, which has roughly 32,000 members, individuals are sharing their experience using the muscle-freezing agent to treat retrograde cricopharyngeus dysfunction, otherwise known as abelchia or no-burp syndrome, a condition that can cause bloating, excess flatulence, and discomfort.

In June, Reddit user Lucie Rosenthal, 26, shared a clip of her laughing with delight after experiencing her first burps after receiving the Botox treatment, which involves injecting 50 to 100 units into a throat muscle that controls access to the esophagus.

“It’s really rocking my mind that I am fully introducing a new bodily function at 26 years old,” she told KFF Health News.

The treatment was first reported in 2019 by an Illinois doctor to treat patients whose upper esophageal sphincter muscles have trouble relaxing.

Dr Robert Bastian, a laryngologist outside of Chicago, came up with the procedure after a man who had long struggled with abelchia reached out to see if he might try using Botox as a cure. The medicine was already in use to treat people who had other throat conditions, like difficulty swallowing after a stroke.

“It was just kind of a thought,” Bastian told Very Well Health.

The doctor added that even after the Botox wore off, patients seemed to still be able to burp with more ease.

“To my surprise, people would say to me at six months, at eight months, at 12 months, ‘I can still burp,’” he said. “It’s like training wheels...People find that little hook to the burp, and they practice it.”

However, despite doctors from Noway to Thailand using the treatment, the procedure remains costly because many insurance companies regard Botox as a red flag.

“We hear that in Southern California it’s $25,000, in Seattle $16,000, in New York City $25,000,” Bastian told KFF Health News.

Others have argued the seeming effectiveness of the treatment is a placebo effect, or a symptom of social media-fueled “cyberchondria.”

It’s indisputable, though, that social media seems to have been a key player in the rise of the treatment reaching patients like Rosenthal, bringing further attention to a condition that was subject to little study until recently.

Her Colorado doctor first heard of the Botox method in 2020, when a teen arrived in his office with a bundle of papers about the procedure. He’d found out about the Botox scheme on Reddit.