'Embarrassing, painful and socially debilitating': The rare condition that stops people from burping

Eating out with friends was a constant source of anxiety for Dulcie, a 23-year-old research student from the UK. Her throat would gurgle loudly, and her chest would tighten as gas painfully expanded in her stomach.

Then one night, while scrolling on her phone, she saw a video about a rare condition - and suddenly her physical discomfort made sense: she'd never been able to burp. 

Retrograde cricopharyngeal dysfunction (R-CPD), also known as "no-burp syndrome," was formally identified as a medical condition in 2019, following a case series published in the National Library of Medicine by Dr Robert Bastian of the Bastian Voice Institute in the US state of Illinois. 

Awareness has grown since, giving sufferers a name for their affliction and online spaces to connect - most notably the noburp subreddit, which has nearly 35,000 members.

"Now I know what R-CPD is, I blame it for many of the barriers to generally good physical and mental health that I face," Dulcie told Euronews Health, explaining that she also believes the condition could be the cause of her severe phobia of vomiting due to the build-up of pressure in the chest that sometimes leads to nausea. 

"It is actually maddening how something many consider so unimportant, burping, can actually have such a profound effect on the quality of somebody's life," she added. 

Despite growing evidence of its mental and physical toll, R-CPD remains widely unrecognised amongst healthcare professionals due to research being in its infancy - and societal perceptions around burping.  

"There is a treatment for the condition, but it is not NHS [the UK’s National Health Service]  approved yet because lots of doctors don't know about the condition, or don't consider it to be a problem," Mr