In a video posted to Reddit this summer, Lucie Rosenthal’s face starts focused and uncertain, looking intently into the camera, before it happens.
She releases a succinct, croak-like belch.
Then, it’s wide-eyed surprise, followed by rollicking laughter. “I got it!” the Denver resident says after what was her second burp ever.
“It’s really rocking my mind that I am fully introducing a new bodily function at 26 years old,” Rosenthal later told California Healthline while working remotely, because, as great as the burping was, it was now happening uncontrollably. “Sorry, excuse me. Oh, my god. That was a burp. Did you hear it?”
Rosenthal is among more than a thousand people who have received a procedure to help them burp since 2019 when an Illinois doctor first reported the steps of the intervention in a medical journal.
The inability to belch can cause bloating, pain, gurgling in the neck and chest, and excessive flatulence as built-up air seeks an alternate exit route. One …