GASTRIC-BYPASS AND BELCHING

Question
I had gastric-bypass surgery 6/04.  Since then, my belching has increased to the point of where I belch every second sometimes after I eat something.

I never belched so much before my surgery and I've never had acid reflux prior and I never had indigestion or heart burn --- No pain EVER and normal, occasional belching. My primary care doc says I probably have acid reflux, but do not feel pain. She placed me on Prevecid.
Can acid reflux be caused by gastric-bypass?  Could there be something else causing the belching?

Answer
Trying to keep this answer representational of my own experience, I do belch after I eat but only when I'm eating too fast.  I get that "stuffed up" feeling and have to belch to get the food to go down.  If you experienced belching every time you ate, I would suggest asking your PCM to set you up for a upper gastric scoping to see if the opening to your stomach was too small and needed "stretching".  But since it only happens "sometimes" I would see if slowing your eating or increasing the number of times you chew your food helps.  Having had surgery so long ago, you probably already know how important it is to keep the volume of your bites small and to make sure that there are no "lumps".

So, try to focus on making sure your bites are smaller and that you chew each bite well for a period of a week and document it when you experience the burping that is bothering you.  Remember to document what/how much you eat, how big your bites are, how well you chew and when you experience the burping for the whole week.  Then, take the journal with all that information to your PCM and discuss the issue with him/her.

Let me know how that works out for you so that I can provide additional information for others from your experiences, ok?

And don't forget to give me feedback on these suggestions by rating my answer on the allexperts.com website.

Thanks,
Steve

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