Caitlin Jones is 20 years old and lives in Sheffield. Since 2020, every time she tried to burp, her body produced a guttural frog-like noise instead of releasing the air. The cricopharyngeal muscle, which regulates the entrance and exit of the esophagus, simply did not relax. The gas got trapped, traveled to the stomach and intestines, and came out the other way.
She went to the doctor in October 2020. She was told it was ‘normal’ and that she probably had irritable bowel syndrome. She decided to go to a private consultation in London in 2023, where she was diagnosed with retrograde cricopharyngeal dysfunction, also known as ‘no-burp syndrome.’ The first round: 50 units of Botox on one side of the muscle, £800. It didn’t work. The second round, in April 2026: 100 units on both sides, £1.000. Three days later, she burped for the first time in six years. First a small one. Then a normal one. Then a five-second one.
Botox is not a permanent cure: it temporarily paralyzes the muscle so the body remembers how to do it. What is disturbing about the case is what the doctor ignored: years of nausea, chest pressure, social anxiety, and isolation caused by not being able to release something the human body does completely involuntarily. 🔬