u/gasolina10

I’m five months post-Botox and it’s getting increasingly harder to burp. I’m doing all the stretches and drinking a ton of carbonation but despite all this, the burps are coming less and less frequently. With the huge intake in carbonation, my symptoms are now way worse than they were before the Botox (before Botox I had no carbonation) and I’m pretty miserable. I’m down to maybe 4-5 small burps a day, and they usually feel like they’re stifled before they can finish. Every few days, when I feel REALLY miserable, I’ve managed to get out a single large burp in the evening, I guess after letting gas build up all day.

My question is just: when do I throw in the towel and stop torturing myself? If there’s a chance it could still work, of course I want to keep pushing and trying everything I can… but it feels like I’m fighting a losing battle here. Did anybody get down to this few burps a day, but then still manage to get the muscles to kick in and end up being a burper for life?

I had round 2 of Botox with Hoesli in December. (The first round was with Bastian and it worked only when I jerked my head to the side for about 6 months, but then I lost the ability to burp when the Botox wore off.) This time around, I am doing way more than I did the first time. I’ve been following the BERP protocol, I’ve been doing shaker and side-shaker exercises, I’ve been drinking tons of carbonation, and doing kiss the sky stretches. It was going great and I felt like I had more control over my burps using the BERP protocol (rather than just forcing them out by jerking my head to the side)… but as the Botox continues to wear off, I’m losing the ability to burp. Often now, when I go through the BERP steps, I end up gagging instead of burping. Even though I’m still managing to get burps out sometimes, I’m very bloated again and the gurgles are back.

I emailed Bastian’s office to see if they had any suggestions, and they said to keep doing what I’ve been doing, but they also suggested that I might benefit from physical therapy to work on neck muscle relaxation techniques. They said a lot of people have trouble finding a local physical therapist who can treat this, so they provided contact information for Julie Hassell with Courage Kenny Sports and Physical Therapy through Allina Health in the YMCA in Hastings, MN. (I am not anywhere near MN but) they said she’s willing to work with physical therapists closer to the patients, to help them with strategies.

Of course, the first thing I did was hop on this forum and search for other mentions of this physical therapist, and to my surprise, I found none! Has anybody worked with this therapist, either directly or indirectly before? Or does anybody have any suggestions on neck relaxation techniques that helped them? (Or, for that matter, anything else that helped them get over the Botox-wearing-off hump?)

My insurance didn’t cover the Botox procedure and I’m worried they won’t cover the PT either. I’m trying to reach out to PT providers and to my insurance company, but I am worried that I don’t have a very big window of opportunity here, before the Botox is no longer able to help me at all. I know that doing exercises on my own is no match for an actual physical therapist, who can monitor what I’m doing and give feedback/modifications/suggestions, but I’m feeling desperate to just get started with something—anything—in the meantime.