Gemma Renwick has revealed how a Botox injection into her throat ended 43 years of daily pain from a condition that left her unable to burp.
The 43-year-old UK woman spoke about her experience with retrograde cricopharyngeus dysfunction, or R-CPD, during an appearance on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. The condition prevents the neck muscles from relaxing enough to release air from the stomach and esophagus, according to Yale Medicine.
Gemma described the constant physical toll during her television interview. “I’ve always had the inability to burp, and it’s caused a lot of issues. It’s not just, you know, the fact that I can’t burp. It’s trapped wind, awful bloating, pain every day,” she said.
She emphasized how the dysfunction invaded every ordinary moment. “It is really debilitating. You swallow air when you’re eating, you’re drinking, talking, swallowing saliva, like it’s constant all day,” she continued.
The buildup of trapped air created acute crises. Gemma used prosecco as an example of something she struggled to drink, calling the resulting pain “excruciating.” She explained the sensation in stark terms: “It would get to a point where you physically can’t fit anything else in. It feels like you can’t breathe. You can’t swallow. It’s like a build up of– I can only describe it as pressure.”
Before finding treatment, Gemma developed an extreme coping mechanism. “As awful as it sounds, I had to teach myself to manually burp, which it sounds horrendous, but it’s basically making yourself gag, so the reflex opens to get the air out, which was traumatic in itself and embarrassing,” she added.
Relief came through what she calls “Throatox,” a Botox injection administered directly into the throat muscle. The procedure gave her the ability to burp for the first time in her life, and she recalled the moment in glowing terms. “The relief from that pain and pressure, and just to feel normal, you know, feel like a normal person again,” she said. She called her first burp “amazing.”
Gemma has been documenting her journey on TikTok, where her posts attracted attention from someone with a similar struggle. Little Mix singer Jade Thirlwall commented on one of Gemma’s videos, writing: “Omg I finally feel so seen and understood. It’s always been a fun fact that I can’t burp, but it’s caused issues my whole life and I’m sick of people commenting on my weight and body onstage when I’m just bloated … I want to get the throatox but worried it’ll affect my vocals.”
The treatment’s effectiveness has clinical backing. A 2020 study of 200 patients treated with Botox found that 99.5 percent were able to burp afterward and 95 percent experienced relief of the cardinal symptoms of R-CPD. The research further noted that 79.9 percent of patients experienced lasting relief beyond the typical duration of the drug’s action after a single injection into the cricopharyngeus muscle.
R-CPD, also known as “no burp syndrome,” produces a cluster of recognizable symptoms including the inability to burp, abdominal bloating, gurgling sounds from the neck and chest, and excessive flatulence. For Gemma, these symptoms defined more than four decades of daily life before the 20-minute procedure offered what she describes as a transformative change.