Bowel cancer is one of the most common types of cancer in the UK. Typical symptoms affect bowel movements, for example, having softer poo, needing to poo more or less often, having blood in your poo, feeling you need to poo more often.
There are some other symptoms unrelated to poo, such as a tummy pain, bloating, and losing weight without trying.
Another might be excessive burping, according to US-based doctor Dr Kunal Sood.
Dr Sood, who has more than 2 million followers on TikTok, told a story of a nurse who had advanced bowel cancer and experienced excessive burping.
In a video posted to his channel he said: “A nurse from Florida who had a non-specific symptom of excessive burping had tests done and was found to have stage 3 colon cancer.
“Her burping was caused by bowel obstruction from the tumour.”
The story of the Florida nurse’s diagnosis went viral last year. In an interview with NeedtoKnow, Bailey McBreen, who was 25 at the time, shared she first noticed the uncommon symptom in 2021.
She said: “I would burp five to 10 times a day. This was not normal for me. I actually rarely ever burped before, and that is why I noticed how weird it was.”
She initially brushed off her symptoms, but in February 2022, other more worrisome symptoms started to pop up, including acid reflux, “excruciating” pain, loss of appetite, and inability to go to the bathroom.
As a nurse, Bailey suspected her symptoms were the result of an intestinal obstruction – and she was right.
A CT scan revealed she had a tumour obstructing her large intestine, which was later confirmed to be stage 3 bowel cancer.
She said: “Excessive burping isn’t your textbook sign of colon cancer, but my oncologist told me that it was likely the start of my symptoms.
“Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) was a symptom in my case because my tumour was slowly causing a complete bowel obstruction.”
While excessive burping doesn’t necessarily mean you have cancer, Dr Sood said this is a good lesson to look for the underlying cause.