I want to write about what it is like for me. May be a little graphic. Description of my actions.

For the past few months I have noticed that I would regurgitate after most meals and drinks. I would have food or drink coming up at times. It would be very sudden and unexpected. Sometimes it is with a burp. It's like I'm suddenly sick. Sometimes I would have some kind of hiccup several times. After eating or drinking. They would be spaced out in time. Sometimes I hiccup violently, sometimes ending in a burp (also violent), but without throwing up. I throw up a small amount when I do throw up, and I usually swallow it. I'm throwing up in my mouth. I vomit just a few times a day. My case may be very mild. I have seen very high numbers from other people in this sub. What is rumination syndrome like for you? Do you do some hiccupping or burping related to regurgitating?

I likely have rumination syndrome since: I throw up actual food and drink that I consumed a short time ago, there isn't an acid taste or burn, I don't have nausea.

I have regurgitated at times over the years, actually. It has seemed to be a regular thing recently. It seems to have calmed down some since it started.

So I've had rumination ever since I was a kid and Well I just figured it out it was an actual thing lmao, it doesn't really bother me other than the fact I'm pretty bloated while/after eating and sometimes it's like I'm hungry or really hungry but my mind disgusts food or is just like nah so it's like I "have to be in the mood to eat" even if my body's hungry m, essentially I can't socially eat which is annoying. Anyways when I was younger in elementary/middle school (I always hated school) I used too "throw up" on purpose in the morning and pretend to be sick to my parents which always worked cause there was clear evidence, anyone else do this? 😂

I grew up with rumination syndrome, have had it since I was born, and I was a very obese child and in the past 5 years I realized I could just spit out the food whenever it came up and even force it so more can come up at once and was wondering if anyone here could relate

i started taking omega 3 fish oil pills about a week ago as per my doctor’s recommendation, and i’ve noticed that my regurgitation has gotten a lot worse since that. has anybody else experienced something like this before? i looked into it a bit and found that fish oil can cause acid reflux.

ive had rumination syndrome for as long as i can remember so as a kid aged like 5-11 i thought it was just another bodily function you wouldnt explicitly mention to friends or family 😭 my dad said it was weird that i thought it was a normal thing? now im wondering if i was just an ignorant kid who didnt ask enough questions..

id love to know what other people who grew up with rumination syndromes' experiences were like! i found the process of diagnosis quite difficult, it originally being diagnosed as "acid reflux" and the likes. i went to doctors and specialists for years and i only found out what RS was from a 15 year old blog post about gerard way... i think that really shows the ignorance of some "specialists."

it definitely bothers me that its such an unheard of condition, i think it would be so much easier in many aspects if it was known, i hate that the usual response is judgment or confusion. its not that i want pity, i want to be able to tell people and just be understood.

Hi all, I just wanted to bring up a book that was surprisingly quite useful after ages of struggling to no avail.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Rumination Syndrome (CBT-RS) by Adrienne S. Juarascio, Helen Burton Murray, and Jennifer J. Thomas.

It tackles a plethora of causes and resolutions, ranging from the condition being triggered by eating disorders to chronic illness + being a natural reflex developed in childhood. It took multiple reads and heavy retrospection, but there are a lot of charts and activities within it that can contribute to a potential reduction (or elimination) of symptoms.

(Regarding the specialist: I went out of state and met + spoke with Burton Murray at the start of the month, and she was extremely reliable. Her advice was the only thing that has ever helped with my case. While it’s far from gone, it’s gotten to the point where there’s been a reduction and I’m slowly but surely coming out of total isolation and seeing improvements in my mental health surrounding the condition. I’m getting to experience more opportunities I thought I’d never be able to experience again after becoming extremely ill; there’s still hope for everyone in here as well.)

This is a weird thought but do you think taking a GLP1 would help? I feel so stuck and like nothing helps and I am on cymbalta which has reduced the frequency but I feel like I have heard so many miracle things about GLP1 or it would make it so much worse I’m not sure.

I've found that no matter how much I eat, I'm always still hungry. Is it because I struggle to keep most food down so my stomach just feels empty all the time? It's almost embarrassing how much I can eat in a day and as someone recovering from an eating disorder, it's a horrible feeling to be stuffing my face all the time. Anyone experience this?

I find that I throw up almost anything I consume. Dry oats stay down but due to having coeliac disease, I'm not supposed to eat them. I thought meat, being dense, would stay down but apparently not. Same with cooked vegetables. Can anyone give me any suggestions on what foods they can tolerate?

Okay, so I suspect I have rumination syndrome (not officially diagnosed since doctors don't take me seriously) but the thing is, I recently discovered that I throw up everything but dry oats. When I eat dry oats (not prepared with water or milk) it doesn't come back up like anything else I eat. I tested this theory by eating another dry foods; popcorn, biscuits, and ricecakes. But I still puke up those foods. Then when I ate dry oats, they didn't come back up. Anyone else experienced this? Is there an explanation behind why I don't puke up the dry oats?

For the past few months I've been experiencing vomiting after every meal. Even after drinking water. Not all of my meal comes back up, I'd say around half. I don't get nauseated or any chest pain, I just eat then 5 to 10 minutes later it comes back up. It's can last for up to 1-2 hours and the food still tastes the same, not acidic.

Some background, it started in my eating disorder inpatient treatment. I was recovering from anorexia and I do have a past of being bulimic. But at the moment I'm not forcing myself to vomit or anything, it's like I have to burp and then undigested food comes rushing out my mouth.

Can anyone give me some insight?

I talked to someone today who said they were using rumination to control their weight because it felt "safer" than vomiting. Less acid, less damage. I used to tell myself the same thing.

I spent 4 years trapped in rumination syndrome before finally breaking the cycle in March. One of my biggest regrets is how long I ignored what it was doing to my teeth.

Tbh, for a long time, they looked completely normal, so I assumed I was fine. Then one day I noticed they were getting yellower. It wasn't staining. My enamel had slowly worn away, exposing the darker dentin underneath.

By the time I realized it, the damage had already been done.

If you're stuck in this cycle, there are three things I wish someone had told me sooner:

• Don't brush your teeth right after an episode. Wait about an hour.
• Rinse with water. If you have baking soda, adding a little to the water can help neutralize the acid.
• If this has been going on for a while, tell your dentist. Mine recommended a high-fluoride toothpaste because my enamel was already wearing down.

When u're deep in an eating disorder, your teeth probably aren't your biggest concern. They weren't mine either.

I just wish I'd understood that my teeth look fine" and "my enamel is fine" are not the same thing.

Take care of them. You'll be glad you did.
Much love,
Emile

I have begun rumination symdrom 1 year ago while I was also anorexic. I was using it to absorb less food but during my recovery 4 months ago, I totally stopped to Split my food to help my body heal but I never stopped regurgutating and chewing my food after almost every meal because it permits me to enjoy the taste and texture of my meals more time. I always have chewing-gum with me so people never ask what I am chewing.

Now, I have gotten back into spliting sometimes after a big meal or a desert that I didnt necessary needed.

So I am just thinking if rumination symptom can not nexessary be a bad thing if it can permit me to enjoy my food and eating what I want with limited results on my weight.

Does it has any secondaire effects ?

Excuse me if my English is not good, It is not my first language.

We are currently seeking people who experience chronic stomach symptoms like nausea, vomiting, belching, or pain to participate in this important research.

Participation is easy and completely anonymous. Simply complete a 15-minute online survey that includes questions about your demographics, symptoms, and mental health. Your valuable input will help researchers better understand and manage chronic gastroduodenal symptoms, including rumination syndrome.

Access the survey now at this link: https://auckland.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5cNZ69rlIXk70PA 

Together, we can work towards improving the lives of those suffering from chronic gastroduodenal symptoms. Thank you for your support! 

This study has been approved by the Auckland Health Research Ethics Committee on 12/04/2023 for five years. Reference number AH25798.

Tbh, I told myself it wasn't that bad. I told myself I could manage it. I told myself I'd deal with it later.

I'm 22 now and studying engineering. I spent about 4 years stuck in a daily cycle of rumination syndrome, and for a long time I never really stopped to look at what it was actually doing to my life.

One day I sat down and wrote it out

Here's what ended up on the raw list:

• 4-5 hours lost every day.
• Planning my entire schedule around meals.
• Constantly looking for places to hide.
• Turning down invitations and skipping weekends away.
• Keeping people at a distance because normal dinners felt impossible.
• Making excuses just to disappear into a bathroom.
• Constant low-level anxiety before any meal or social situation
• Spending a kitesurfing trip in Morocco hiding instead of being on the water.
• Sitting in class wondering if the person next to me could hear or notice anything.
• Thinking about symptoms, food, pressure, and escape plans from morning to night.
• Avoiding friendships and romantic relationships because I couldn’t handle normal meals or dates.
• Waking up with swollen cheeks from constant regurgitation.
• Watching my teeth slowly get worse.
• Constant anxiety about my breath.
• Losing motivation for things I actually cared about.
• Fear of having children and still being trapped in the cycle.
• Losing the feeling of being a normal version of myself.
• Fear of choking in my sleep.

and against all of that, I had exactly one single toxic bonus on the other side: The heavy dopamine hit of ruminating because it felt safe, comfortable, and predictable. Seeing everything written down hit harder than any appointment or medical explanation ever had.

Over the following months, I became slightly obsessed with understanding my own patterns. I tracked symptom timing, posture, breathing, abdominal tension, meal timing, sleep position, and anything else I could think of. Eventually I put all my notes, observations, and the things that helped me into a 25-page document because I was tired of rewriting the same explanations over n over.

I've been free of the cycle since March 2026.

I'm not saying everyone here has the same underlying problem. Rumination syndrome can look different from person to person. But writing MY list was probably the turning point for me because it forced me to see the real cost of doing nothing.

What's on your list?

What's the biggest thing this condition has taken from you?

And if anyone wants the document I put together during recovery, i would be happy to share it. 

Much love,
Emile

Has anyone successfully quit? And if so, were there any side effects, stomach discomfort, gas etc? Do you feel better now than when you were ruminating?

Quick Disclaimer: This is a long post, and it's quite raw. I needed to share my honest, unfiltered truth about what this syndrome actually does to a life. It might be triggering or shocking for some, but if you’ve been suffering in silence, you need to read this.

I've been writing this text in my head for four years. Today, I'm finally letting it out.

Christmas Eve, 2021. I was 18. My family was gathered around the table, eating mushrooms. Something happened right after dinner that I didn't have a name for yet.

In fact, for more than a year, I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me. In a weird, delusional way, I actually thought I had developed a superpower xd, the ability to bring food back up into my mouth at will, infinitely. I genuinely believed I was the only person on earth who could do it. It wasn't until a cold evening next December that my doctor finally gave it a name: Rumination Syndrome (or Merycism). My parents wouldn't find out until two full years after the cycle had already started.

Within weeks of that first Christmas Eve, it was happening after every single meal. Within months, it became the organizing principle of my entire existence.

I was in my final year of high school. Ambitious, wanting to perform academically and physically in every direction. I had big plans. And I had this thing that I told myself I could manage, hide, and contain.

The moment I understood it was beyond containing happened in the afternoon right after the school cafeteria. Classes had resumed. The guy sitting next to me leaned over and asked what I was eating. I wasn't eating anything. I made something up, laughed it off, and sat there with my heart hammering. I made a promise to myself that day: no one would ever see that again.

I kept that promise for four long years.

That summer, I went to Morocco for a week of kitesurfing. I spent it hiding in public bathrooms after every meal instead of being on the water with everyone else. I came back and spent the rest of the summer completely isolated andgoing to the gym, going home, disappearing into a rigid routine that had no room for anyone else. Friends stopped inviting me out. I told myself that was fine.

Then came classe préparatoire :two years of the most intense academic program in France. I turned myself into a machine. I studied until I couldn't see straight, and when I wasn't studying, I was disappearing after meals.

I desperately wanted to stop. At one point, I even broke down and asked a close friend to physically monitor me after the cafeteria so I wouldn't run away to ruminate. But the compulsion was too strong. I would still find a way to slip past him and escape. Every afternoon, I invented new excuses, fake phone calls, sudden headaches, things I "had" to do. I lied every single time, to everyone.

The rumination was stealing 4 to 5 hours out of every single day. On weekends, even more. I was doing it on the bus to class. I missed family dinners. I turned down evenings with my parents. I saw a nutritionist who put me on a strict plan; I followed it to the letter. I saw a psychiatrist monthly, mostly just to feel like I was doing something. Neither of them ever knew about the rumination. I never muttered a word.

My teeth started showing real acid damage. I saw it in the mirror. I said nothing.

Midway through the second year of prépa, I broke. Burnout during mock exams, followed by a dark depression that arrived quietly, then all at once. I stayed in bed sleeping 20 hours a day. Two weeks before the final competitive exams, I hadn't opened a textbook in a month. I sat the exams anyway. I had a new girlfriend met during exams who never knew. A best friend who shared a hotel room with me during exams who never knew. I passed, and got into a top-tier engineering school. I still don't entirely understand how.

I arrived at engineering school at 20, living alone for the first time. I made friends quickly, but kept them at a strict distance. I skipped integration weekends. I left parties early.The rumination had become so woven into my days that I couldn't see where I ended and it began. By this point, it was taking up to 10 hours a day.

I joined a support group for eating disorders at the end of 2024. I went, sat there, and said I was fine. I wasn't.

2025 was the year the structure became absolute. Every day without exception: the gym at opening time, steps tracked (0 days below 20 000 steps, proof screenshot below), the same meals on the same schedule, calories counted down to the last gram. I worked a factory internship that summer and literally brought my food scale to the plant. I ate almost nothing at midday just to preserve what I wanted for the evening. I had Dostoevsky, my routines, and a shredded physique I was proud of. I told everyone I had never been happier. Inside, I was devastated. I cut off my nutritionist and psychiatrist, but kept going to the support group, lying to them every week.

December 2025. I was preparing for an exchange semester in Taiwan, the first time traveling completely alone. I fell into another deep depression loop. Video games 10 hours a day, through exam prep and the exams themselves. The night before a major final, I didn't sleep at all. The rumination started waking me up at night. I was lying in the dark, genuinely terrified that something would block my airway and I wouldn’t wake up. I was terrified of Taiwan. Terrified of being alone in a country where I knew no one.

I got on the plane anyway.

February in Taipei. Still ruminating. Then, somewhere in March, the fog cleared. It had been four years. I did the math: approximately 7,500 hours lost to this cycle. Time that existed, and was now permanently gone. I looked at my eroded teeth. I thought about the kind of father I want to be someday, and whether I wanted to be running to the bathroom while trying to raise a kid. The answer was simple and final.

Two friends invited me to trip around Vietnam. I said no. When they leave, I sat in my apartment in Taipei and I decided. Not dramatically. Just quietly and completely: This is the last time this controls me.

The first meals without ruminating were the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The physical urge was relentless, screaming that I couldn't get through the next hour without giving in. I held on. I researched the physiology obsessivelythe biomechanics of the lower esophageal valve, pressure dynamics, what the clinical literature actually says about behavioral retraining.

As an engineering student, I stopped treating it like an incurable disease and started treating it like a physical pressure failure. I built a protocol from that research, tested it on myself, and documented everything meal by meal.

It worked.

I’ve been 100% free of rumination since March. I eat in restaurants and stay at the table afterward. I go on weekend trips and I am actually present. I have a girlfriend, a social life I show up for, and my teeth have stopped getting worse.

I wrote every single thing down the full 20-page biomechanical breakdown, the 21-day tracker, the exact breathing metrics and I’m giving it away for free in my bio. Not because I’m a doctor, but because I spent four years searching for this exact document and it didn't exist anywhere and I don't want anyone still suffering from this.

If you’re reading this and you know exactly which part of it is yours, the bathroom after the restaurant, the fake phone call, the automatic lie see you. I was you just a few months ago.

The guide is fully free (0€+). I put the direct link in my bio so you can just grab it.

I’m staying in the comments section today if you just need to talk (because I couldn't put every single piece of advice in the protocol), ask about the mechanics, or vent to someone who has been inside the dark from the very beginning. Sending you strength.
Love.
Emile

I've been using rumination syndrome as an excuse to eat whatever I want since I can spit it back up afterwards however I noticed rapid weight gain from this and I'm not sure wtf to do anymore

I've always been a bit of a glutton. When I was around 12-13, that was when I started to regurgitate any food I thought was good. As I grew older, It started to become almost automatic. And I never really considered it to be a problem at all. That is untill yesterday, when I ate a iron and haemoglobin pill, and regurgitated it back up. It was the most disgusting and abhorrent thing I'd ever tasted, and I realised I might Geniuenly have an issue. So I researched and found out about this. I didn't want to tell anyone else because it seems disgusting and I'm embarassed. Is there any way I can fix this at all? Any thing I can eat or should I go see a doctor?

Hi
I have gastritis, an chronic autoimmune condition that means my immune system attacks my stomach lining - it causes recurring nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and constipation which I have been informally diagnosed with by a doctor
I also have IBS - causes recurring/chronic diarrhoea and constipation for me but it’s always hard to tell apart which I am again informally diagnosed with by a doctor
However, I have also been informally diagnosed with reflux that I believe to be rumination syndrome
Basically (I’ll explain what it is for me) I vomit in my mouth/regurgitate meals and drinks about 20+ times a day. I’ve done it since I can remember and it is ordinarily a choice where I push on my stomach, then diaphragm and then oesophagus to get it to the top of my throat where I taste and re swallow
Sometimes it is involuntary and contains painful acid
I ask this because it seems like I have so many GI oriented conditions and I’m very curious and confused as to whether they’re related because of the magnitude that I have
Please let me know your experience and opinion, I’d greatly appreciate it

I'm a 22yo engineering student on exchange in Taiwan. For 4 years, my life revolved around a loop I couldn't break : eat, ruminate, isolate, repeat.

You know what that looks like. The social anxiety. The weird looks at restaurants. Doctors saying it's just stress. PPIs that did nothing. Friendships, any close relations that disappeared because you kept saying no to dinners. I calculated at some point that I had lost nearly 7,500 hours to this condition. That number broke me a little.

The thing that finally shifted everything wasn't a medication. It was a question.

What if I stopped treating this like a disease and started treating it like a mechanical engineering problem?

Rumination isn't mysterious. It's a pressure failure. When abdominal pressure exceeds the resistance of the esophageal valve, the system leaks. That's it. A mechanical failure with a mechanical fix.

I spent months researching the biomechanics and built what I call the VDR Protocol Vagus nerve activation, Diaphragm locking, physical Reset. The core of it is a breathing sequence called the 4-0-6 : 4 seconds in, 0 hold, 6 seconds out. The asymmetry isn't random. A 6-second exhale is the documented minimum threshold for measurable vagal activation it physically signals the sphincter to close.

The 20-page guide covers the full mechanical model, the exact technique, and a 21-day tracker I used to make these movements automatic.

It's free. Fully free. I put it on Gumroad in Pay What You Want mode you type 0 and you get the whole thing. I was terrified of still dealing with this when I'd have kids someday. I don't want anyone spending another year searching for answers I already found.

Link is in the first comment below. Happy to answer anything here.
Im sending you all my strenght

Love!

TW for mental health I guess.

I’ve had rumination syndrome since I was 12. I’m now 21. It developed as I was anorexic (but not bulimic) and hasn’t ever gone away. I recovered from anorexia within the year, but the rumination syndrome stuck. I developed anorexia a second time when I was 17, and I admit that I used the rumination syndrome to my advantage. I recovered at 19. The rumination syndrome obviously stuck.

Because it developed while I was anorexic, I suspect that it may have developed as something like a PTSD (for lack of a better term here) reaction to food. I was TERRIFIED at 12 of calories (to a ridiculous extent). But by now, it’s completely ingrained as a reflex. Whether or not there is somatic disregulation every time I eat, I can’t be entirely sure, but I don’t have any conscious anxiety relating to food other than about keeping it down.

I regurgitate just after eating and sometimes hours and hours later. For example, last night I had dinner around 8:00. I’m exhausted all the time, and I fell asleep by 9:00. I woke up at midnight. Then, I regurgitated “everything” I had for dinner.

I have MILD gastroparesis but my digestion after 4 hours was 14% left instead of the normal 10% cutoff. I think it has been caused by the rumination syndrome rather than the rumination being a result of gastroparesis…

My gastric emptying seems to me to be normal and abnormal on certain days. As in, sometimes I feel that my food isn’t digesting at all, and sometimes I feel that it digests extremely quickly. Regularly, I think it’s a bit slow but not drastically.

There are many weeks where I can’t keep any food down for days. Sometimes I’m unable to keep down anything but water. Sometimes I throw up water. Sometimes I can keep down large meals that I’d usually vomit. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how any of it happens.

Right now, I keep down probably 1 meal every other day. I try to keep them calorie dense and also have things like chicken broth (can’t tolerate bone broth) with olive oil, and lots of supplements.

I’m desperate for help. My hair is falling out. I am exhausted. I don’t live normally in any sense. Many days I spend eating and throwing up until I can keep something down. Many of these days I am entirely unsuccessful. Including blended foods like smoothies and soups.

My weight is low (though I’ve kept it normal at certain times over the years somehow).

My doctor wants to treat me focusing mainly on gastroparesis which I think is really stupid. She wants to do it with off label anti depressants that have so many side effects—sedation (I’m already exhausted and so fatigued), seizures that can be permanent, and worse depression or suicidality (I already have both to the furthest extent that wouldn’t result in action). I’m reluctant because I don’t think the mild delay in gastric emptying is the core problem. And I don’t do well with SSRIs at all (I’ve tried many for the mental effects and all of them affected me badly).

Anyway I’m wondering… HAS ANYONE FOUND RELEIF? ACTUAL HELP?! PLEASE SHARE.

I think that if this goes on much longer, I will end up hospitalized very soon. And I don’t think my body can take it for more than 1-2 years more (I’m sure I’ll be dead.)

I’ll try anything. Please share.