Intestinal gas.

Patients with functional bowel disease commonly complain of abdominal pain, bloating, and excessive flatulence and eructation. Pain and bloating may be primarily caused by abnormal intestinal motility rather than by excessive intestinal gas. As yet there are no data available that prove excessive flatulence is actually caused by the presence of excessive intestinal gas. A study of the composition of intestinal gas provides insight into whether it is derived from swallowed air or from intraluminal metabolism. Therapy aims primarily at excluding the presence of organic disease as a cause and reassuring the patient that the disorder is functional in nature. Dietary manipulation, changing the habit of aerophagia, exercise, and pressure and heat applied to be abdominal area are all possibilities to be tried.