People commonly describe it like this.

A feeling of a hard knot at the epigastrium, chronic fullness, frequent belching, and a feeling of such blockage that you cannot wear anything tight.

Symptoms outside the digestive system often come with it: headache, shoulder stiffness, a stiff neck, and a feeling of heaviness and fatigue in the body. Korean medicine sees these in the same context.

On abdominal palpation, resistance or tenderness is often confirmed when the area below the epigastrium is pressed.

However, such symptoms also appear in functional dyspepsia, reflux oesophagitis and gallbladder disease. We do not conclude it is damjeok from the symptoms alone, and check other causes alongside.