How can I deal with hiccups while at home?

Posted by donnyboy @donnyboy, May 18 11:29am

In the last few days my susceptibility to hiccups has increased greatly, to the point of interfering with my sleep and continuing for an hour or more at a time. During my hospitalization last October for a demyelination disease caused by an unknown virus, hiccups were a dreadful problem, which I believe was addressed with a medication. Hiccups also recurred, much less seriously, during a briefer hospitalization in early April, again after heavy treatment with IV steroids. To have them at home, while on 10 mg Prednisone a day, is new. My new diagnosis is Clippers.

Is there a way I can stop or minimize these hiccups? Any suggestions or ways of looking at this would be much appreciated. Thank you.

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My husband had hiccups continuously for 3 days straight after receiving a cortisone shot. We discovered that this is a rare side effect. He used a spoonful of peanut butter, as suggested by others online, to get rid of them long enough to get a few hours of rest at a time. It was awful as I’m sure you’re experiencing. Perhaps prednisone has the same rare effect as cortisone. He tried many things over these 3 days but peanut butter worked the best.

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What does your doctor say? Has he addressed this problem?

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You seem to have more than just a case of basic hiccups, but I'll share what works for my family. We fill a 16 oz glass of water and drink it slowly while holding our breath the enter time. You'll feel a strong pull in your throat while swollowing. The slower you drink and the longer you hold your breath the more success you have. Plus it's a good way to flush out your kidneys!

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Well, the hiccups have finally passed, after 8-10 days, including days its was 24x7. The treatment was thorazine, which did bring me significant fatigue. I stopped taking it 3 days ago. The choice of medication - there are many medications that address hiccups - was made by my neurologist in consideration of my basic problem, which is a demyelination disease becoming more recognized, namely Clippers. I was preparing to switch to metoclopramide as a medication when the hiccups went away.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I will definitely try some of the home-based ones if and when I have milder occurrences of hiccups. Enjoy the summer!

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@donnyboy

I appreciate all the suggestions and observations everyone has made in response to my post. I still have the continuous 24x7 hiccups but fortunately a little more under control now. I have been taking Thorazine 25 mg 3x/day, and am switching to a half tablet 3x/day and adding Gabapentin 100 mg 2 capsules 3x/day. There are indeed many medications out there that can address hiccups. My neurologist needed to choose one best suited to my neurological problems, which fall into the Clippers characterization.

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Hiccups are cause mostly by diaphragm. It can be due acid reflux, etc. Google it. See a good GI doctor. Never heard anyone taking Gabapentin for hiccups. I thought G is for pain only. Please see a good GI doctor. Not just a GI Doctor. A good one.

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@donnyboy

Well, the hiccups have finally passed, after 8-10 days, including days its was 24x7. The treatment was thorazine, which did bring me significant fatigue. I stopped taking it 3 days ago. The choice of medication - there are many medications that address hiccups - was made by my neurologist in consideration of my basic problem, which is a demyelination disease becoming more recognized, namely Clippers. I was preparing to switch to metoclopramide as a medication when the hiccups went away.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I will definitely try some of the home-based ones if and when I have milder occurrences of hiccups. Enjoy the summer!

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Thanks for sharing the term Clippers. I have long Covid and have in clinical trials for two years. There was a month that i hiccuped 18 hours a day, like 8 hiccups a minute for 45 minutes. Sure enough, I see science has confirmed demyelination disease and the link to Covid.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8359762/

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@donnyboy

Well, the hiccups have finally passed, after 8-10 days, including days its was 24x7. The treatment was thorazine, which did bring me significant fatigue. I stopped taking it 3 days ago. The choice of medication - there are many medications that address hiccups - was made by my neurologist in consideration of my basic problem, which is a demyelination disease becoming more recognized, namely Clippers. I was preparing to switch to metoclopramide as a medication when the hiccups went away.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I will definitely try some of the home-based ones if and when I have milder occurrences of hiccups. Enjoy the summer!

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Well, the hiccups returned, not as severely but definitely as annoyingly. This time I was successful for a while with home time remedies, such as stopping drinking coffee, which had produced very minor burps or belches which would turn into hiccups. The hiccups went away quickly for a whole day or two before returning. I also found that seriously holding my breath (mouth shut, fingers squeezing nose and counting 6-7 hiccups before gasping for air) worked twice, but not a third time. So, a prescription for Metoclopramide came to the rescue and I have been hiccup-free for almost a week. I like this medication, it doesn't make me sleepy and it calms my digestive tract, which had also produced small burps and belches starting hiccups. There is a psychological factor in hiccuping, for sure: hiccuping after lunch, I took my first Metoclopramide pill and the hiccups stopped immediately!

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