How can I deal with hiccups while at home?
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.
What does your doctor say? Has he addressed this problem?
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!
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!
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.
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/
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!