Treatment and Medication to Cure Persistent Hiccups

I went to Radiology and met with the technician who was going to give me my X-Ray. She asked how long I had been experiencing my Hiccups for. I told her I was almost at day seven and she mentioned that was the longest duration of anyone she had X-Rayed in our city.

Apparently she had worked with several people who had experienced persistent hiccups but none of them had lasted as long as mine. This was somewhat reassuring and nerve racking at the same time.

The X-Ray didn’t show anything out of the norm. The technician and the doctor checked them out but didn’t see anything that had them concerned.

At this point the doctor decided he was going to put me on an Acid Blocker (Pantoprazole) to help with the gagging, and he would prescribe Chlorpromazine (Thorazine) in an attempt to cure my hiccups.

Thorazine is an Anti-Psychotic medication that is also well know for curing hiccups. He prescribed it in a pill form at a low dosage as Chlorpromazine.

Nausea Medicine & Drugs Do Not Cure the Hiccups

Once again it seems the doctor chose to hear we he wanted to hear, and I was prescribed yet another medication for nausea and stomach problems. Neither of which were an accurate description of what was happening to me.

As I mentioned above it was more like chocking and gagging as a result of something stuck in my throat, rather than vomiting due to nausea. In my mind this was surely being caused by the continuous Acid Reflux I was experiencing.

I still took the Metoclopramide for a full 24 hours hoping for anything that would help at this point. It had now been 6 days and I still had the hiccups, and I was close to my wits end.

We got to Urgent Care first thing in the morning at 9am when they opened. This was good because even in doing so there was quite a wait. By this time I was exhausted and worn down, my throat felt as though it has been rubbed with steel wool, and I thought I might start gagging in the lobby at any minute.

They finally got me into a room to see a doctor, where I was helped by a nurse prior to meeting with the doctor. He turned out to be one of the most informed people we had talked to since the whole episode began.

He mentioned that the medication I had been given from the ER was mainly for nausea and was not going to help with hiccups. He also mentioned that my hiccups might have had something to do with the effect that “general anesthesia” has on your body.

I then met with the doctor who checked me out. Everything seemed normal aside from the fact that I still had the hiccups. He mentioned that the surgery may have put a strain on my frenetic nerve which could be causing the hiccups. He said there were plenty of “home remedies” but not many medical cures for hiccups as they had never been studied in depth for medical pusposes.

He gave me a new prescription for Metoclopramide and sent me on my way.

G.I. Cocktail for Diagnosing Gastro Chest Pains from Hiccuping

So the hospital doctors needed to diagnose whether my chest pains were related to a Gastro problem.

To do this they have patients drink a G.I. Cocktail (Gastrointestinal Cocktail) which consists of Milk of Magnesia and viscous Lidocaine. The drink is thick and syrupy and tastes pretty bad. It is about half a cup of liquid and you just need to drink it down quickly and get it over with.

Within minutes of drinking the G.I. Cocktail my mouth and throat went numb, which is completely normal and is a function of the drink used to rule out potential cardiac problems.

They also prescribed two bags of saline solution to re-hydrate my body after 3 hours of gagging, and partial vomiting. In addition to the saline solution I was given an IV form of Prochlorperazine to treat nausea and Benadryl to counteract some of the symptoms of “restlessness” associated with the medication.

While the G.I. Cocktail helped with the severe chest pains I was experiencing as a result of the Acid Reflux, it did not do anything to relieve my hiccups. I was sent home from the ER three hours later in slightly less pain than I arrived in with a perscription for Prochlorperazine.

One thing I noticed in the ER is that both the nurse and the doctor did not seem to listen to what I was saying about how I felt. In their minds they were treating me for nausea and stomach problems when in fact I was suffering from gagging, with no nausea that felt more as though I was choking on a chicken bone. This feeling lead to the eventual vomiting, which was most likely a result of the nonstop Acid Reflux I was experiencing.