Patient’s hiccups signalled a life

Japanese clinicians have warned not to trivialise persistent hiccups when accompanied by coughing, with their case report illustrating how a persistent and prolonged bout was a sign of a much more severe problem.

MedPage Today reports that a 55-year-old man first went to a local clinic seeking help for hiccups that lasted more than two weeks, as well as non-productive cough and insomnia that followed.

According to Hiraku Sedogawa, MD, of Saiseikai Niigata Kenoh Kikan Hospital in Niigata, Japan, and Takeshi Ueda, MD, of Rakuwakai Marutamachi Hospital in Kyoto, the patient was initially given a short-acting beta-agonist inhaler, clarithromycin, and a traditional Japanese herbal treatment.

However, symptoms persisted, they reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine: Clinical Cases .

When his symptoms had not abated for several more days, he went back to the clinic, and was given vonoprazan for presumed gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, along with the muscle relaxant dantrolene.