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What Causes Hiccups?

Posted on Wed, 29 Oct 2014

Question: Dear Doctor,
My Father who is 72 years old is having repetitive hiccups since 5 days. Initially when consulted with general physician, he was asked to take sucrofill syrup. Continued for 2 days but no help. I showed him to ENT specialist who recommended Pantop & Montek LC and also recommended for blood test-LFT & RFT. Following are the blood test results:

Total Bilirubin - 0.7
Direct Bilirubin - 0.2
S.G.O.T (AST) - 10
S.G.P.T(ALT)- 12
Alkaline Phosphate - 139
Total Protein - 6.9
Albumin - 3.9
Globulin - 3.0
A/G Ratio 1.3:1
GGT 15
Blood urea nitrogen - 12.6
Creatinine 0.9

Serum Sodium - 141.0
Serum Potassium - 4.60
Serum Chloride - 101.2

Random Blood sugar - 121

URIC acid - 7.7

ENT specialist is available on limited days & hence asked me to show the report to any doctor. Hence I showed the report to general physician near my place who told URIC acid is the only problem & asked to take plenty of fluids. As my father is having throat pain, suggested the following medicines for next 1 week.

Augumentin 625
Combiflam

Also recommended salt water gargle and steam inhale using Karvol plus medicine for relief & to reduce hiccup. Also suggested eno salt twice a day to avoid gas & to reduce hiccups.

Can you please tell me that my father is given correct suggestion & medicine & going in right track to get rid of the constant hiccup issue that he is facing? Is there any serious problem that we need to look into. Please suggest next course of action. We will follow the medicine prescribed until then. Please let me know if the uric acid increase has something to do with hiccups he is facing now. Thanks in advance.

Answered by Dr. Ravi Bansal (3 hours later)

Brief Answer:
persistent hiccups

Detailed Answer:
Hi XXXXXX,

Hiccups occur due to spasmodic contraction of the diaphragm muscle. This would occur if anything irritating the diaphragm or its blood supply ( laryngeal nerve. So the patient needs to be evaluated for the same.

He should undergo evaluation with ultrasound abdomen especially to see for any subdiaphragmatic collection or liver problems, and a chest X-ray. An ENT evaluation should also be done.

Meanwhile symptomatic relief should be sought.

You have taken many medicines already. But you should try liofen ( Baclofen) under guidance of your doctor. Also you can use clonazepam at night. We commonly use both these medicines in our practice for symptomatic relief.

Best wishes.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vaishalee Punj

Follow up: Dr. Ravi Bansal (3 hours later)

Thank you Sir, for your response. I will let my Dad continue the current medicine for 1 week or so. If problem persists, I shall take your suggestions to my doctor. In that case which specialist should I meet or fix appointment to discuss about this problem because this would save our time and benefit my father from his illness as he already started feeling fatigue due to repetitive hiccups.
Thanks,
XXXXXX

Answered by Dr. Ravi Bansal (12 hours later)

Brief Answer:
First internal medicine.

Detailed Answer:
hiccups are dealt with various specialist- ENT, Medicine, Neurologist, Chest physician. It will depend on investigative findings. The first doctor should be an MD medicine(Internal medicine) physician.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Bhagyalaxmi Nalaparaju

Follow up: Dr. Ravi Bansal (6 minutes later)

Thank you.

Answered by Dr. Ravi Bansal (22 hours later)

Brief Answer:
hiccups

Detailed Answer:
Please close discussion if no further questions.
Thanks.

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar