Hiccups!?

It’s been 24 hours since Ben’s chemo (Gemzar/Cisplatin combo) and so far he hasn’t experienced much in the way of side effects…no nausea – yea! He did start getting hiccups this afternoon, which somewhat subsided after he at lunch but came back with a vengeance later in the day preventing him from trying to take a nap (he said they were a bit painful).

So, of course I googled hiccups here and found it’s a common side effect. I saw an old post from JeffG’s (continuing to help so many even though he is gone) where he said they thought it was caused by the steroids (so I will be asking the doctor about that).

Anyway, I continued to look for a remedy and I found one from our resident stalwart – Lainey who said she had given Teddy something called Brioschi and it worked (which I had never heard of) and of course you have to listen to Lainy.

So, while I was preparing to race off to the drugstore I did another google search on the internet – and it turns out there is a website called http://www.hiccups.org (go figure). On that website it stated a “tip” from The New England Journal of Medicine which said:

“Swallow one teaspoon of white granulated sugar….swallow it fast, if the hiccups don’t stop right away do it 3 or more times – once every two minutes”.

Ben thought I was crazy…he said these are more severe hiccups and that isn’t going to cure them.

But, he tried it with a teaspoon of sugar – it didn’t work, so I headed to the drugstore in search of Brioschi (in the blue bottle just like Lainy said). I was surprised to find it since neither Ben or I had heard of it, but there it was. Meanwhile, while I was waiting in line to check out – Ben texted and said he tried the sugar again and his hiccups had stopped! Wow – really? Ben was able to take a nap for a couple of hours and so far they still aren’t back (for a total of about 2.5 hours as of this writing).

Anyway – I went ahead and bought the Brioschi as a backup because you never know, I looked at the bottle – the active ingredient is sodium bicarbonate, but the inactive ingredients are sugar and corn syrup – so that seems like it might help validate the sugar idea.

Well, we will see how long it all lasts – but I was thrilled to have something work so quickly on what was becoming painful – and I also now have the trusty backup from Lainy!

I thought I would pass that along since so many people seem to suffer from it so I hope it helps!

tom

(now off to the halloween party).