Hiccupanoia

I’m here to tell you that 4 ½ days of virtually uninterrupted hiccups are no fun, which you probably already knew but inevitably will have prompted a giggle even so.

It started on Sunday, February 27. Naoyuki and I got up mid-morning, time enough to get ready and go pick up our friend Jim, with whom we were going to have brunch and then go to the Buffalo and Erie Botanical Gardens for the annual orchid show. I ate a banana, my usual-first-thing-in-the-morning routine, and took my meds – and immediately felt extremely urpy.

Now that’s not at all unusual. I’m sure I’ve had reflux for years and years and years and for at least three years I’ve been taking various meds (most recently, Omeprazole) to keep it under control. But this was worse than usual. I felt pretty crappy all through brunch (at Pano’s, very nice, although I can’t say I much enjoyed my French toast, just because of the urpiness) and at the Botanical Gardens (which were unexpectedly great – it’s a cool place with lots of nice stuff!) We dropped Jim off precisely at 2 p.m., then headed off to do some errands – and I immediately started having the hiccups.

“No biggie deal,” I thought, I get hiccups fairly routinely – and they never last more than 10-15 minutes. But this time they didn’t stop and after we’d gotten about halfway home I said to Naoyuki, “ya know, I think maybe I need to skip the errands.”

So we went home and I kept having the hiccups – until late Thursday evening, March 1 (our 4th anniversary together!)

There were occasional breaks. I’d eat a spoonful of sugar or a cup of yogurt or something and they’d go away – for half an hour. Likewise, I could get very (mentally) involved in something (talking on the phone to my boss to let her know I was going to need to take off to go to the doctor, breading the chicken breasts to go into the oven) and they’d disappear – for half an hour.

Thankfully, whenever I crawled into bed – stretched out on my back or on my side, getting into that pre-sleep breathing mode, and eventually – usually after about an hour, sometimes more – they’d go away and I’d fall asleep (usually without noticing either.) Then I’d wake up and sit up – and they’d start right back up again.

I hate to think what my medical bills would be if I were not covered on Naoyuki’s health insurance (as a part-time employee, of course, I don’t have benefits through my workplace) but they’d probably be pretty significant. In one week:

(1) I went to my primary care people on Monday. They were busy, didn’t really have a clue, weren’t terribly concerned, but made a referral to the radiology next door for the next day.

(2) Tuesday I went to the radiology people twice, once to have an Upper GI / small bowel radium scan (you drink this white stuff like really thick, slightly chalky yogurt), then back again (at Naoyuki’s insistence, after he called my primary care people to complain) for a chest x-ray.

The Upper GI / small bowel scan was normal, as was the chest X-ray, pretty much ruling out any active problem with the esophagus, pneumonia, or a hiatal hernia. It was still possible that I might be having renal failure (I have Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, after all) or, well, gee, maybe an aortic aneurysm? Ya know – the thing that killed my dad and (probably) his mom, both at age 57. Ai yi yi! So:

(3) I went to see a gastroenterologist on Thursday, who confirmed that the Upper GI / small bowel and chest x-rays looked normal and agreed that I should have (a) an endoscope of my esophagus and stomach and – if nothing came of that – (b) a CT scan.

(4) So Friday I showed up at the GI doc’s office at 6:30 a.m. to have the EGD. They put you under for that, piece of cake, and then stick a camera up your nose and down into your esophagus and tummy. He found a polyp in my stomach and since he was there he took it out; they’re almost always benign and this one didn’t look funny, so no biggie deal. Likewise, esophagus looked fine but there were signs of (pretty mild) gastritis as far as my stomach was concerned

(5) Which is why, afterwards, Naoyuki took me BACK to the radiology people, this time to have a CT scan.

Then I went home and slept.

All day Friday and half of Saturday. And no more hiccups.

In fact, there were no hiccups Friday morning before the EGD, presumably partly because I had – after having met with Dr. Fayyaz, the GI guy – started taking a 2nd dose of Omeprazole (plus on an empty stomach instead of after food.)

And then there was the other medication:

Who knew that low-dose Thorazine was a sovereign remedy for intractable hiccups? I kinda always figured I’d wind up on it, just not for hiccups!

So…

Now I take Omeprazole twice a day (on an empty stomach) and I keep the lo-do Thorazine handy in case they come back (and they haven’t.)

There were some interesting side effects, namely Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights I had insomnia – and I felt sort of wired, plus way more talkative than usual (and, as you know, that’s a lot to begin with!) For whatever reason, I decided “do it now” was going to be my new mantra (and it has pretty much continued to be all of this subsequent week); plus Tuesday I finally (a) got a haircut (I was having hairanoia as well as hiccupanoia) and (b) went to Bally’s see about getting a personal trainer, two things I’d been putting off for a very long time.

It seems as though the hiccups were either (1) a wake up call or (2) a re-set switch, I’m not sure which. But I’m not complaining!

Just don’t let it happen again!