A middle-aged man's persistent hiccups were a sign of a much more severe problem, clinicians wrote in a case report.
The 55-year-old man first went to a local clinic seeking help for hiccups that lasted more than 2 weeks, as well as nonproductive 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.
He initially was given a short-acting beta-agonist inhaler, clarithromycin, and a traditional Japanese herbal treatment, but his symptoms persisted, they reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine: Clinical Cases.
When his symptoms persisted for several more days, he went back to the clinic. This time he was given vonoprazan for presumed gastroesophageal reflux disease, along with the muscle relaxant dantrolene.
Without any additional improvement, he was referred to the authors, who wrote that most baseline tests turned up normal -- though the patient did have a history of dyslipidemia.
