A patient comes to be seen for intractable hiccups.
When the secretary brings him back and puts him in a room, she gives us a look and says “here’s a weird one for you.”
He gives a long drawn out story about how he had his hiccups for more than a week and he was sick of them and all the things he tried to do to get rid of his hiccups … including sticking his finger down his throat, drinking water upside down (how?), swallowing sugar, pulling on his tongue … nothing worked. He couldn’t sleep. In fact, he was hiccuping so much that he was making himself vomit.
In a last ditch effort to curb the hiccups, he drank some vodka to see if that would help … a whole fifth. His mother had to drive him to the hospital because he was a little too intoxicated to come on his own.
Nothing besides his Smirnoff breath was abnormal on his physical exam, so I prescribed him a few days of Thorazine to see if that would help and referred him to his family physician if the symptoms persisted.
He grabbed the prescription and said to his mom “Come on. Let’s get to the pharmacy so I can take a handful of these things.”
“Ummmm. One at a time, OK, there bud?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
The secretary came back after he walked out and asked “Wasn’t he a trip?”
I told her what he said about taking a handful of pills to get rid of his hiccups.
“That’s nothing. When he came to the window to register, he was feeling nauseous. I gave him a vomit bag in case he got sick. He threw it on the desk and told me that he didn’t see the need for a condom at this point and that at least we could give him one that would fit.”
We all giggled and then I started thinking to myself. Maybe he should be on that Thorazine on a long term basis.
Perhaps you should have given him a 50 gal garbage bag and that would fit him?
PS – Now I have to go google why Thorazine would get rid of hiccups….excuse me…
When I get hiccups, I drink a 6 oz. can of pineapple juice. I have no idea why pineapple juice relives them; when drinking other liquids, like water, do not.
I like to keep several cans of pineapple juice on hand at all times, just in case I get the hiccups.
RSDS
I used to work in CT surgery, and patients often get hiccups due to phrenic irritation from the chest being open. When one patient had a really bad case, the doc ordered thorazine – unfortunately at a psychiatric dose and not a hiccup dose.
That patient slept well…
I actually drink water upside down for hiccups… and it works!!
I hold my breath for the length of time it takes me to gulp down a whole glass of water. My dad concentrates on waiting for the next hiccup (which never comes). His parents used to offer him money for the next hiccup when he was a kid which would make him do the same thing, that’s how he figured it out.
WC …I’d think a vomiting elephant would require a big hefty bag size.. to hold the vomit.
I’m kidding .. I know what you meant. Funny post ..thanks for the laughs!
Regarding hiccup guy ..yes ..he did all those things, but did anyone scare him?? You know ..like “BOO!”
You all wear footwear that enables you to stealthily walk anywhere and so why not gather up the staff, your supply of scary masks (every ED has them ..right- typical supply order?
)and then stealthily sneak up on hiccup guy from behind …wait..wait.. and at just the right moment ..in unison YELL “BOO!” (or word of choice)as you jump out at him, wearing said scary masks. Of course there’s always a trade off in life and so it would be prudent to have the crash cart near by. I’m just sayin. 
You must visit different hospitals than I do. The ones I go to the staff all wear really squeaky shoes.
Ha ha!, Soronel – I actually don’t remember specifically .. but usually I think those shoes are pretty quiet. I’ll be heading to the OR (procedure) soon and I’ll try to assess just how stealthy the staff’s shoes are.
Odeh, M; Bassan, H; Oliven, A (February 1990). “Termination of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage”. J Intern Med 227 (2): 145–6.
Lots cheaper than Thorazine..though less pleasant.
See “Minor Emergencies, Splinters to Fractures” (Mosby/Elsevier) for multiple hiccup remedies. Can be found on Amazon.com.