Sunday, March 22, 2009

Hiccup Mystery May Be Solved

Thanks to our friend, Barbara Elliot, who is in the medical field, we now at least have a reason why Ed might have had the hiccups for several days. She sent us a page of links about Hiccups during Chemotherapy: Corticosteriods the likely culprit. Thank you, Barbara!

Before the chemo, they give Ed an IV of
Decadron, a trade name for the generic chemotherapy drug Dexamethasone, a Corticosteriod that is mentioned in the articles in these links. Its purpose is to prevent nausea. Ed's decided that in the future he'll ask not to have the Decadron and will use the anti-nausea pills afterward, if needed.

Sometimes you just have to see the humor...last evening he had a burp and a hiccup come out together - another noise as strange as the snore/hiccup sound he'd had earlier while napping. We both burst out laughing! It is fascinating to me that the "cups" are consistently at 6 second intervals.

Last night, he finally fell asleep about 2:30 a.m. - I knew he was asleep because he was softly snoring between hiccups again. Isn't it amazing that someone could sleep while hiccupping? After about half an hour, the hiccups finally subsided. This morning all is quiet and a tired Mr. Ed is trying to catch up on some sleep.

1 comment:

yrdsale4me said...

I HATE hiccups! After a while, when I get a burp/hiccup combo, it hurts. Hope Ed gets rid of them soon!