First, you are posting on a thread that hasn't been active in over a year and was started in 2014, if you didn't find the advice given helpful then you could try asking your own question and starting a new thread.
Second, we don't appreciate insults here, especially against a forum veteran from someone who is new.
I respectfully suggest you do a general web search about hiccups causes and treatments as there can be many causes, some serious and some not so much. And if you can't find anything to give him relief then speak to your doctor or nurse, especially if it is effecting his quality of life.
Ferris1 is a jerk. When ur dad has been rock of family for 65 yrs sometime u still talk as if he is still there. My dad has just started looking blankly at me. I was really hoping to get advice on hiccups, hes had them for 2 day more on than off.
Alzheimer's connection? My aunt had hiccups in 2012 and it gradually increased until she died in 2014. I noticed my mom (her sister) started getting hiccups earlier this year. I thought there might be a connection, so I started looking it up and found many interesting articles and observations.
Jeanne, thanks for your story. Interesting so many responses to a problem with hiccups. I have been so desperate at times that I was hours away from packing the car and taking him to Colorado for medical marijuana. In our case the Depakote seemed to make the Baclofen more effective.
My husband Coy fell off a ladder onto a concrete floor. Neighbors performed CPR. He spent 5 weeks in the hospital. The last 4 of those weeks he hiccuped non-stop. He continued to hiccup at home. A psychiatrist was finally able to ease the problem with baclofen. Believe me, no amount of home remedies regarding eating or drinking or breathing in certain ways had any effect.
Coy continued to get hiccups whenever he had a fever. Then gradually he began to get hiccups before other symptoms of an illness appeared. It was kind of an early alert system. Baclafen became less and less effective. We were told that Thioridazine is sometimes used as a last resort, but no one with Lewy Bodies should take that for any reason, and that is what Coy had by then. So he lived with prolonged bouts of hiccups.
Coy's fall was 10 years before his LBD showed up, so altogether he dealt with hiccups periodically for twenty years.
The home remedies are worth trying and they often work with ordinary temporary cases. The prolonged kind that send you to a doctor are a little more stubborn.
There is not a lot of information about hiccups but I think in the last two years I have read every word. Hiccups are a result of a interrupted communication between the brain and the phrenic nerve. Most cases can be resolved with simply changing the swallowing pattern and resetting that communication however brain injury such as alz can be one cause for severe and uncontrolled hiccups.
Just to clarify what I meant to say about remembering six years ago - yes, long term memory may still be intact, in fact memories dating back to childhood are most common. I meant the mundane aspects of life, like where did you put your glasses, what did you eat for lunch types of memory...Each person is unique and what one remembers or not is in their own area of brain dysfunction or function.
Also, I know of many elderly patients who was given an anti-psychotic med to relieve the hiccups, this is in severe cases. The medication is Thioridazine.
Ferris1, alzheimer patients can remember events six or more years ago. My mom will talk about events and she's right as I remember her telling me about them 30 years ago.
I've always been under the impression that hiccups are caused by trapped gas in the upper stomach area. I give mom a dissolvable gas tablet and encourage her to burp which she now forgets to do. This seems to do the trick. Leaning to ones left side also helps gas escape due to the layout of the stomach in the body.
Oh my goodness now your in my neighborhood. I have mentioned before that my husband has chronic and debilitating hiccups. They rule our lives and are almost as distressing as the advanced alz.. For the past two years he has been on Baclofen and additionally lately depokote. Before discovering Baclofen he suffered throat spasms and difficulty breathing. As I sit here responding, he is on the couch hiccuping. I have made the connection with simple carbohydrates and sugars. Consuming these guarantees the hiccups and this morning I fixed him biscuits and sausage gravy. Staying on proteins and vegetables is the key to keeping the "horribles" away. He is a complete puzzle to the medical community and we have done everything short of surgery. My sympathies and I hope the simple swallowing tricks to reset the phrenic nerve work for you. If you need more information I will be happy to help.
You mean to tell me you actually believe someone with Alzheimer's disease can remember events six years ago? My husband can't remember what happened 15 mins. ago much less six years. What I do for hiccups is take a big drink of water WITHOUT taking a breath since you want to suppress the air bubble in the alimentary tube. It can be located anywhere from the stomach to the trachea. Eating too fast while gulping air in another cause. If that remedy won't stop it, talk to his doctor, but it should resolve on its own.
Twice in his life my dad got hiccups that lasted for such a long time that he had to go to the doctor and get a prescription. I think it was valium... to relax his hiccuping muscles. I know he was miserable till he got them stopped.
I have geard that hiccups are a sign of a swallowing problem when eating or drinking ... My mother gets the hiccups alot when she is eating. I encourage her to drink in between bites of food.
Hiccups? L gets them frequently, he does not have dementia. He does have a mitral valve in his heart. I have started to try to see if the hiccups seem to come on with stress. Sometimes that is the case, but I can't crawl into his head to see what he is thinking about either. For awhile he said he was getting them every time he rolled over in bed. Thank goodness for them both being hard of hearing. Mom can snore to her heart's content (I can hear her throu the ceiling when at its worst), he can hiccup and neither usually wakes up the other! LOL!
Hi My husband also has them only started this year. I also wondered why now all of a sudden He is in fouth year of diagnosis. Thanks for spoonful of sugar tip will try it.
Has he had them regularly or intermittently for all those years? I think sometimes it can be caused by drinking or eating too fast. I do know that a spoonful of sugar will usually ease the hiccups faster than any other remedy I've tried. I love chocolate chip cookies too. Hope they never cause me any trouble, I'd hate to give them up.
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First, you are posting on a thread that hasn't been active in over a year and was started in 2014, if you didn't find the advice given helpful then you could try asking your own question and starting a new thread.
Second, we don't appreciate insults here, especially against a forum veteran from someone who is new.
I respectfully suggest you do a general web search about hiccups causes and treatments as there can be many causes, some serious and some not so much. And if you can't find anything to give him relief then speak to your doctor or nurse, especially if it is effecting his quality of life.
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Coy continued to get hiccups whenever he had a fever. Then gradually he began to get hiccups before other symptoms of an illness appeared. It was kind of an early alert system. Baclafen became less and less effective. We were told that Thioridazine is sometimes used as a last resort, but no one with Lewy Bodies should take that for any reason, and that is what Coy had by then. So he lived with prolonged bouts of hiccups.
Coy's fall was 10 years before his LBD showed up, so altogether he dealt with hiccups periodically for twenty years.
The home remedies are worth trying and they often work with ordinary temporary cases. The prolonged kind that send you to a doctor are a little more stubborn.