Normal hiccups are a temporary inconvenience. Persistent Hiccups (2-30 days) are miserable. Alhamdulillah. Intractable Hiccups (30+ days) … I can’t imagine that.
I write this having had Persistent Hiccups for 7 days.
The hiccups stopped for periods of an hour, or two to four hours. As soon as they do, that’s when I slept. Whatever the time of day or night. Otherwise, sleep deprivation will replace the hiccups as the major problem. Usually I was woken by the onset of hiccups or they start again as soon as I got out of bed. The hiccups were sometimes normal hiccups. But there were two other types of hiccups. One can be described as “hicc-up-up-up”. The other, the most unpleasant, was a hiccup but with a very clammy, sticky roof of the mouth with the tongue getting stuck to it. The hiccups seemed the most worse in the evening and best or disappeared around 2am.
Professional Status
Do not take any of the medical treatments set out here, except under the care of a professional. For myself, as a qualified Hijama Practitioner, qualified Chinese Medicine Practitioner and Hakeem, I feel I’m safe ground with all of these treatments, except, of course, the western medicine and for that I defer completely to GPs and Consultants in the NHS and private practitioners.
Faith and Spiritual Practices
Stay connected with your current practice, whatever that is. It’s a time when you are forced to re-connect. And it is, therefore, a blessing. Reach out. Ask for help. Submit. Especially at night, especially just before dawn. My personal mantra (it’s on my phone screensaver) is, “Allah is totally aware of my circumstances and He only wants the best for me.”
Cultivate your fighting spirit. Martial arts mentality (if we fight, we might both get hurt, but it’s me who’s going to win), strength training (when the gyms reopen). Fight the fear (that it is never going to stop).
Support
It is very useful to have as much support and love from a partner, family and friends as you can. Reach out. Ask for help.
Approaches
I am following western medicine protocols via Emergency GP services at the local hospital, Chinese Herbal Medicine, Unani-Tibb (Islamic Medicine), western herbal medicine, folk remedies and home remedies.
I have not yet done acupuncture – it’s difficult to do that on yourself for this particular condition (there are some points on the back) and the acupuncture clinics are just now reopening (as part of the Covid-19 lockdown re-opening rules). And by the time they went, there was no longer any need to make an appointment. I will now be getting a TCM diagnosis from one of my teachers at the College of Chinese Medicine and pursue acupuncture and herbal medicine as advised.
Treatments
These are the things that I did, with varying degrees of success. My approach was to do a lot of things at once. Because it may be the combination of treatments is the solution. Sometimes, there is no time to do things sequentially. One needs to find a solution and then work back and eliminate what’s not part of the solution.
This list is not in any particular order but the more successful ones I have mentioned first (sort of, as things are evolving and changing). This list is not exhaustive.
Fasting
Intermittent Fasting - with warm water
Hijama - wet cupping
First line A&E medicines – immediate effect but heavy-duty side effects. Ask a lot of questions before giving consent. Some of the medicines are anti-psychotic drugs. It felt like a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Second line Emergency GP medicines
Oxymel – honey and vinegar mix
Oxymel plus Blackseed Oil
Shadow Boxing – mouth closed, elbows tucked in tight
Chicken soup
Ice cream *
Straight back in prayer, standing, bowing and prostration
Vagus nerve stimulation. Qur’an, Dhikr, Wird, Dua, Ruqiya, Singing (in an appalling flat-toneless way)
Chinese Herbal Medicine Formulas – combinations of Hai Feng Teng, Feng Fang, Huo Po, Ban Xia, Chen Pi, Shen Qu, Yu Yin, Bai Dou Kou, Da Huang
Vaping with CBD oil
Distractions - an absorbing film, an interesting conversation (my hiccups went for 2 hours after I started chatting with the paramedics about acupuncture for their bad backs), surprises (the garden parasol flying into next door’s garden).
Drinking water from the wrong side of the glass ***
Ice cold water *
Literally, “a spoon full of sugar” **
Rocking back and forth in fetal position
Being rocked back and forth in a fetal position
Standing on your head
Sucking a lemon (then you get to make lemonade)
Sunbath of kidneys
Notes
* My concern about the cold treatments is that they introduce a cold-dampness into the system and intuitively this is a cold-damp problem, rooted in a cold-damp type of constipation/wind imbalance. Here, I am using ‘wind’ in both the western sense and the Chinese Medicine sense. Indeed, the cold treatments seem to give some immediate relief but longer time were probably only exacerbating the problem.
** Normally, I would avoid sugar at all costs. The dampness and heat is problematic.
*** “I think hiccup cures were really invented for the amusement of the patient's friends.” Bill Watterson
