Woman hiccups for eight years

Danielle Kirkland woke up in March 2008 with the hiccups and they didn’t go away until last year.

She was diagnosed with chronic hiccups in October 2008 and visited gastric, ear, nose and throat, and lung specialists before a cure was finally found.

She said she was kicked out college where she was training to be a nurse because she was ‘disruptive’ to the class.

She said: ‘I was trying not to be. I just couldn’t stop hiccuping.’

Another time, during the eulogy at her friend’s mother’s funeral, she had a fit of hiccups, making the congregation laugh.

‘Luckily my friend didn’t mind,’ she explained. ‘It made things light-hearted.’

Danielle has been dating Scott McCracken for three years, but previously she’s had some bad luck.

She said: ‘Guys would make fun of me.

Danielle thinks her hiccups, caused by the diaphragm suddenly and involuntarily contracting, started because of a combination of the pain-killing medications she was taking for arthritis and migraines.

‘I took barbiturates and Lortabs (an opiate of acetaminophen and hydrocodone),’ she said. ‘I was addicted to them and would doctor-hop and pharmacy-hop to get them.

‘I had been doing this for years before I went cold turkey in 2008. Going cold turkey was tough, I felt so fluey, but I recovered and am now sober.

‘However, I think the long-term impact gave me chronic hiccups.’

Around four years ago, Danielle started taking a medication called metoclopramide to try and control her hiccups.

Generally used to treat gastric problems, it caused uncomfortable spasms in Danielle and so she abandoned it.

However, it prompted her to seek more solutions. So, she started to try a muscle relaxant called tizanidine which did work.

‘It really helped,’ she said, explaining she takes a tizanidine capsule nightly.

The tizanidine took about a month to work. After that period she was hiccuping just six or seven times a day – instead of an hour. Now, if she misses even a dose, she notices.

Source: http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/22/woman-had-hiccups-for-eight-years-heres-how-she-finally-stopped-them-6464486/