Hiccups triggered by bladder filling after bilateral pontine hemorrhage: A case report

INTRODUCTION

A hiccup is myoclonus of a sudden involuntary contraction of the diaphragm. Hiccups have various causes, and brain stem stroke is one of the causes of central hiccups. Certain types of hiccups are caused by diseases that can be fatal. Therefore, it is beneficial for physicians to be familiar with the various cases of unusual hiccups. We report a case of hiccups triggered by urinary bladder filling in a brain stem stroke patient. To the best of our knowledge, previous reports have not described a similar case.

PATIENT CONCERNS

We describe the case of a 54-year-old patient who had acute bilateral pontine hemorrhage. The patient had intermittent hiccups in the early stages of the stroke onset. The hiccups ceased by the administration of medication or stimulation of the pharyngeal or tracheal wall. Two months after the onset, the Foley catheter was removed to check if the patient could void the bladder voluntarily. Hiccups occurred whenever the bladder was filled with some amount of urine.

DIAGNOSIS

Pontine hemorrhage, neurogenic bladder, and quadriplegia.

INTERVENTIONS

When the hiccups occurred, the amount of urine in the bladder was checked using a transabdominal bladder ultrasonography scanner. After clean intermittent catheterization for bladder emptying, the hiccups subsided.

OUTCOMES

The hiccups occurred 5 or 6 times a day, as often as the bladder was filling. He was unable to void the urine voluntarily for 5 days after the removal of the Foley catheter. Percutaneous suprapubic cystostomy was performed finally to remove the stimulation of bladder filling and the hiccups disappeared.

CONCLUSION

Bladder filling is suspected to increase the sympathetic tone and cause a hiccup reflex. Bladder filling could be a factor triggering hiccups in pontine hemorrhage.

Recurrent intractable hiccups treated by cervical phrenic nerve block under electromyography: report of a case

Intractable or persistent hiccups require intensive or invasive treatments. The use of a phrenic nerve block or destructive treatment for intractable hiccups has been reported to be a useful and discrete method that might be valuable to patients with this distressing problem and for whom diverse management efforts have failed. We herein report a successful treatment using a removable and adjustable ligature for the phrenic nerve in a patient with recurrent and intractable hiccups, which was employed under the guidance of electromyography.

"C3, C4, C5 keep you alive," or do they?

Contrary to traditional teaching in anatomy courses, historical data suggest that bilateral loss of phrenic nerve function does not necessarily result in death.

An unusual cause of hiccup: costal exostosis. Treatment by video-assisted thoracic surgery

The described case is of a 15-year-old boy who presented with a persistent hiccup and repeated episodes of left-sided chest pain. At computed tomography scan an exostosis originating from the costo-chondral junction of the left 4th rib was seen. The tip of the exostosis reached the external surface of the pericardium. Removal of a 2 cm rib segment including the implantation basis of the exostosis was achieved by video-assisted thoracic surgery. Symptoms disappeared after surgery. This report shows an exceptional symptom of costal exostosis.

Intractable hiccup: an odd complication after laparoscopic fundoplication for gastroesophageal reflux disease

Intractable hiccup can be an unbearable circumstance and its treatment is often frustrating. More than 100 causes for hiccup have been described in the literature; the most common cause is gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). We report a case of a 31-year-old patient who suffered from intractable hiccup starting 3 weeks after laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication for GERD, a potential surgical complication that has not been described. After frustrating medical treatment, the patient underwent computed tomography and nerve stimulator-guided blockade of vagal and phrenic nerves on each side separately. Hiccup ceased only after blockade of the right phrenic nerve with 4 ml/h l% ropivacaine and relapsed soon after discontinuation. He underwent thoracoscopic right phrenicectomy, which rendered him symptom free for well over 2 months, at the time of this writing.

Intractable hiccups: treatment by microvascular decompression of the vagus nerve. Case Report

Idiopathic hiccups are usually managed with pharyngeal stimulation or a plethora of pharmacological agents. Hiccups that persist and prove intractable to these medical measures are treated by crush or ablation of the phrenic nerve, which denervates the major respiratory muscle. This is the first reported case of nondestructive microvascular decompression of the vagus nerve for the treatment of intractable idiopathic hiccups. The success of microvascular decompression has been documented with other conditions, such as trigeminal neuralgia and hemifacial spasm, that are characterized by hyperactive dysfunctional neurovascular contact. The vagus nerve was separated from the posterior inferior cerebellar artery by inserting a Teflon pledget between the nerve and vessel which eliminated the neurovascular contact. One year after the initial surgery, the hiccups recurred. The Teflon pledget had fallen out of place and the nerve was once again in contact with the artery. Once the contact was eliminated by wrapping the artery with a tuft of Teflon, the hiccups stopped. The patient has remained free of hiccups for 3 years. It is concluded that patients with intractable idiopathic hiccups who fail medical therapy should be considered for microvascular decompression of the vagus nerve.

Hiccups: esophageal manometric features and relationship to gastroesophageal reflux

Gastroesophageal reflux (GER) has been reported to be a cause of hiccups. Conversely, some reports state that hiccups cause or adversely affect GER disease. There have been few descriptions in the literature of what hiccups do to esophageal motility. We present a patient with long-standing symptomatic GER and intractable hiccups. Esophageal manometry during hiccups showed absence of LES pressure and absence of peristaltic activity in the esophageal body in response to swallowing, factors which could aggravate GER. Esophageal motility in the absence of hiccups was normal. Antireflux surgery in our patient relieved heartburn but not hiccups. Based on our case and a review of the literature, we believe that clinicians should be cautious in recommending antireflux surgery to treat hiccups in patients with both hiccups and heartburn.