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Some of you here may know from one of my earlier profile posts that my father has been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic lung adenocarcinoma. He is receiving chemotherapy, the exact drugs being Pemetrexed, Carboplatin and bevacizumab.
After his first chemo cycle, he started having hiccups, but they stopped after taking one tablet of Baclofen 10 mg. Today, he came home after his 2nd cycle, but the hiccups are no longer stopping with baclofen. Our family physician (who is a senior doctor with a degree in internal medicine), after speaking to our oncologist, increased the dose of baclofen 10 mg to three times per day. Don't know whether that will work, but Dad is suffering quite a lot from the hiccups.
I was searching on Google to find a remedy for the hiccups. Several papers stated that dexamethasone, which is given for prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV), is possibly the cause of the persistent hiccups. These are the papers:
After searching some more, I found the following papers that state that changing dexamethasone to methylprednisolone decreases the intensity of hiccups by a large extent, and, in some cases, eliminates hiccups.
After his first chemo cycle, he started having hiccups, but they stopped after taking one tablet of Baclofen 10 mg. Today, he came home after his 2nd cycle, but the hiccups are no longer stopping with baclofen. Our family physician (who is a senior doctor with a degree in internal medicine), after speaking to our oncologist, increased the dose of baclofen 10 mg to three times per day. Don't know whether that will work, but Dad is suffering quite a lot from the hiccups.
I was searching on Google to find a remedy for the hiccups. Several papers stated that dexamethasone, which is given for prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV), is possibly the cause of the persistent hiccups. These are the papers:
- Severe hiccups during chemotherapy: corticosteroids the likely culprit
- Cisplatin-Related Hiccups: Male Predominance, Induction by Dexamethasone, and Protection Against Nausea and Vomiting
- https://doi.org/10.12659/AJCR.915282
After searching some more, I found the following papers that state that changing dexamethasone to methylprednisolone decreases the intensity of hiccups by a large extent, and, in some cases, eliminates hiccups.
- Corticosteroid rotation to alleviate dexamethasone-induced hiccup: a case series at a single institution
- Treatment of dexamethasone-induced hiccup in chemotherapy patients by methylprednisolone rotation
- Antiemetic Corticosteroid Rotation from Dexamethasone to Methylprednisolone to Prevent Dexamethasone-Induced Hiccup in Cancer Patients Treated with Chemotherapy: A Randomized, Single-Blind, Crossover Phase III Trial