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Brew: A man in his early 20s woke up one day with the hiccups.
Two weeks passed before he was rid of them,
and he thought that was the end of it.
Not long after, they returned with a vengeance,
persisting for the next 3 entire years.
None of the doctors he went to had any answers.
It was a mystery.
After his music career was ruined, and
passing out from his hiccups, he wrote in to
a newspaper, desperate for any help at all.
Next thing he knew, he was famous in Japan.
But even with every trick and solution the world had to offer,
including a specialized oxygen tank, nothing could help him.
Was he cursed to have the hiccups forever?
This is the story of aspiring British
musician, Christopher Sands, and the horrible
hiccups that threatened to take his life.
Back in 2006, Christopher Sands, a 23 year old
British musician, was scouring the internet in search
or relief after suffering from hiccups for days.
When he discovered that hiccups that last longer
than 48 hours might be a warning sign of a brain
tumor, he made an appointment with his doctor.
His GP told him that it was likely linked to his
chronic heartburn, which had been burning his
throat, and making him vomit since he was a child.
The doctor gave him some over the counter heartburn
medication, and sent Christopher on his way.
It didn’t help, so he returned for all
sorts of tests, including blood work, and
CT scans of different parts of his body.
The scans found that he had a hiatus hernia, which meant that
his stomach had bulged up through his diaphragm, making it
much easier for stomach acid to make its way into his throat.
He’d likely had that condition since birth, so while it caused
him discomfort, it wasn’t the answer to his hiccup problem.
Despite this, his hiccups stopped after 2 weeks.
However, in February 2007, they returned.
At first, Christoper wasn’t concerned.
In his words, “I had had them before and they’ll
probably stop after a couple of weeks”, but they didn’t.
His disappointment was compounded since he’d been learning to
play the piano, and the hiccups made all progress impossible.
“My life got put on hold” he said.
He couldn’t eat, sleep, or practice music,
something he’d dedicated his life to.
So on did his hiccups hic, and with no other possible
causes, Sands’s doctors pondered a psychological answer.
In an interview with Siobhan Deshauer, otherwise known
as Violin MD on Youtube, Sands admitted that the doctors;
Christopher: They seemed a bit nervous asking
me because it’s probably, a bit of a sensitive
subject to say someone might be making it up.
For me, it was like, no if it’s that, brilliant!
Brew: Sands’ psych evaluation came back utterly normal.
His hiccups weren’t psychosomatic,
so they were just uh… somatic?
Sands said he came out thinking “on to the next
thing”, but his doctor had something else in mind.
Not doing anything!
He remembers his doctor saying “That’s
it… I’ve done everything I can do.
You’re on your own”.
Which is not something you want to hear your doctor say.
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Some Dame: Leftie!
Leftie: I can’t quit you, baby.
Brew: Months later, in July 2007, Sands decided that if his
doctor couldn’t help him, maybe some doctor somewhere might.
So he wrote in to local newspaper, the Lincolnshire Echo.
The following day, Sands received a phone call
back, asking him about an interview and a photo.
He was front page news, and suddenly,
his phone was ringing off the hook.
Sands was thrust into fame doing interviews for
TV, radio, and news outlets across the globe.
Film crews from Brazil to Australia would arrive at his
doorstep for comments, sending his story over oceans in
hopes that someone, somewhere, might have the answer.
Suggestions poured in, and he tried as many as he could.
He tried a special glass from a company called the
Hic-Cup, he tried the “upside down drinking”, he
even tried a specialized oxygen chamber usually
reserved for football players resting after injuries.
“It was all completely useless” he said, but added, “as long
as these things kept coming through, I still had a lifeline.”
So the year continued, and his hiccups got so bad
that he began passing out from lack of oxygen.
“I would wake up with tears in my eyes, my whole
body shaking from the shock of it, confused
and usually still hiccuping”, he lamented.
In a twist of cruel fate, the hiccups also prevented
him from fulfilling some of his most basic needs.
He said “by this time, sleeping wasn’t
actually sleeping, it was passing out”.
So he visited his GP once more to see if
remedying his hiatus hernia would help.
He went in for more testing, including one called
a 24-hour pH-Impedance Test that required a
catheter slipped up his nose and down his throat
for an entire day to measure his throat acidity.
At one point, between hiccups and vomit, the hose
accidentally rode up his throat and out his mouth
forcing him to swallow it back down himself.
Doctors told Sands that fixing his hernia might not
necessarily cure his hiccups, but would at least alleviate
the pain from his acid reflux, and stop his vomiting.
So in March 2009, around 2 years into his hiccup
nightmare, Sands went in for stomach surgery.
Hiccups are defined as involuntary contractions
of the diaphragm, a muscle that sits below
your lungs and on top of your stomach.
It’s the muscle that allows you to breathe.
When you inhale, the diaphragm contracts,
creating a vacuum pulling in air.
When you exhale, it expands, pushing out the air.
When you have the hiccups though, these contractions
pull air into your lungs while simultaneously closing
your vocal cords, producing the titular “hic” sound.
Oh good they’re gone.
Normal, healthy hiccups occur after eating a big
meal, or consuming alcoholic and carbonated drinks.
It occurs when the stomach bloats
up and presses on the diaphragm.
Most of the time, hiccups go away after
a few minutes, but ones that last longer
than 48 hours are called chronic hiccups.
Typically, they’re easy to diagnose —they’re
just hiccups that won’t go away, but can often
be symptoms of life threatening conditions.
Depending on the underlying cause, they can
continue for months, like with Chris Sands.
For example, a case study from Dr.
Joshua Davenport found that chronic hiccups
were the only presenting symptom of a heart
attack for a 68 year old patient of his.
After putting stents into the
patient’s heart, his hiccups ended.
Another study from Dr. Nasreen Shaikh, saw a 74 year old patient arrive at the
hospital presenting with chronic hiccups for the last 4 days
which only improved with treatment of his heart condition.
Hiccups can be caused by anything that irritates your
phrenic nerve because it controls your diaphragm.
Beyond the diaphragm, the phrenic nerve passes
up behind the heart, which is why hiccups
can be a rare symptom of heart attacks.
From there, the nerve continues up toward the neck so enlarged
lymph nodes or thyroid can also be a cause of hiccups.
Finally, the nerve passes into the brain stem, so
damage/swelling to the brain can also trigger hiccups.
The longest case of Chronic Hiccups lasted
from 1922 to 1990, a whopping 68 years!
Charles Osborne, born in 1894, was weighing a hog for
slaughter when he fell backwards, hitting his head.
He said “I picked it up and then I fell down.
I felt nothing, but the doctor said later that I
busted a blood vessel the size of a pin in my brain”.
He had damaged a part of his brain that inhibited hiccups,
and without it, he hic-hic-hiccuped uncontrollably.
He would hiccup around 40 times per minute, but
later in life they slowed to about 20 per minute.
The Mayo Clinic actually taught him how to suppress
the noise by breathing very carefully between hiccups.
He also had to start blending his food in his old age, since
the hiccups prevented most solids from getting down in time.
By the time of his death, he had hiccuped
approximately 430 million times, which is
a number that kind of takes my breath away!
No.
Even with his condition he lived a long life,
marrying twice, and fathering 8 children.
About a year before his death, his hiccups stopped.
No one knows exactly why, but I can imagine
he was pretty relieved when it happened.
Sands emerged from surgery not much worse
for wear, but his hiccups persisted.
As he recovered, every hic sent
a shooting pain through his body.
It was “the worst pain he’d ever felt”, and staff
predicted that his recovery would take longer than usual.
Which is awesome to hear when you’re in crippling pain.
I’m trying out sarcasm, did it work?
Weeks passed, Sands’ stomach healed, and the heartburn and
vomiting he’d been suffering from since childhood was gone!
His hiccups remained though, so we’ll call that 2 out of 3.
Soon Sands was contacted by Nippon Television Network
Corporation, who sent a crew to the UK to interview him.
His story gained some attention from the Japanese public,
and shortly after, Seuyu Kageyama, an acupuncturist,
offered to come to the UK and treat Sands pro bono.
Kageyama pressed needles into every
part of Sands’ body, including his face.
Even jabbing one through his chest cavity, narrowly
dodging his vital organs to get to the diaphragm.
They were just as successful as every other treatment
he had undergone in the last 2 years, that is to say,
not well, but Kageyama was the first person aside
from Sands’ GP to suggest that he might have a tumor.
Remembering his CT scans, he told the
acupuncturist that that couldn’t be it.
Not long after, Sands and his sister were invited to
fly out to Tokyo by the NTV show “World Astonishing
News” to meet an anesthesiologist by the name of Dr. Kondo.
There they took more tests, including
an ultrasound, blood work, and an MRI.
While they waited for the results, NTV took Sands and his
sister to a studio to try out some silly homebrew cures.
They didn’t work, but it was good TV.
Later that day, the TV crew got a call from Dr Kondo
who asked Sands if he was willing to do another MRI.
He was nervous, since he was quite claustrophobic and after
2 and a half years of hiccuping he didn’t want to suffer
another scan just to find out that that wasn’t the answer.
Eventually he was convinced to go back to speak
with the doctor, who, when everyone arrived,
asked the NTV crew to leave the room for a moment.
That’s when Dr. Kondo told Sands that he’d found
something in the MRI they’d just taken.
In Sands’ own words, “He put up the scans of my brain
and he said ‘look, I found what I think is a tumor’”
Sands collapsed into his chair.
He could feel tears streaking down his
face as the doctor tried to explain that
they needed to do another MRI to make sure.
Even as the anesthesiologist gave him three times
the normal dose, he continued hiccuping as they
rolled his unconscious body into the giant machine.
After the scan was finished, Sands insisted
that the TV crew come with them, since
he got an answer thanks to their efforts.
So in that small room, surrounded by his sister and
cameras, he learned just how dire his situation really was.
It was in a bad place, but the doctor wasn’t an expert.
That second MRI revealed that Sands had
a 1.2 centimeter tumor in his brain stem.
But wait!
Didn’t Sands’ GP already check for tumors?
Well, MRI’s provide much clearer images than CT scans.
In addition to that, CT scans aren’t very
effective at producing crisp images of the back
of the brain, where Sands’ tumor was located.
Obviously, Sands’ family was devastated.
He tried to keep a brave face, and they did too, but
the days following his return to the UK were tense.
He met with a brain surgeon who, after looking at the
MRI scans, and notes from the Japanese doctor, told
Sands that he was confident he could do the operation.
The operation came with a risk of side effects, however.
It was possible he could lose all feeling in
his left arm and leg, his eyesight could become
impaired, his speech could suffer, not to mention
the possibility that the surgery could be lethal.
For a moment, Sands considered the idea he may
never be able to play music again, and thought,
just for a moment, to forgo the surgery and spend
the last year of his life doing what he loved.
After more MRIs back in Japan from
a doctor known as “The Hand Of God”,
Chill: Dope name!
Brew: Sands returned to the UK and
booked a date for his brain surgery.
On September 7th, 2009, Sands arrived at the hospital the
night before his operation with 3 different film crews in tow.
The morning of, he woke up, kissed his family
goodbye, and told the TV crews “I don’t
want to die, I don’t really feel anything.
I feel very strange”.
He had accepted what was going to happen.
Two days later, Sands awoke.
His mouth was bone dry, and his head was pounding.
A nurse stood over him, dabbing his lips with a wet sponge.
His body was fuzzy, as if it was asleep.
His right arm was mostly usable, but his left was, to quote, “a mess”.
The nurse asked him if he wanted to do a “drunk
test” where you touch your finger to your nose.
His right hand had no issue, but when he went to the
same with his left, he full-force, slapped himself
in the face, and the two of them just burst into laughter.
That was the moment he realized that his hiccups were gone!
His family poured in and shared in the happiness.
Later that day, he listened to a recording of one of
his songs on the piano, and burst into tears thinking
about how he might never be able to play again.
His home life was hard at first, but he had plenty of help.
His hiccups did come back for a while, making
attending his sister’s wedding difficult.
The swelling after the surgery still pressed up against
that part of the brain which triggered his hiccups.
Imagine, you have the hiccups for 3 years, find out it’s
from a tumor, have a life-threatening operation to remove
the tumor, think your hiccups are gone, then they come back.
How terrifying is that?
Fortunately, the hiccups did stop after he had fully healed.
Today, Sands has almost recovered fully.
In a journal entry posted online, he closes saying “I don’t
think I’ll ever get full use of my left arm back, but I can
play guitar and piano again, I think it’ll take a while before
I’m fully back to normal but through the kindness and support
I received throughout my ordeal at least I have a chance.”