Cook County Health’s Department of Emergency Medicine, in the US reported had an unusual case of COVID-19 in April. According to a Business Insider report, the 62-year-old man who had been hiccuping for four days straight due to no comprehensible reason had arrived at the ER. He had also shed 25 pounds over the course of four months.
The doctors administered an X-ray to scan for the possibility of a tumor between his lungs. In a surprising turn, the scans showed ‘ground glass’ instead - a symptom of COVID-19 that causes the patient’s lungs to appear cloudy when scanned. The man tested COVID-positive.
A similar case was also observed in June, when a 64-year-old man came to the ER with persistent hiccups and wheezing. His chest X-ray too revealed ground-glass patterns and he subsequently tested COVID-positive.
Are Hiccups a Symptom of COVID-19?
As of now, there is no concrete answer. The relationship between hiccups and the viral infection has not been studied in detail, barring these two cases. According to a health information website, Healthline, "Is hiccups a sign of COVID-19?" was a trending topic almost a week last month.
"My overall take is, it's hard to say," Aparajita Singh, a gastroenterologist at University of California San Francisco, told Business Insider, adding, "I can see why many people would be interested in trying to research this question and trying to find an association, because hiccups are very, very common.”
Singh added that it is plausible that hiccups could occur as a symptom of COVID-19, due to an interaction between the virus and the human digestive tract.
Prior research has shown that the coronavirus can lead to gastrointestinal difficulties. Diarrhea, vomiting and loss of appetite are common symptoms of the viral illness.
Since the coronavirus impacts the digestive tract, it may also irritate the phrenic nerve which controls the diaphragm. An inflamed phrenic nerve causes involuntary contractions in the diaphragm - responsible for hiccups.
"Anytime the GI tract is affected, it's biologically plausible that you could end up with the hiccups," Lisa Maragakis, Senior Director of Infection Prevention at the Johns Hopkins Health System, told Business Insider.
(With inputs from Business Insider)