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Hiccups Were The Clue That Led Researchers To Ebola

Emily

Editor, Senior Moderator
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/09/16/348723994/hiccups-were-the-clue-that-led-researchers-to-ebola
Hiccups Were The Clue That Led Researchers To Ebola

by NPR Staff
September 16, 2014 3:42 AM ET
The Ebola virus had been circulating in Guinea for roughly three months before doctors and international aid organizations finally detected it.

It was hiccups that eventually gave it away, journalist Jeffrey Stern wrote in Vanity Fair this weekend.

To find out why the virus eluded detection for so long, Stern went to Meliandou, a remote Guinean village where Patient Zero is thought to have lived, to investigate...
 
Re: Hiccups Were The Clue That Led Researchers To Ebola

Interview with an Ebola Survivor
By Julian MorgansAug 7 2014
...
.After reaching out to various NGOs, we spoke to Saa Sabas, a former medical worker from the southern Guinean city of Gu?ck?dou. With the help of a French translator, he described how he contracted the virus at work, became dangerously ill, and then survived...

...I started to get bouts of fever. Usually when I feel sick I just take an acetaminophen and get better, but this time the fever did not go away. I remembered what the doctors told me about the first signs [of Ebola], so I went directly to the hospital without even stopping at home....The morning after, they told me I was infected with the Ebola virus, and they put me in medical care.
...
I was having irregular bouts of fever, going from 38 to 39.6 centigrade [100 to 103 degrees Fahrenheit]. This fever lasted two days; then the third day I got a diarrhea. That lasted four days, until, on the seventh day, I got dysentery. Then finally I had hiccups for four days. I was very worried at that point.
...
What was the worst part of all this?

The most difficult thing for me was the hiccuping stage. I remember also that my throat was so sore that I couldn?t eat. I?ve had fever before, and I?ve had diarrhea before. All of that, of course, made me weak. But the hiccuping stage really scared me. I?ve heard that lots of people die at this stage of the illness.

All in all, how long were you sick for?

Two days of irregular fever, four days of diarrhea, three days of dysentery, four days of hiccuping. That makes 13 days of illness. I was very well fed. I was very well treated. I was also kept under observation until I started to feel better.
...
http://www.vice.com/read/interview-with-an-ebola-survivor
 
Re: Hiccups Were The Clue That Led Researchers To Ebola

Hiccups are actually associated with many medical conditions, including some infectious agents. Took the following info from discussion in a case study of a patient with a trochlear nerve schwannom which resulted in a intratumoral hemorrhage which in turn caused persistent hiccups. Thought the general info it gave about hiccups causes was quite good. Link to full text follows text.

Quote

Hiccups usually subside within a short time; those lasting ≥ 48 hours are defined as persistent hiccups, whereas those lasting ≥ 1 month are termed intractable hiccups. Gastric flatulence is generally responsible for hiccups, but persistent or intractable hiccups suggest a possible complication by an organic disease. Although the exact mechanism of hiccupping remains unclear, the hiccup reflex arc is known to be composed of several neural pathways. The afferent pathway involves the sensory fibers of the vagus nerve, the glossopharyngeal branch of the glossopharyngeal nerve, the pharyngeal plexus (C2–C4), and the sympathetic nerves (T6–T12). Its efferent pathway involves the glottis and phrenic nerve, which is linked to the auxiliary respiratory muscles. Linkage to the central nervous system has not been elucidated in detail, but possible interactions with the medulla oblongata (including the solitary nucleus and ambiguous nucleus), part of the pons, reticular formation of the brainstem, phrenic nerve nuclei, and hypothalamus have been suggested.

Causes of persistent or intractable hiccups originating in the central nervous system include vascular, infectious, and structural processes, which are thought to lose ability to suppress the hiccup reflex. Furthermore, some case reports have attributed hiccups to brainstem lesions, particularly those in the medulla oblongata. In the present case, although persistent hiccups were observed as the initial symptom, after which they spontaneously subsided, the medulla oblongata had not been directly compressed by the tumor. This finding, together with the observation of brainstem compression by the tumor, suggests that the hiccups in this case may have been caused by intratumoral hemorrhage.

Words hemorrhage and hiccups may link in with Ebola

Fp
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25083382
 
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