頑固性打嗝(intractable hiccup)或稱慢性打嗝,是一少見的症狀。雖然在一般大腦梗塞病患並不常見,但在腦幹中風患者的發生率似乎較高。頑固性打嗝在生理與心理上對患者都有嚴重影響,包括進食、睡眠、復健治療之進行,造成的合併症有營養攝取不足、體重下降、吸入性肺炎、頸肩肌肉肌膜疼痛症候群、逆流性食道炎與胃食道滑疝(sliding hernia)。慢性打嗝的治療方法雖然有很多被提出,但療效不一,本文探討外側延髓症候群導致打嗝之機轉,以便儘早有效治療以促進病患恢復並減少併發症。
Intractable hiccup, or chronic hiccup, is a rare manifestation. Although it is not common in the patients with cerebral infarction, the incidence of intractable hiccup seems to be higher in brainstem stroke. Because of intractable hiccup, the patients will be severely affected physically and emotionally during feeding, sleep activities, and even rehabilitation program. Intractable hiccup also results in a lot of complications, such as malnutrition, weight loss, aspiration pneumonia, myofascial pain syndrome, reflux esophagitis and sliding hernia. There are numerous therapies for intractable hiccup recommended through the years, but the effects are variable. Here we discuss more details about the mechanism of hiccups associated with Wallengberg syndrome and the treatments. Therefore the patients could recover as early as possible and the incidence of complications could be decreased.