Joey’s hiccups lead all the way to Westmead

Hiccups. Everyone gets them, no big deal, right?

Usually, but for seven month old Joey Farr, a simple case of hiccups mean vomiting, severe breathing difficulties and sometimes a trip to the hospital.

These hiccupping episodes first occurred when Joey was five days old, with rapidly pulsating, stomach, chest and throat contractions, worsening quickly over a 45 minute period.

As his condition deteriorated, his parents rushed him to their local hospital in Blayney, where doctors decided it would be best to airlift him to Bathurst Base Hospital, as local doctors were having difficulty in diagnosing Joey’s condition.

When a second episode of these violent hiccups coursed through his little body just days later, it was decided that Joey, eleven days old, needed to be transported to Westmead Children’s Hospital for further tests, to determine the cause of the body ravaging convulsions.

The Telstra Child Flight helicopter was called into action to transport the infant to Sydney, with hopes that Westmead Children’s Hospital doctors could shed some light on the unknown illness.

Joey spent a week in Westmead, undergoing tests and scans for a variety of different conditions, all of which returned a negative reading. An MRI revealed slight swelling on Joey’s brain, however was not linked to his hiccupping episodes.

“We would like to thank the Telstra Child Flight team that attended Joey. We are so very grateful to you all”, Joey’s mum, Patricia said.

These episodes have seen Joey hospitalised on 4 occasions, with a total of 14 episodes punctuating his young life.

Joey remains undiagnosed today. The only other reported case of a condition like this was 32 years ago, when his father Clayton presented with the same symptoms.

A possible diagnosis is diaphragmatic flutters, however this has not been confirmed.

While these episodes taking place every few days as an infant, Joey experiences them less frequently, roughly every three to four weeks at the moment.

Patricia and Clayton have also learned to cope with the breathing difficulties that their son has, mostly controlling the situation at home when his episodes occur.