Hiccups For Days
A few years back, my friend showed up to my place with a bout of hiccups. We laughed every minute or two when he would hiccup mid-sentence. He mentioned that he had been hiccuping for several hours and that he believed the hiccups came from eating to quickly. He was hungry and ate his lunch very fast that day. It was soon after that he began his bout of hiccups. He tried the usual stuff to try to stop them but nothing worked.
He slept with hiccups that night and went to work the next day with hiccups. When he stopped by my place after work the next day, he was still hiccuping. I thought this was strange, a whole day of hiccups. Being the Internet Google Geek that I am, I quickly jumped on the Internet and started searching. I quickly had him try some of the different techniques that I was reading.
"Drink Water through a straw, and plug your ears,"
"Nope."
"Try a spoonful of sugar,"
"Hiccup."
"Ok, try something sour like vinegar,"
"Hiccup!"
It went on like that for several hours with no results. He crashed on the couch that night because he could not make it home. He did not sleep well that night from the hiccups. A couple of friends and I marveled at watching him sleep and hiccup through it. He went to work the next morning and he still had the hiccups. Then he showed back up after work, he was still hiccuping. By now I mentioned to him that he probably should go see a doctor, but he refused since he did not have insurance, and did not think it was a medical concern.
So I then continued researching all I could on hiccups and techniques to get rid of them. He tried everything. Nothing seemed to work. He left home that night sad and hiccuping. By now he was exhausted and sore. He said he could not eat or sleep well. That night he had the hiccups all night and awoke with the hiccups the next morning. That night I had continued to do a lot of research and learned all I could about hiccups.
What Are They and Why Do We Hiccup?
Hiccups actually involve quite a few muscle reactions to take place within milliseconds. Although medical science still can not fully explain what can trigger a hiccup or an episode of hiccups, it does explain that the Vagus Nerve is involved in hiccuping. The Vagus Nerve sends a signal to the Brain, which then sends signals to other parts of the body such as the diaphragm (stomach muscle), the larynx (throat/tongue) and other muscles to create that "hiccup" sound when the muscles contract and the throat closes. Since hiccups occur only in milk drinking mammals and more so in nursing young, scientists hypothesize that it is a self burping mechanism while suckling.
Hiccups are categorized into three groups: Normal, persistent (over 48hrs) and Intractable (lasting more than a month). At this point my friends hiccups were going on for more that 48hrs with no end in sight. I kept digging into Google search when i came across this website that claimed much success in curing hiccups but without a guarantee. The website was very plain and mostly text, making me almost dismiss it, but i read on. I realized my friend had not tried this breathing technique explained on this website.
The next day after work my friend showed up all beat and haggard, with his hiccups of course. I excitedly told him what I had learned about how the Vagus Nerve travel from our Brains down around the neck touching the heart, diaphragm and other breathing muscles. I explained to him that hiccups can be triggered by many different things such as eating to fast, or something cold or even a cough that can irritate or bother the Vagus nerve. I told him that most hiccups are normal and go away quickly. He of course was impatiently hiccuping away while I spewed all this information that I am sure he did not want to hear.
The Fix
I finally explained to him the untried breathing technique as shown on Cognital.com. This website sells software, but on their website is this page on hiccups with over 10,000 testimonials so the technique must be good. After 3 days of hiccuping my friend finally stopped on his first try using this breathing technique. It really saved him because I don't think he could have handled another day of hiccuping.
Hiccups are normal and relatively harmless. If Hiccups persist for more than 48 hours, then it is time to see a physician. I also learned a great new breathing technique should I ever encounter another person with a persistent hiccup. This technique should be one of the first things tried since it seems to stop the most persistent hiccups.
While doing research for this write up, I also learned that there is another technique to stopping persistent hiccups. According this article, A hiccup cure that really works, a Dr. Francis M Fesmire came up with another technique to stop hiccups. Dr. Fesmire had a patient with a severe case of hiccups, and nothing seemed to alleviate the patient's 30 hiccups per minute. The Dr. then remembered that the Vagus nerve plays a key role in hiccups as well as in certain heart conditions. He had read a paper where a patient had a heart rate of 200 beats per minute. The paper, Termination Of Paroxysmal Suprventricular Tachycardia By Digital Rectal Massage alleviated the patients hearts problems with a rectal massage, so the Doctor recommended that for his hiccup patient and it worked. Dr. Fesmire's technique has proved to work so well for other patients, that in 2006, Dr. Fesmire was honored for his new technique for stopping Intractable Hiccups with the Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine during a ceremony at Harvard University. Before passing on, the Dr. also claimed that "Happy Endings" (orgasms) would also alleviate persistent hiccups as well. Now I can tell my friend that he has options to what he can do to himself should he ever have the hiccups again. ;-)
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Sources:
pic 1
pic 2 / flickr.com
pic 3 / flickr.com
pic 4 / wikimedia.org
pic 5 / pixabay.com
http://www.prevention.com/health/6-things-your-hiccups-are-trying-tell-you
http://www.wikihow.com/Cure-Hiccups
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15926725
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/05/what-causes-hiccups/
http://www.cognitial.com/hiccups.shtml
http://www.improbable.com/ig/
http://www.rd.com/health/wellness/9-quick-cures-for-hiccups/
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/09/04/3582324.htm
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/181573.php?page=2