Hiccups are a universal human experience. What is not universal are the remedies that people have tried to stop their hiccups.
The real question is how many of those remedies work and how many are just old wives’ tales. As an emergency physician, over my decades in the emergency department, I have seen plenty of patients show up with hiccups they just could not get to go away.
For people that must come to the hospital, our real concern is whether there could be something more serious causing them. While we do have some specific tricks that we use to get hiccups to stop, often we start with the same remedies you might try at home.
Informally polling people on the street, holding your breath is the most employed remedy. After breath holding, drinking water runs a close second. Beyond those, remedies are all over the place and mirror what you might find through an internet search.
The list includes getting scared, drinking water from the opposite side of a glass, plugging your ears while drinking water, taking small sips of water without breathing, eating sugar, sucking a lemon, drinking a shot of vinegar, hugging your knees, pulling your tongue, and even repeating the phrase “I am not a fish”.
You may have tried some of these at different times in your life and met different levels of success. Believe it or not, many of them actually have a plausible explanation behind how they might work.
What is a hiccup?
Hiccups are basically a reflex, or short circuit, which involves two main nerves. One nerve is the vagus nerve, one of the most important in the body, responsible for functions involving the heart, the lungs, and the digestive tract. The other nerve involved is the phrenic nerve, this causes the diaphragm, or our breathing muscle, to contract.
A hiccup happens when your diaphragm contracts unexpectedly, causing a quick breath in. At almost exactly the same moment, your glottis, part of the respiratory tract in your throat, closes abruptly and ends the breath. This creates the uncomfortable breath spasm feeling, and the characteristic ‘hic’ sound.
The hiccups continue because the vagus and phrenic nerves maintain this pattern in what amounts to a reflex gone wrong.
What’s the best way to stop hiccuping?
Dr. Abdul Kareem, Uduman, a Henry Ford Health pulmonologist, says “home remedies work, they are just not very consistent, they share a principle of trying to break that reflex arc.”
While most remedies, like holding your breath, plausibly stop the reflex, some of the remedies do not have any good explanation beyond a placebo effect. Incidentally, when it comes to holding your breath, there is a better way to do it.
The technique is called supra-supramaximal inspiration. To do this, start by taking a deep breath, and holding it for 10 seconds. Next, without letting air out, take another small breath on top of that, and hold it for five more seconds. Finally do a third small supra-supramaximal inspiration and hold that for five seconds. At the end of the last five-second interval, exhale all your breath completely. This has been found to be an effective way to stop hiccups by many.
Use supra-supramaximal inspiration to stop your hiccups:
- Take a deep breath and hold it for 10 seconds.
- Inhale again and hold it for five seconds (don’t let any air out).
- Inhale a third time and hold it for five seconds (don’t let any air out).
- Exhale completely.
Why do we hiccup?
Hiccups are not generally considered to be anything more than a nuisance. They do not appear to serve any real purpose. One theory is that hiccups are a residual fetal reflex.
While we are growing in the womb because we are not actually breathing, since we live in a pocket of amniotic fluid, hiccups might serve a developing baby by allowing them to strengthen their breathing muscles. This is all speculation, but it’s certainly plausible.
What triggers hiccups?
Hiccups can be triggered by many different things including, and over full stomach, carbonated, beverages, alcohol use, and even spicy foods.
These benign hiccups will go away with most simple home remedies. However, “hiccups for over two days or several episodes within a two-day period would be a good time to seek medical attention. “Said Dr. Uduman.
He points out that some serious causes of hiccups can include cancers, electrolyte, abnormalities, certain medications, and even a stroke or heart attack.
