Girl Has Persistent Hiccups

[Ladyzekke]

They keep showing this story on the news, so I thought to post it here:

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/14/Ta...remedies.shtml

If you read about halfway down the article, it also talks about some poor man who had the hiccups for 69 years!!! Can you frikken imagine?! I HATE it when I get them and I'll practically stick my lungs together holding my breath as hard as I can to get rid of them. To have them for even one hour is a nightmare to me, nevertheless weeks like this poor girl. I can't believe there is no help for this problem, at all. You would think some doctor somewhere would have an idea, but apparently not.

I really hope the poor girl's hiccups go away. You gotta wonder if they will after hearing about that other man, 69 years!

[Bungleau]

I can give myself hiccups, but I can't get rid of them as easily

It's all about your muscles (diaphragm, etc.) being in sync. Hiccups happen when they're not. To get rid of hiccups, get them back in sync.

How to do that is an exercise left up to the reader... [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

[Luvian]

You can make it stop voluntarily, but only if you do it before the 5th one or so, after that it has to run it's time.

[Cloudbringer]

Ugh, I heard that on the radio! I hate having them for even a few minutes. Can't imagine how uncomfortable it is for days and weeks and ...years?! Yikes! That's got to hurt after a while with all the muscles spasming.

[Larry_OHF]

I took a behavior psychology class about a year ago, and in the textbook there were several strange things that the body of a person would do involuntarily that only a behavior psychologist could help with....one was a girl who would involuntarily vomit dozens of times a day. They thought she was sick, or that the problem was pysiological or whatever, but ended up being a simple involuntary response to an external stimulus.

I wonder if anyone has yet offered her this idea. No regular doctor or silly trick will be able to cure her. It will end up being a behavior psychologist that will help her.

[ 02-23-2007, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

[johnny]

I can't believe there is no real cure for such a relatively innocent inconvenience. There's all sorts of stuff people would like you to believe, like take a bunch of sips of water while holding your breath, or get someone to scare the crap out of you, but apparently that's all bullshit. A couple of years ago i read something in the newspaper about a man who had nonstop hiccups for quite a long time, and once every medical option was out of the way, he eventually took his own life. Suicide seems always ridiculous, but in this case i can fully understand why a man would do such a thing. I mean how can a person even get a minute of sleep if these hiccups never stop ? Or how can you eat ?

[Ladyzekke]

Well when I get them Johnny I do the tiny sips of water while holding my breath massivly hard and it works everytime. I guess maybe it's different for everyone? Although the scaring thing always sounded silly to me, but who knows, maybe it makes you inhale air into your mouth very quickly and that works?

I myself, before reading about this, always thought the hiccups were caused by having an air bubble in your chest somewhere. I mean, you can get them by eating too fast, and eating too fast results in you swallowing air along with the food. Hiccups is also associated sometimes with drinking. People chugging beer or alcoholic drinks would also be swallowing air along with the drink. I dunno, I figured the holding the breath thing worked cause air naturally wants to rise, but if you can't burp then the air bubble can't get out, so you get hiccups. Holding the breath makes the air bubble float away elsewhere and then the hiccups go away. LOL that's always been my take on it. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

But obviously I'm wrong. If I wasn't doctors could cure a person with constant hiccups by some drug or method or whatever, something that would get rid of air in the body. So if it is a diaphram thing as Bungleau mentioned, what is it that triggers the un-sync? Again swallowing air has to be involved, and if so, how can you fix it other than to deal with the air bubble?

I myself would have her jogging, or on a trampoline! to see if that might help. Or physical excercising with a lot of stretching. I'd also make sure when she tried the holding her breath deal, she held it very hard, i.e., keep "breathing in" even though there is no air coming in anymore, keep the pressure and keep trying to breath in nothing. It kinda hurts and feels like your lungs each are closed and stuck together LOL, but after 20 seconds you are good to go, no more hiccups.

Johnny it says in the article her hiccups go away when she is asleep. But she's also on Valium and Benedryl, so those may be factors. She's way too young to be taking those types of drugs on a daily basis, she's gonna get addicted to them. Seriously this sort of thing pisses me off because it is so ridiculously horrible.

[Cloudbringer]

I wonder if she stops hiccupping then because she's relaxed? Don't know quite why that would work and I'm wondering just HOW could anyone relax enough to sleep with the hiccups? Seems it would annoy the daylights out of you and keep you from falling asleep!

LZ, I use that water sipping/not breathing while drinking method too and it almost always works for me!

[Sever]

Originally posted by johnny: I can't believe there is no real cure for such a relatively innocent inconvenience. There's all sorts of stuff people would like you to believe, like take a bunch of sips of water while holding your breath, or get someone to scare the crap out of you, but apparently that's all bullshit. A couple of years ago i read something in the newspaper about a man who had nonstop hiccups for quite a long time, and once every medical option was out of the way, he eventually took his own life. Suicide seems always ridiculous, but in this case i can fully understand why a man would do such a thing. I mean how can a person even get a minute of sleep if these hiccups never stop ? Or how can you eat ?

I recall a case a couple of years ago about a guy who had the hiccups for years and his last resort was a procedure where the nerve controlling the diaphragm was isolated and an electrode wrapped around it which effectively diverted/drained the signal from the brain. AFAIK, it was a success. No hiccups ever again.

[Ladyzekke]

Good to know that there actually IS a procedure to stop them! Although that procedure must be a rare one?

Btw, a few days ago the girl's hiccups finally stopped. Apparently she just woke up and they didn't start up again. I'm happy for her because that had to have been hell!