cure for hiccups: breathe

[darxus]

I think it's been years since I've had more than two hiccups before I made them stop.

A couple nights ago cathijosephine had some of the nastiest, most miserable hiccups I've ever heard. She ended up getting out of bed and going downstairs so I could sleep.

I thought about how I made them stop for the first time (I'd been avoiding it for fear of losing the ability). I listened to her some more. She was breathing shallowly. Then I suggested a simple breathing exercise:

Take a deep breath, as slowly as you can. Exhale just as slowly. Repeat. She had some difficulty with the slowness part, so I suggested trying to make each inhale and exhale last at least five seconds.

The hiccups went away immediately and did not return.

My guess is that hiccups are an attempt by your body to yank in more oxygen because you're not breathing enough, except for some reason it doesn't work. So just breathe, deep and slow.

Comments

[beowabbit]

docorion told me once that a standard ER cure for hiccups is to have the patient inhale absolutely as much as they can such that they can't fill their lungs any further, which physically prevents them from hiccupping, and hold that breath through the time they would next expect a hiccup to come. Usually (>95% of the time) that fixes it.

I bet inhaling for 5sec comes pretty close to doing that.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

cathijosephine said that wasn't working.