If you're like most people, you've tried everything from holding your breath and gulping down water to burping or swallowing in mid hic- even putting sugar under your tongue. Skip the folk remedies. Here are six scientifically sound cures that experts recommend for instant results.
- With your index finger and thumb, firmly squeeze the sides of your nose where the bone ends and the cartilage begins. That's your gall bladder acupressure point. When you pinch that spot, you will stimulate your digestive juices, which can stop those hiccups.
Lift your uvula (that fleshy punching bag in the back of your throat) with the back of a cold spoon. This will stimulate nerve endings in your throat that will send signals to your diaphragm or other muscles involved in respiration and interrupt the hiccup cycle. This may make you gag, and in this circumstance, that is a good sign. Gagging may also interrupt and end the hiccup cycle.- Swallow a glob of peanut butter. This will also tantalize those nerve endings in your throat and may end the hiccup attack.
- Stick an index finger in each ear and plug your nose with your pinkies. This is an ancient cure dating back hundreds of years. The theory is that you'll disrupt your normal respiration and break the cycle.
- Press your pinky. Firmly squeeze the middle joint of your pinky finger while exhaling for 5 seconds. Let off the pressure while inhaling for 5 seconds, then exhale for 5 seconds while squeezing your pinky again. Repeat for about 2 minutes, or until your hiccups stop.
NOTE: Hiccups usually last for only a couple of minutes. But don't ignore them if they last for more than 48 hours or recur for a month or more. Chronic hiccups may indicate that you have a more serious medical problem.
Funny. Each of these tricks, except the nose squeeze, is really a method to interrupt breathing. Breath holding is a way to stop the diaphragm from contracting (it is the diaphragm that contracts spasmodically when hiccupping). How does stopping movement of the diaphragm via breath holding work? One possibility is it allows time for the errant nervous trigger to reset. Another is by holding one's breath (either prolonged or through breath control) the pH is lowered slightly, causing decreased myoneural excitability, therefore stopping the extraneous contractions. Respiratory control of pH has been shown, by increasing acidity slightly, to reduce seizures (febrile), and miscellaneous muscle and tissue pains like those of myofibralgia.
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