Monday, September 08, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Make them stop
By JOAN WHITELY
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Pretend this is the TV game "Jeopardy!" Formulate a question to which these are correct answers:
• Stand on your head.
• Swallow sugar.
• Massage the back of the roof of the mouth with a cotton swab.
And, the winning question is: What are some home cures for the hiccups?
The supposed cures are legion, with Web pages on the Internet devoted to listing and discussing cures. One, at www.well.com/user/smalin/hiccup.htm, lists 98 measures it claims are cures, dividing them into such categories as "cures you can do by yourself with no tools," "cures that involve drinking some water" and "cures you can do with an assistant."
Dr. Ellis Samols of Las Vegas, who heads the University of Nevada School of Medicine's internal medicine department, does not defend one particular home remedy over another, although he admits he was raised in the school of thought that tries to get rid of hiccups by drinking water out of the far side of a glass. By "far" is meant the side away from the drinker's mouth.
Again, without promoting any method, Samols, tongue in cheek, analyzed several methods to point out their common ground.
There are "naturalistic" reasons for what appear to be fanciful or "mystical" methods, he says.
Most methods of stopping the hiccups seem to be an attempt to provide a counter nerve stimulus at one of the three points of the nervous system involved in a hiccup. The hope is the new stimulus will "swamp" the original stimulus causing the hiccups, making the hiccups cease.
A hiccup is thought to originate from diaphragm spasms, which cause a sharp intake of air, which is then abruptly stopped when an opening at the top of the throat flaps shut. The sequence occurs automatically.
The three points in the body's nervous system involved in a hiccup are: the brain, the vagus nerve (which travels through the throat and many chest organs) and the phrenic nerve (which travels through the diaphragm).
One group of home cures for the hiccups stimulates the throat area. It also seemed to be the most popular strategy, based on the sheer number of variations.
Drinking water, swallowing grains of sugar, sipping vinegar, chewing gum, inserting fingers into the mouth to make oneself gag or massaging the back of the roof of the mouth with a cotton swab are examples.
Another group targets the diaphragm area, with a typical suggestion being to massage below the rib cage, on both sides, which is where the diaphragm is located. A different tactic targets the diaphragm by telling the hiccups sufferer to apply pressure to the phrenic nerves along the collar bone.
Another group of home cures targets the brain, hoping to cancel the hiccups by diverting the focus of nerve activity to a new challenge. This category includes such techniques as drinking out of the far side of a glass, startling the person with hiccups or kissing him or her.
A subgroup of cures targeting the brain seems to be based on the notion that if you deprive the body of oxygen, the brain will prioritize activity toward finding a better supply of oxygen.
Cures in this category include: holding one's breath, breathing in and out of a paper bag and talking nonstop for 10 seconds.
A skeptical observer can conclude that trying a home cure -- at the very least-- will help in most cases pass the time until the hiccups stop on their own.
