Uri Bram wrote an in depth article for The Atlantic on a sure-fire treatment for the hiccups.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
This might occur to anyone. We snicker too exhausting or eat too quick and instantly we’re caught with hiccups that may final for minutes and even hours.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Author Uri Bram was out along with his girlfriend some time again when she acquired the hiccups.
URI BRAM: So I googled find out how to treatment hiccups.
INSKEEP: He did not discover many medical options. He did discover loads of dwelling cures.
BRAM: There are numerous individuals who declare that if you happen to maintain down your left ear, particularly your left ear, that may cease your hiccups. After which there’s a lot of variations of consuming water out of the again of the glass, out of the facet of the glass, chilly water, ice water, no matter you possibly can think about.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HONKY TONK HICCUPS”)
NEKO CASE AND HER BOYFRIENDS: (Singing) I acquired the honky tonk hiccups – prepared, regular, go. I acquired the honky tonk hiccups…
INSKEEP: His seek for a treatment helped him to study greater than he ever needed to find out about hiccups.
MARTÍNEZ: He wrote about his discoveries within the newest challenge of The Atlantic.
BRAM: Hiccups – technically, they’re known as singultus. Your diaphragm often falls into these spasms, and as soon as they begin, the nerves simply hold telling the diaphragm to spasm. And you then breathe within the air, that hits the closed vocal wire space and that makes the hic sound.
MARTÍNEZ: Bram says there’s been surprisingly little analysis on hiccups.
BRAM: There’s solely actually been two minor scientific forays into hiccups that I may discover that confirmed a specific answer actually works.
INSKEEP: A kind of options is a consuming straw developed by a physician on the College of Texas named Ali Seifi. It was an enormous hit on the TV present “Shark Tank.”
BRAM: He constructed a particular type of straw that has a really small gap on the backside and an enormous gap on the prime. And it takes quite a lot of effort to suck by way of the straw. And this stabilizes the diaphragm with sufficient strain that your hiccups will cease.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, if you happen to do not wish to pay 13 bucks for the HiccAway straw, this is a treatment that is free. It is a respiratory approach beneficial by a surgeon named Luc Morris.
BRAM: You absorb a really deep breath.
INSKEEP: (Taking deep breath) Maintain it for 10 seconds.
BRAM: And you then prime it up with a bit bit extra breath.
INSKEEP: (Inhaling).
MARTÍNEZ: Then maintain it for an additional 5.
BRAM: And you then prime it up with a bit bit extra breath once more.
INSKEEP: After which exhale (exhaling).
BRAM: This, once more, like, stabilizes the diaphragm in a approach that appears to persistently cease hiccups.
MARTÍNEZ: Dr. Morris printed his treatment for hiccups practically 20 years in the past. So why achieve this few folks find out about it?
BRAM: Effectively, that was precisely my query and the way I began writing the article. And as greatest I can inform, there’s simply no cash in it. Successfully, what it comes all the way down to is nobody may pay for additional research. There isn’t any drug you possibly can promote. There isn’t any device or system. So there was no option to take the analysis additional.
INSKEEP: Now, this respiratory approach is not good, however appears to be efficient. And if it would not be just right for you, bear in mind, you may at all times attempt singing subsequent time you get the hiccups – some people swear by it – or maintain your breath and take 5 sips of water, which is an answer I noticed as soon as on “The Andy Griffith Present.”
MARTÍNEZ: Or how’s for this pondering exterior the voice field – simply look forward to the hiccups to go away.
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