Getting rid of hiccups...

A few years ago, a student of mine taught me a way to get rid of hiccups that in the past 3 years has never failed me. I am totally amazed at how quick and effortlessly it works. Which is awesome for me, because when I get hiccups, they hurt. I hate hiccups; they interrupt my life, my thought patterns, my comfort... I just hate them.

I've tried drinking water, counting, holding my breath, getting scared, burping, yawning, etc, etc... but when I would get the hiccups, I would usually have them for about 45 minutes to an hour. Guaranteed. Since learning this method, though, I hiccup, at the most, TWICE. So I have hiccups for about 20 seconds. Most times I am able to stop the hiccups after the very first one if I'm not busy.

It's so simple.

When you get the hiccups, clear your mind and close your eyes. Now imagine a straight line beginning at your feet and going away from you, in front of you... imagine it going on forever. Follow the line with your eyes, to the horizon, then beyond... imagine that straight line for as long as you can. Before you know it, your hiccups are gone.

I hope this works for anyone here as well as it has worked for me. I am still amazed, three years later, at how fast this works for me.

Take care!

Eating a spoon of sugar works for me. I used to know why it worked, but I've forgotten.

I do multiple quick sips of water while trying not to breathe. Works almost everytime. I will try the line to the horizon trick next time though

Its funny, when i was growing up if i had the hiccups, my mom taught me to do this :

Take your pinky fingers (lil fingers) and try and touch the ends together as close as possible without touching. For some reason, you're concentrating so much that your hiccups go away.

It works everytime for me lol

sleepies for me now byee

A couple months ago I had a really strange hiccup session that lasted over 4 hours. Not only was it incredibly annoying to those around me (I'm sure), but after about an hour, it started to give me a backache and my sides were tender.

I tried everything to stop them: teaspoon of sugar, drinking water while holding my breath, concentration, etc.

The only thing that worked for me was to breathe into a paper or plastic bag. Repetetive breathing into it until I started to feel slightly dizzy from lack of oxygen. It was a bizarre headrush, but it stopped the hiccups dead.

I've always used this one for other people:

"Ok give me a 'thumbs up' - now with the index finger of the other hand I want you to move your finger slowly as close as you can WITHOUT touching your thumb"

Sit there and give them the closer, closer, closer, slower, slower.. till their finger touches..

At this point you tell them their hiccups have gone...

Try it.

Siggy.

clear your throat.

Hiccuping is caused when there is something (often moisture) essentially tickling the right spot in your trachea, and your lungs are trying, fruitlessly, to expel it.

I think the problem is, and this would explain the number of 'cures', that they have MANY causes! Just a guess.

Wow, haha, I've been a huge victim of hiccups all of my life. My grandmother used to make me swallow a spoonful of sugar. And when that didn't work, she made me press my tongue against the roof of my mouth as hard as I could. When I got older, my friends told me to pinch my nose and hold my breath and take gulp-fuls of air until I absolutely couldn't anymore. I've also tried drinking water upside down, but usually I end up snorting water (yes, I have no hand-eye coordination).

I'm kind of freaked to try Siggy's way...I'm sure that's a trick of some type.

All of these seem to have one thing in common. They take a concentration of some type. Aaron, I'm trying your trick next!

One way that has always worked for me is to drink a glass of water opposite the usual way, ie - mouth on the opposite part of the glass, and chin down, lean forward as your drink, bending head down and bending forward ( tip the glass up towards your neck). Oh, and yes, you will spill water.

Yeah I think that's the trick. A lot of methods require you to get your mind off the hiccups and onto something else. Like the brain has a reset button to put the body back in order and we tap into it by concentrating on something. Pretty actullay!

Bartender trick:

- Hyperventilate (about 10 deep in/out breaths)
- On the 10th breath, inhale deep and hold it..
- Count to 10 "mississippi" (or 10 "one thousands" while holding your breath.
- If you hiccup anytime before 10 "mississippi", start over from beginning.

By doing this you are forcing the trapped air out under your diaphram, this works totally (may take a few times)...I've cured many a near-puking drunk with this method.

If I get hiccups once in a day, I'll get them 4 times. It's odd. Then, nothing for months. Anyone else have this?

I drink a shot glass of vinegar, it always works for me

Yes- it's as if they've "broken in" my throat for future visits.

I can make them go away by drinking water if I catch them right away. If not, I'm stuck with them for an hour. Breathing into a plastic bag sometimes helps, but it's unpleasant and I suppose there's a slight risk that someone will find my suffocated body and wonder what kind of freaky kinky thing I was up to.
I'll have to try the other tricks here. Thanks for sharing.

Some ways I've had success with:

1. Cup of tea or other warm beverage. Place two butter knives cirsscrossed across the top of the cup with the X forming over the center of the cup. Pick up the cup carefully, using one finger to hold the knives in place by pressing down hard on the center of the X. Take a few sips of the beverage while holding the knives in place.

2. Hold your breath. I mean fill your lungs to thier utmost capacity. Inhale, then inhale more, and then inhale even more. Hold it till your about to pass out and then slowly let it out.

3. Oral sex.

More cures than you can shake a stick at!

What causes hiccups?

Mysterious little things.

I probably shouldn't reply to this one but I have to say that I have personal experience that oral sex does cure hiccups.

(get ready for another one of Rose's old bat tales)

In the late '70's I was going out with this guy and one night we were drunk and fairly attracted to each other so we wound up parked in a deserted forest location.

He was in the drivers seat and I decided that oral sex would be something he would enjoy. As I bent down toward him, I got the hiccups. I ignored them.

I began oral sex and .... yup another hiccup

This caused me to simultaneously, in an upward motion, crack my head on the steering wheel of the car and in a downward motion, crack my jaw on his prosthetic leg (which I did not know he had).

I knocked myself silly and I have no idea what happened to his "member", but nothing bleed (though I bet there were bruises). Hiccups were gone though.

Is this a true story? Oh god that's hilarious!

True story.

What the hell you talking bout, Willis. Hiccups are spasms of the diaphragm. Nothing to do with your throat, and little to do with your lungs, cept its what causes them to work. The hiccup sound itself is caused when the spasm causes a small rush of air thru the lungs. Not trying to expel anything. Cause of hiccups tend to be more the result of nerve impulses to the diaphragm.

Good Lord- it says on that link that it's possible to have the hiccups for six decades!

Ok now you owe me a keyboard Rose. Beautiful story, brought a tear to my eye. *snif*

And that they can be fatal.