HICCUPS
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LIKE SOME OTHER unlucky people, I seem to have a propensity for hiccups, and I once suffered through two full days of them while in medical school. If I laugh a lot or if I laugh and cough at the same time I can count on a spell of hiccups. Swallowing too much air seems to be a common cause, but no one has ever come up with the precise physiological cause of hiccups. And what's worse, no one has ever come up with a definitive cure.
A hiccup is really a spasm of the diaphragm. It's rarely caused by a serious disorder; it's most often simply annoying or even exhausting. Most hiccups disappear on their own in a short while, but a few people have had cases that lasted for years! If your hiccups are really troublesome--for example, following surgery--you can take a drug to get them under control. For the garden variety of hiccups you'll just have to try the home remedies that the world has relied upon for generations.
My own favorite remedy and the one that seems to be the most effective for the widest range of people is the sugar cure. Take a teaspoon of sugar under your tongue and then very, very slowly drink a cup of water. This usually gives immediate relief.' The diaphragm relaxes and the hiccups are gone.
NATURAL TREATMENTS FOR HICCUPS:
- The sugar cure: Put a teaspoon of sugar under your tongue and then very, very slowly drink a cup of water. Some people find it works just as well to let a teaspoon or two of sugar dissolve in the mouth.
- Fill a glass of water, hold your breath, and drink the water from the other side of the cup: in other words, drink the water upside down.
- Blow in and out of a brown paper bag held securely to your lips. Make sure you blow with great vigor and do it at least ten times.
- Inhale ground black pepper until you sneeze.
- Soak a lemon wedge in angostura bitters and then suck on the wedge. Several patients have told me they've used this technique with success.
- Take a deep, deep breath and then, holding your nose, drink a glass of water.
- Press against the roof of your mouth with a cotton swab.
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