How to Cure the Hiccups by Timing Your Breath

Many cures for hiccups relate to breathing. This is good to know because breathing is an important part of regulating the diaphragm.

Another breathing exercise that is known to cure the hiccups is by counting your hiccups and timing your breathing.

To do this follow the steps outlined below.

Hiccups tend to happen at certain intervals. In a previous article I mentioned “The term “hiccup” is also used to describe a small and unrepeated aberration in an otherwise consistent pattern.”

This was referring to the interruption of normal breathing. While a hiccup is an aberration in your normal breathing cycle, the hiccup itself tends to have a pattern or consistency in some instances.

If this is the case see if you can determine the pattern to your hiccups.

How to Cure Hiccups by Breaking their Pattern

1. First, start by counting right after you have a hiccup. One, Two, Three, Four… See when your next hiccup occurs.
2. Once the hiccup occurs begin counting again. See if the timing is the same between hiccups. For our example lets say the hiccup is occurring every 4 seconds.
3. Once we have distinguished this pattern see if you can interrupt the pattern of hiccups.
4. Count to four again, and right as the hiccup is about to happen hold your breath.
5. After several attempts at trying to break up the pattern of hiccups you should find that your hiccups are cured.

If they are not there are many other great articles on this site that focus on how to cure the hiccups. Keep trying different things and be patient. Sometimes it can take a while to cure a serious bout of hiccups.

General Questions about What Causes Hiccups

Because Cure Hiccups .com is a site about understanding and curing the hiccups it is important that we realize what hiccups are and why people get them.

Hiccup is pronounced “HICK-up”. Hiccups are the spasmodic contraction of the diaphragm that repeats several times per minute. Wikipedia offers some good information on the hiccups which I have outlined in the following excerpt from their site:

In humans, the abrupt rush of air into the lungs causes the epiglottis to close, creating the “hic” sound. In medicine, it is known as synchronous diaphragmatic flutter (SDF), or singultus, from the Latin, singult, “the act of catching one’s breath while sobbing.” The hiccup is an involuntary action involving a reflex arc.

The term “hiccup” is also used to describe a small and unrepeated aberration in an otherwise consistent pattern.

A bout of hiccups, in general, resolves itself without intervention, although many home remedies claim to shorten the duration, and medical treatment is occasionally necessary in cases of chronic hiccups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiccups

What is the Reflex Arc and What Effect Does it have on Hiccups?

A reflex arc is the neural pathway that mediates a reflex action. In higher animals, most sensory neurons do not pass directly into the brain, but synapse in the spinal cord. This characteristic allows reflex actions to occur relatively quickly by activating spinal motor neurons without the delay of routing signals through the brain, although the brain will receive sensory input while the reflex action occurs. The main source of the reflex action is through the bottom muscles.

There are two types of reflex arc – autonomic reflex arc (affecting inner organs) and somatic reflex arc (affecting muscles).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflex_arc

What is the Epiglottis and how is it Related to the Hiccups?

The epiglottis is a flap of elastic cartilage tissue covered with a mucus membrane, attached to the root of the tongue. It projects obliquely upwards behind the tongue and the hyoid bone. The term is, like tonsils, often incorrectly used to refer to the uvula.

The epiglottis guards the entrance of the glottis, the opening between the vocal folds.

It is normally pointed upward during breathing with its underside functioning as part of the pharynx, but during swallowing, elevation of the hyoid bone draws the larynx upward; as a result, the epiglottis folds down to a more horizontal position, with its upper side functioning as part of the pharynx. In this manner it prevents food from going into the trachea and instead directs it to the esophagus, which is more posterior.

The epiglottis is one of nine cartilaginous structures that make up the larynx (voice box). While breathing, it lies completely within the pharynx. When swallowing it serves as part of the anterior of the larynx.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiglottis

General Hiccup Information Summary

So from looking at the information above we can get a general idea of the actions involved when a hiccup occurs.

First there is a sudden contraction of the diaphragm caused by a somatic reflex arc in the body which causes a rush or air into the lungs.

This sudden rush of air causes the epiglottis to close and creates the “HICK” sound we hear when someone has the hiccups.

So far I have not come across a reason as to why this happens, or what causes the reflex arc to activate, but we now have a better general understanding of what the hiccups are, and what is happening inside the body when they occur.

Treatment and Medication to Cure Persistent Hiccups

I went to Radiology and met with the technician who was going to give me my X-Ray. She asked how long I had been experiencing my Hiccups for. I told her I was almost at day seven and she mentioned that was the longest duration of anyone she had X-Rayed in our city.

Apparently she had worked with several people who had experienced persistent hiccups but none of them had lasted as long as mine. This was somewhat reassuring and nerve racking at the same time.

The X-Ray didn’t show anything out of the norm. The technician and the doctor checked them out but didn’t see anything that had them concerned.

At this point the doctor decided he was going to put me on an Acid Blocker (Pantoprazole) to help with the gagging, and he would prescribe Chlorpromazine (Thorazine) in an attempt to cure my hiccups.

Thorazine is an Anti-Psychotic medication that is also well know for curing hiccups. He prescribed it in a pill form at a low dosage as Chlorpromazine.

Back to Urgent Care for Treatment for my Hiccups

We arrived at Urgent Care once again about 1 hour prior to closing. I was in so much discomfort and pain that I was desperate at this point.

We met with a nurse who took down our information again and went through the normal routine and then met with our doctor. The doctor has an extremely heavy accent and was almost impossible to understand. He obviously hadn’t been in the US long.

The good thing about dealing with a foreign doctor is he was actually concerned about fixing my problem as opposed to how many patients he could push out the door in one day.

He asked me a series of questions about my hiccups and how I was feeling in addition to what I was experiencing and allowed me to go into great detail about what was wrong. He actually listened to me; instead of cutting me off and assuming he had already solved the problem.

After hearing about my previous two visits to the ER and Urgent Care the day before he ruled out many of the common things he was going to try. Instead he said that at this point it would be best if I was given X-Rays to make sure that everything in my chest looked good.

The X-Ray could potentially pick up any problems with a damaged Frenetic Nerve or Diaphragm.

Four Days of Persistent Hiccuping with no Rest

The next day was mellow for the most part. I was still in pain and suffering from Acid Reflux along with my hiccups but because there was almost nothing in my stomach I didn’t feel as through the Acid Reflux was as bad as it was the night before. I had been living on Carnation Instant Breakfast shakes for the past few days which also seemed to help with the Acid Reflux as my system didn’t need to work so hard to process the food.

Saturday came and went. I still suffered from eventual gagging and wrenching as the night went on. I am hesitant to use the word “vomit” because my body never really rejected any food. It was as through something was stuck in my throat forcing me to throw up little bits of stomach acid and bile.

Persistent Hiccups Causing Symptoms of Acid Reflux

By the third day I was starting to become more aware of the discomfort being caused by my constant hiccups. Not only that but I was starting to notice that because of the constant contraction in my chest I was starting to suffer from Acid Reflux whenever I would hiccup.

Two years before I had some stomach problems and needed to change my diet in order to relieve an Acid Reflux reaction I was having due to things I had been eating. (Mainly fast food and junk food type meals.)

I changed over to a very healthy diet and started eating low fat foods with very little grease, along with a nightly salad. This made a huge difference in my health.

It was very disturbing to see this Acid Reflux returning as a result of these non-stop hiccups. Especially because there was nothing I could change in my diet at this point to correct the problem. I feel the underlying cause of the Acid Reflux was the constant barrage of hiccups my body was dealing with which was not upsetting my stomach and gastro track.