March 30, 2010 • 23 mins
In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss the many theories behind the mysterious phenomenon of hiccups, how long hiccuping bouts can last, and various "remedies" for hiccups.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. Really sure? Okay, I'm Josh Clark. That's Chuck Bryant. Hello.
(00:26):
I think I said the same thing last time. I
think you did. Hello the jerk. I am Hi, Dare
that's much better, Chuck, what's up? Spice it up a
little bit? It's up. Maybe get the frenic nerve irritated.
I'll look at you. Yeah, perfect, so texted hermy Chuck.
Now we already did that. Yes, okay, Um, we're talking
(00:47):
about hiccups today. Huh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Chuck. What
do you know about hiccups? Man? Have you ever had
them before? I have, Josh, and I will talk about
a famous about of my hiccups later. Okay, when we
talk about being drunk? Oh yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, um,
But should we go ahead set this up? Yeah? Chuck
(01:08):
actually has a fairly ticklish constitution when it comes to hiccups. Uh.
And he has in his hand a be brand root beer. Uh.
And he's about to open it and try to give
himself hiccups because he says that it doesn't take very
much that we're gonna see it. That's the brand root beer.
Sometimes drinking a carbonated beverage will many times we'll do hiccups.
(01:31):
So my goal is to have hiccups through the episode.
So we'll see what happens. Okay, here he goes he's
he's drinking the root beer. He's chugging the root here right,
look at him. Go you go, chuck. Oh, he's got
a look of grim determination on his face. He's taking
too long tips so far. He's looking at the root beer.
Excuse me. And there's a little birth right there. This
is hiccups, Chuck, not burpec. I got nothing. We'll keep trying.
(01:54):
His eyes are a little watery. Yeah, I feel it.
Uh and um he's you can take take it faster, faster, set.
He looks pain. He's got some carbonation in his lungs.
It looks like, man, that you have to No, no,
I don't have to down it. Chug. I have that
cold thing now on my chest. Well, actually cold is
one way that hiccups are Um activated, I guess yeah,
(02:18):
And I think that's what happens when I drink the soda.
That's what happens. Yeah, how disappointing. Nine times out of ten,
I'll get hiccups the one time I need him, don't
worry about. We'll just have Jerry put some hiccups and
we'll say, oh, look, listen, there's hiccuping crazy. Let's give
some hiccup facts, shall we? Oh? Wait, listener requests, Okay,
this is must be fan appreciation. Wait, because we did
(02:38):
two in a row. And this is from Jess in
Portland's Thank you Jess, and she was all, what up
with hiccups? Yo? Is that what she said? Now? All right, Chuck, Yes, sir,
did you know that you have a lifelong specific hiccup pattern?
I did not till I read this, and that is
way cool. Yeah. I don't know what mine is. Oh
(03:00):
as far as recognizing it, yeah, yeah, I've never charted
mine now, and I couldn't find anything else on some
uh you know, an additional outside research hunt. Um, I
couldn't find anything on that on specific hiccup patterns, like
if there's five or six, or if it's just you know,
there's as many as there are people that kind of thing,
(03:22):
like your fingerprint, right and snowflakes. Uh. There's also the
fact that the average hiccup spell can last for a
few minutes to a few hours. I've never had one
last a few hours. I start to get angry after
a couple of minutes, and I'll just take a huge
deep breath and that usually cures it. Actually, yeah, I've
(03:42):
got my cures too, but I'll talk about those later.
And there's actually, um, you've heard of people who have
um horrifically long bouts of hiccups, right, there's actually medical
terms for these. If your hiccups have lasted, um, I
think longer than forty eight hours, they're called person extant hiccups.
I would agree with that. And then if they lasted
(04:03):
longer than a month, they're called intractable hiccups. And this
is actually I found out, um, that's very prevalent among
patients with AIDS. Intractable hiccups are. Yeah, and I found
a study that said, uh that at least in one patient,
medical marijuana or I guess even just playing marijuana cures it. Interesting. Yeah,
(04:23):
they had a patient I think in Spain, had intractable
hiccups and tried marijuana for the first time in his life.
And uh, it cured it, and then I think twenty
four hours later it came back again. The patient used
marijuana second time, and that was the hiccups. You know
what what people with intractable hiccups called their hiccups? Hell,
(04:46):
those both hiccups. I can't get rid of. That's a
medical term. Too nice. Wow, Um, my face is bread.
I'm blessing a little bit least chuck. There's a question
that's plagued human kind? Can you tell us the twenty
first century? I said, human kind? Said plagued, plagued, plagued
(05:09):
human kind um for millennia, and that's why do we hiccup?
And actually we don't have an answer for that, No,
we don't know. Uh. The Greek physician Galen hypothesized that
it was angry emotions that were created in the stomach
coming out. It's a stamp, it's it's a shot at it. Right.
(05:33):
I love the Greeks. It's as good as any others.
And actually I found another um another explanation that was
posited in two thousand three by researchers at the PT.
Saltpetriere Hospital in Perry. Thank you. Um. They hypothesized that
us hiccup ng is a relic from our time spent
(05:56):
in the very distant past as amphibians. They said that
there is a very close similarity to gil ventilation, which
is how amphibians breathe because they also have lungs, so
they have to close their lungs to breathe, but they
also they have gills as well, right right, And then
the the water has to pass over the guilds without
(06:18):
going into the lungs to take a short, quick breath,
and the epiglottis closes. And we'll talk about how a
hiccup works in a second. But the guil ventilation in
amphibians and hiccuping in humans and mammals, by the way,
um are very similar. So they went a little further
and said, and you know what, here's here's the drum
roll part um. The brain circuitry that controls guil ventilation
(06:42):
in amphibians is still present in mammals. Yeah, so they're
saying that they think that this is a it's a
relic leftover from our very very very ancient past, isn't it.
You know? What I also thought was interesting was the
recapitulation theory, or part of it proposes that fetuses actually
(07:05):
use hiccups as part of their respiration before their lungs
are fully developed, right, and they actually do. The theory
part comes in is to why um, and that is
that basically it's that it's it's akin to how we
learn to crawl before we learn to walk, or we
can crawl before we can walk. We can hiccup before
we can breathe. Normally, we should start saying that, you know,
(07:27):
you got a hiccup before you can breathe. People get
what it would be, like, Hey, we're the woman on
the top, you're gonna say that. Um. And that that's
actually supported by the fact that premies spend two point
five of their little premi life hiccupping, And that's a
lot more than regular full term babies. They're sitting there
like like they don't have it hard enough up all
(07:49):
the time. I weigh three pounds and I'm hiccupping. Give
me a break. And apparently UM hormones can play a
role in hiccupping. Women who who are in the first
two weeks of their mentor will cycle hiccup more UM
than pregnant women do. Uh. So, there's a whole grab
bag of questions attached to hiccup ng. You're more likely
(08:10):
to hit up in the evening exactly, and you hick
up less as you get older. Yeah. I think that's
all the little factoids. Right, So we've we've got all
these this information. No answers whatsoever as to exactly why
we hiccup. None, I kind of I subscribe to the
recapitulation theory frankly. Yeah, um, but we do know what happens.
(08:31):
We do know the physiology of a hiccup, right, Yeah,
that's the easy part. And it all comes down to
the frenic nerves, which after reading this article I have
concluded the frenic nerves are the sissiest nerves of all. Yeah.
The vegas nerves are in there too, I found out.
Uh they if they get annoyed, and then you can
hiccup as well. Right. So the frenic nerve right, Uh,
(08:52):
it controls the diaphragm. And the diaphragm is that muscle
that goes over your big belly and under your rib cage.
You're so it's it's in between the stomach and the abdomen. Right,
it goes down when we inhale, ye try, it goes
up when we exhale, so it helps out the breathing process.
Did you hear that horrible struggle for breath? And it's
(09:14):
like yeah. So when we are breathing, we're taking an
air through the nose in the mouth, right, and it
flows through the pharynx, past the glottis and into the
larynx and trachea, which eventually terminate into the lungs. Right,
and then it follows a opposite path on the way
(09:36):
out as we exhale. That phrenic nerve that controls the
diaphragm uh is, as I said, kind of sissy, a
little prissy, kind of a punk uh. And any time
it gets irritated, well I shouldn't say any time, but
when it's irritated, uh, it can induce an abdominal spasms up. Well,
(09:57):
that's part of a hiccup. Hiccup is a quick, short
breath we take aken because our diaphragm is spasming, right, yes, um.
And then what makes the hiccup sound is the epiglottis,
that little piece of tissue that covers the glottis and
keeps you know, um, this beat brand root beer from
going into your lungs when you're drinking it. Yeah, I
hate it when that happens, closes all of a sudden
(10:18):
and there's your hiccup. That is what a hiccup is, yes,
right the end. What are some of the things that
can cause that little frenic nerve to throw a tantrum chuck? Well,
Josher's there's only a few things that can cause this. Uh.
One of the main things that can happen is that
you over eat and you've got a full stomach, so
(10:39):
you're sollowing too much food or air. Your stomach too
stands and gets all fat and it pushes against the
frenic nerves and they're like, oh, you ate too much hiccup, right,
So that's one way. Another one is, um, add hot food,
spicy food to that, and you're you're doubling your chances
because it hot foods will irritate your frenic nerves as well.
(11:00):
And the last thing is, uh, smoking is not good.
Excessive smoking and drinking can also cause hiccups. Or like
we propose with my thing with a with a coke
and the root beer. Um, a rapid temperature change inside
the stomach, like drinking something really cold or really hot, right,
So that can all irritate. The little was uh, frandic
nerves and frandic almost ad frantic. I think it is
(11:23):
a little frandic. If not hysteric, it should be the
hysteric nerve, right, and then stress and emotion on the
psychological side that can cause them too, and mental illness too.
I couldn't find anything on this. I saw a couple
of mentions that mental illness uh is linked to hiccups, right,
But I couldn't find any um anything further than that.
But I did find out that you can use chloropromosine,
(11:47):
which is an antipsychotic, to cure long term hiccups. Did
you know that? No? I didn't, So that that kind
of points to mental illness a little bit or some
sort of connection interesting and mental hiccups, Yes, and another
layman's term for O c D. Really Yeah, that's a
good band name to mental hiccups. Yeah, Actually it's kind
of lame. So my story since we brought up the
(12:10):
drunk thing was I famously had hiccups in Athens one night,
and this is after I graduated. I went back to
see the Flaming Lips at forty and I had hiccups
for about six hours straight and I had imbibed a
bit much, so it was kind of one of those nights.
It was. I was the butt of many jokes because
(12:31):
I was walking around and kind of doing this and
if you know it, it lasted forever. It was awful.
What did Wayne Coyne have to say about it? He said,
you need to be hit to death in the future
head okay, which is one of their albums. That just
made that up. Oh he didn't really say that, no,
but it is one of their albums. I'm sorry I
lie so much to you. Let's say that you've eaten
(12:55):
a lot of Indian food, you've smoked a pact cigarettes,
drink a cord of crazy Horse, and you followed it
with a big old glass of coffee. You have no
regard whatsoever for the sensation in your hands, um, and
(13:16):
your frenic nerve is going berserk, perserker like a mad Viking. Yeah, mushrooms, Um,
what are some of the things you can do aside
from taking you know, antipsychotics to cure hiccups? Are we
getting into the cures now? Because boy, there's a lot
of them, and even if we read twenty we'll get
a thousand more from people. I was going to call
(13:37):
for it a listener mail. Yeah, we'll get them for sure. Um,
there are a few medical things that have been uh well,
nothing has been proven to be more effective. It kind
of comes down to the person. And I think a
lot of it's mental. Well, if you think one of
them will work for you, then that's the one you use,
and that might work. And people aren't exactly sure how.
But mental distraction actually can cure hiccups, right, that's true,
(14:00):
especially if somebody comes up to you and demands that
you hiccup on the spot. I've never heard that one. Um,
you haven't. No, Like, if you've got the hiccups, they'll say,
hiccup right, Well, what if you just hiccup? You're like, dude,
that's my problem. I'm hiccuping. I didn't say it was good,
but I'm just saying it's been shown to cure it
in some people. They should go and say, don't hiccup, right,
(14:20):
Like I said, I've I've uh, I can draw in
a big breath of air and that usually cures it. Right.
That's not my method, but I'm gonna I'm gonna save that. Uh.
Most of the best home remedies actually work. Stimulate the
naso pharynx, and that's a part of the pharynx behind
the tonsils and uh like drinking from the opposite side
(14:41):
of the glass. You've heard that one. Biting into a
lemon or pulling on your tongue sometimes that will actually
uh stimulate the naso pharynx and that will work. It's
also you can also just do it with your tongue itself,
the tip of your tongue, if you rub it against
the very back of the roof of your mouth. Yeah,
tickling the roof of your mouth. That that can help.
It can. It also keeps you from yawning interesting or
(15:01):
tickling period. They say, if you're a ticklish person, gets
someone to tickle you, and you might just forget about hiccuping.
And if you're not a ticklish person, you have no soul.
That's true. Uh. Most of the breathing things, um might
work because you're actually interrupting your respiratory cycle. So if
you do the paperbag trick or down a glass of
(15:22):
water really quick, that's that's the reason why that'll work.
Mine is I do the same thing with the breath thing,
but I don't inhale and take a big breath. I
exhale every bit of air I can and then put
my hand over my mouth and close my nose and
literally go till I'm about to pass out, and then
I'll breathe like try and breathe very calmly when I
(15:43):
come back, and usually that will work. So you do
the exact opposite of what I do. Well, you draw
in a big breath and then hold it. You exhale
all of your breath. That's what I do. But both ways,
I think we're interrupting a respiratory cycle. Chuck, Josh. There's
all sorts of medical um treatments, right, Some are some
(16:03):
are cool, like antipsychotics or medical marijuana. Yeah. This is
if you are have persistent or intractable hiccups. So right, yeah,
if you you know, start hiccupping and immediately getting your
car and go see a doctor, what's wrong with you?
But that being said, uh, it does. It is advised
that if you have hiccups that last for forty eight hours,
(16:24):
do go see a doctor because it can be kind
of a problem when you go see the doctor. In
addition to possibly prescribing antipsychotics, medical marijuana depending on your state. Uh.
The doctor may also prescribe a digital rectal exam. I
think that that kind of falls into the mental distraction category. Really,
maybe we're not talking ones and zeros here when we
(16:45):
talk about digital we're talking about something you might digits
of your hand, might find in prison. Perhaps digits another
another term for fingers. Yeah, I don't know why that
would work, but apparent I'm telling you it's the mental
district You're like, whoa, whoa and what cups? You know
have a much bigger problem than hiccuffs. Uh. They will
(17:05):
sometimes tap or rub, rub the back of your neck,
massage the Cartoyd sinus, which is in your neck charatid.
What did I say Cartoyd? Like Cartoyd it is karatid,
You're right. Or apply pressure to your eyeball to stimulate
the nerves of your diaphragm. But we should also c
o a here and say, don't go mashing on your
(17:27):
eyeball too hard. That's not very smart. No, you can
pull on your tongue, but don't mash your eyeball or
sticky sticking your finger in your ears sometimes we'll do it,
but also don't stick something foreign in your ear. And uh,
you know, massage your brain. You don't want to do that.
Nothing bigger than the end of a football, Is that
what they say? Really? Yeah? I thought you're just making
that up. No. Um. There's also surgery to basically disconnect
(17:50):
your frenic nerve or parts of it, make it a
little less prissy. Um. And there is also emptying your
stomach through a tube inserted into your nose or mouth.
That's pretty harsh. I think I'd rather have hiccups. Yeah,
I say that, though I've never had them for forty
eight hours or more. Though now I can't imagine when
you sleep you're still having them in your sleep. That'd
(18:11):
be awful. Let's talk about a couple of people who
have slept through hiccup bouts. All right, Charles Chucky Osbourne.
I don't know that this man had an actual life
as far as a quality life goes. Imagine he got
used to it. Do you think you would at for
sixty eight years? Yes? But isn't it annoying? Though? Isn't
the aren't hiccups one of those things that you just
(18:32):
can't help but find annoying If somebody around you as
hiccups like it almost brings out like this anger response
in people when it doesn't go away fast enough. Yeah,
it's annoying. But like I said, Charles Osborne had him
for sixty eight years. He had him from nineteen twenty
two to nineteen nine, and they estimate Guinness season a
Guinness Book of course, that he had four hundred and
(18:53):
thirty million hiccups over that span. And I'm curious if
if he died in nineteen nine and that's that is
the end of the run, well, I don't know, or
if he was just cured. I'm sure we can find
that out. Uh. There was also a Florida teen named
Jennifer me She hiccuped for five weeks in two thousand seven.
I actually remember that one, and then she was on
the Today, so I think really so she stopped for
(19:16):
a little while and then they returned a few weeks later,
much sure, dismay and um, I think she does not
have hiccups any longer though, which is good. Well. Yeah,
another couple of people, Josh, another Florida person, Jamie mostly
hiccup for eight months, and David Willis of Narrathon Eiland
Uh had two unsuccessful surgeries with a five year hiccup
(19:39):
or deal. Yeah, that's awful. You have the surgery and
it still comes back. Could you imagine anything worse to
surgeries and it still comes back. Well, that's what would
be worse. If you want to learn more about hiccups,
I would recommend pulling your tongue, eating a spoonful of sugar,
and moving from Florida drinking moderation. Yes, oh wait, you
(20:01):
know what. There was one more that I used to do,
and I think this is all mental. I was told
that if you strike a match and then put the
match out in a in a glass of water and
then drink that water real quick, that'll do it. Weird,
but I think that's the water drinking method combined with
just some mind games personally or sulfur. Well, I thought
about that. I don't know if that's true. If you
(20:22):
want to learn more about hiccups and see some cool
diagrams of a diaphram, you can type in hiccups at
the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com,
which means this time for listener mail, Josh, I'm gonna
call this one goaded into being on listener mail? Goadd go?
(20:46):
Did this guy goaded me go? Did basically dared me
to put him on listener mail, and you felt for
I was like, you know what, dude, I will. You can't.
Can't reward that kind of behavior. Reverse I called you Chuck, Okay,
Josh and Chuck. I've made no secretive fact that I
think your podcasts are great. I've also openly declared a
singular mission to achieve global notoriety by getting you guys
(21:08):
to say hello to me and listener mail. I don't
know about global notoriety. He he was written in a
few times and I didn't fall for it, so finally
to keep him from emailing me again. That's why I'm
reading this. I've noted in recent weeks a pattern in
your way to choose you choose your mail. You invariably
choose mail from those of younger persuasion, generally in high
school or below. So premise one you must be young.
(21:30):
I've also noted that you tend to like the mail
that is either written poorly or in some form of
broken pigeon English. Premise to use bad English. I would
also like to suggest that while you are often balanced
and seemingly devoid of ego related behavior, uh, you love
it when people claim to be a big fan. Well,
(21:50):
of course we do. Um, So premise number three, say
I'm your number one fan, actually has nothing to do
with smail. Uh. Finally, there usually has to be something
slightly witty, but not more witty than you. This guy
is dead on. Oh that's not true. I love it
when people are funnier than me. So premise number four
is be smart but not too smart, which is not true.
(22:14):
I've come to realize that I am not young. Indeed,
I think I'm about your age. My English is pretty good.
I did go to university. Some one would expect a
certain level of literacy. Uh no, he's not. He's Australian.
I am well aware that while a fan, I am
most likely not your number one fan. In fact, I'd
be very disappointed if I was your number one fan,
(22:34):
because I am not that good at being a groupie. Finally,
this is the strange one to type out. I think
I'm smart, Not Hadrian Collider smart. I've read Chaucer smart,
but certainly smart enough to keep up with you guys.
Keeping typing that feels weird, he says. So. Not willing
to be fraudulent, I will simply continue to send you
one off slightly funny things I come across in the
(22:57):
hope that one day, just one day, you think of
me and say, how low with something funny added mark
from originally from Wagga Wagga, Australia, now in Sydney, and
now you have to add something funny Wagga water is
pretty funny. Perfect. Yeah, thanks Chuck. If you have something
funny to say, chuck it on like funny you You
(23:17):
can be funnier than us if you dare, uh, send
it in an email right. Oh and don't forget if
you have like a hiccup remedy, I'm sure we want
to hear those. Put in an email to stuff podcast
at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, is that how stuff works
(23:39):
dot com. Want more house stuff Works, check out our
blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. Really sure? Okay, I'm Josh Clark. That's Chuck Bryant. Hello.
(00:26):
I think I said the same thing last time. I
think you did. Hello the jerk. I am Hi, Dare
that's much better, Chuck, what's up? Spice it up a
little bit? It's up. Maybe get the frenic nerve irritated.
I'll look at you. Yeah, perfect, so texted hermy Chuck.
Now we already did that. Yes, okay, Um, we're talking
(00:47):
about hiccups today. Huh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Chuck. What
do you know about hiccups? Man? Have you ever had
them before? I have, Josh, and I will talk about
a famous about of my hiccups later. Okay, when we
talk about being drunk? Oh yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, um,
But should we go ahead set this up? Yeah? Chuck
(01:08):
actually has a fairly ticklish constitution when it comes to hiccups. Uh.
And he has in his hand a be brand root beer. Uh.
And he's about to open it and try to give
himself hiccups because he says that it doesn't take very
much that we're gonna see it. That's the brand root beer.
Sometimes drinking a carbonated beverage will many times we'll do hiccups.
(01:31):
So my goal is to have hiccups through the episode.
So we'll see what happens. Okay, here he goes he's
he's drinking the root beer. He's chugging the root here right,
look at him. Go you go, chuck. Oh, he's got
a look of grim determination on his face. He's taking
too long tips so far. He's looking at the root beer.
Excuse me. And there's a little birth right there. This
is hiccups, Chuck, not burpec. I got nothing. We'll keep trying.
(01:54):
His eyes are a little watery. Yeah, I feel it.
Uh and um he's you can take take it faster, faster, set.
He looks pain. He's got some carbonation in his lungs.
It looks like, man, that you have to No, no,
I don't have to down it. Chug. I have that
cold thing now on my chest. Well, actually cold is
one way that hiccups are Um activated, I guess yeah,
(02:18):
And I think that's what happens when I drink the soda.
That's what happens. Yeah, how disappointing. Nine times out of ten,
I'll get hiccups the one time I need him, don't
worry about. We'll just have Jerry put some hiccups and
we'll say, oh, look, listen, there's hiccuping crazy. Let's give
some hiccup facts, shall we? Oh? Wait, listener requests, Okay,
this is must be fan appreciation. Wait, because we did
(02:38):
two in a row. And this is from Jess in
Portland's Thank you Jess, and she was all, what up
with hiccups? Yo? Is that what she said? Now? All right, Chuck, Yes, sir,
did you know that you have a lifelong specific hiccup pattern?
I did not till I read this, and that is
way cool. Yeah. I don't know what mine is. Oh
(03:00):
as far as recognizing it, yeah, yeah, I've never charted
mine now, and I couldn't find anything else on some
uh you know, an additional outside research hunt. Um, I
couldn't find anything on that on specific hiccup patterns, like
if there's five or six, or if it's just you know,
there's as many as there are people that kind of thing,
(03:22):
like your fingerprint, right and snowflakes. Uh. There's also the
fact that the average hiccup spell can last for a
few minutes to a few hours. I've never had one
last a few hours. I start to get angry after
a couple of minutes, and I'll just take a huge
deep breath and that usually cures it. Actually, yeah, I've
(03:42):
got my cures too, but I'll talk about those later.
And there's actually, um, you've heard of people who have
um horrifically long bouts of hiccups, right, there's actually medical
terms for these. If your hiccups have lasted, um, I
think longer than forty eight hours, they're called person extant hiccups.
I would agree with that. And then if they lasted
(04:03):
longer than a month, they're called intractable hiccups. And this
is actually I found out, um, that's very prevalent among
patients with AIDS. Intractable hiccups are. Yeah, and I found
a study that said, uh that at least in one patient,
medical marijuana or I guess even just playing marijuana cures it. Interesting. Yeah,
(04:23):
they had a patient I think in Spain, had intractable
hiccups and tried marijuana for the first time in his life.
And uh, it cured it, and then I think twenty
four hours later it came back again. The patient used
marijuana second time, and that was the hiccups. You know
what what people with intractable hiccups called their hiccups? Hell,
(04:46):
those both hiccups. I can't get rid of. That's a
medical term. Too nice. Wow, Um, my face is bread.
I'm blessing a little bit least chuck. There's a question
that's plagued human kind? Can you tell us the twenty
first century? I said, human kind? Said plagued, plagued, plagued
(05:09):
human kind um for millennia, and that's why do we hiccup?
And actually we don't have an answer for that, No,
we don't know. Uh. The Greek physician Galen hypothesized that
it was angry emotions that were created in the stomach
coming out. It's a stamp, it's it's a shot at it. Right.
(05:33):
I love the Greeks. It's as good as any others.
And actually I found another um another explanation that was
posited in two thousand three by researchers at the PT.
Saltpetriere Hospital in Perry. Thank you. Um. They hypothesized that
us hiccup ng is a relic from our time spent
(05:56):
in the very distant past as amphibians. They said that
there is a very close similarity to gil ventilation, which
is how amphibians breathe because they also have lungs, so
they have to close their lungs to breathe, but they
also they have gills as well, right right, And then
the the water has to pass over the guilds without
(06:18):
going into the lungs to take a short, quick breath,
and the epiglottis closes. And we'll talk about how a
hiccup works in a second. But the guil ventilation in
amphibians and hiccuping in humans and mammals, by the way,
um are very similar. So they went a little further
and said, and you know what, here's here's the drum
roll part um. The brain circuitry that controls guil ventilation
(06:42):
in amphibians is still present in mammals. Yeah, so they're
saying that they think that this is a it's a
relic leftover from our very very very ancient past, isn't it.
You know? What I also thought was interesting was the
recapitulation theory, or part of it proposes that fetuses actually
(07:05):
use hiccups as part of their respiration before their lungs
are fully developed, right, and they actually do. The theory
part comes in is to why um, and that is
that basically it's that it's it's akin to how we
learn to crawl before we learn to walk, or we
can crawl before we can walk. We can hiccup before
we can breathe. Normally, we should start saying that, you know,
(07:27):
you got a hiccup before you can breathe. People get
what it would be, like, Hey, we're the woman on
the top, you're gonna say that. Um. And that that's
actually supported by the fact that premies spend two point
five of their little premi life hiccupping, And that's a
lot more than regular full term babies. They're sitting there
like like they don't have it hard enough up all
(07:49):
the time. I weigh three pounds and I'm hiccupping. Give
me a break. And apparently UM hormones can play a
role in hiccupping. Women who who are in the first
two weeks of their mentor will cycle hiccup more UM
than pregnant women do. Uh. So, there's a whole grab
bag of questions attached to hiccup ng. You're more likely
(08:10):
to hit up in the evening exactly, and you hick
up less as you get older. Yeah. I think that's
all the little factoids. Right, So we've we've got all
these this information. No answers whatsoever as to exactly why
we hiccup. None, I kind of I subscribe to the
recapitulation theory frankly. Yeah, um, but we do know what happens.
(08:31):
We do know the physiology of a hiccup, right, Yeah,
that's the easy part. And it all comes down to
the frenic nerves, which after reading this article I have
concluded the frenic nerves are the sissiest nerves of all. Yeah.
The vegas nerves are in there too, I found out.
Uh they if they get annoyed, and then you can
hiccup as well. Right. So the frenic nerve right, Uh,
(08:52):
it controls the diaphragm. And the diaphragm is that muscle
that goes over your big belly and under your rib cage.
You're so it's it's in between the stomach and the abdomen. Right,
it goes down when we inhale, ye try, it goes
up when we exhale, so it helps out the breathing process.
Did you hear that horrible struggle for breath? And it's
(09:14):
like yeah. So when we are breathing, we're taking an
air through the nose in the mouth, right, and it
flows through the pharynx, past the glottis and into the
larynx and trachea, which eventually terminate into the lungs. Right,
and then it follows a opposite path on the way
(09:36):
out as we exhale. That phrenic nerve that controls the
diaphragm uh is, as I said, kind of sissy, a
little prissy, kind of a punk uh. And any time
it gets irritated, well I shouldn't say any time, but
when it's irritated, uh, it can induce an abdominal spasms up. Well,
(09:57):
that's part of a hiccup. Hiccup is a quick, short
breath we take aken because our diaphragm is spasming, right, yes, um.
And then what makes the hiccup sound is the epiglottis,
that little piece of tissue that covers the glottis and
keeps you know, um, this beat brand root beer from
going into your lungs when you're drinking it. Yeah, I
hate it when that happens, closes all of a sudden
(10:18):
and there's your hiccup. That is what a hiccup is, yes,
right the end. What are some of the things that
can cause that little frenic nerve to throw a tantrum chuck? Well,
Josher's there's only a few things that can cause this. Uh.
One of the main things that can happen is that
you over eat and you've got a full stomach, so
(10:39):
you're sollowing too much food or air. Your stomach too
stands and gets all fat and it pushes against the
frenic nerves and they're like, oh, you ate too much hiccup, right,
So that's one way. Another one is, um, add hot food,
spicy food to that, and you're you're doubling your chances
because it hot foods will irritate your frenic nerves as well.
(11:00):
And the last thing is, uh, smoking is not good.
Excessive smoking and drinking can also cause hiccups. Or like
we propose with my thing with a with a coke
and the root beer. Um, a rapid temperature change inside
the stomach, like drinking something really cold or really hot, right,
So that can all irritate. The little was uh, frandic
nerves and frandic almost ad frantic. I think it is
(11:23):
a little frandic. If not hysteric, it should be the
hysteric nerve, right, and then stress and emotion on the
psychological side that can cause them too, and mental illness too.
I couldn't find anything on this. I saw a couple
of mentions that mental illness uh is linked to hiccups, right,
But I couldn't find any um anything further than that.
But I did find out that you can use chloropromosine,
(11:47):
which is an antipsychotic, to cure long term hiccups. Did
you know that? No? I didn't, So that that kind
of points to mental illness a little bit or some
sort of connection interesting and mental hiccups, Yes, and another
layman's term for O c D. Really Yeah, that's a
good band name to mental hiccups. Yeah, Actually it's kind
of lame. So my story since we brought up the
(12:10):
drunk thing was I famously had hiccups in Athens one night,
and this is after I graduated. I went back to
see the Flaming Lips at forty and I had hiccups
for about six hours straight and I had imbibed a
bit much, so it was kind of one of those nights.
It was. I was the butt of many jokes because
(12:31):
I was walking around and kind of doing this and
if you know it, it lasted forever. It was awful.
What did Wayne Coyne have to say about it? He said,
you need to be hit to death in the future
head okay, which is one of their albums. That just
made that up. Oh he didn't really say that, no,
but it is one of their albums. I'm sorry I
lie so much to you. Let's say that you've eaten
(12:55):
a lot of Indian food, you've smoked a pact cigarettes,
drink a cord of crazy Horse, and you followed it
with a big old glass of coffee. You have no
regard whatsoever for the sensation in your hands, um, and
(13:16):
your frenic nerve is going berserk, perserker like a mad Viking. Yeah, mushrooms, Um,
what are some of the things you can do aside
from taking you know, antipsychotics to cure hiccups? Are we
getting into the cures now? Because boy, there's a lot
of them, and even if we read twenty we'll get
a thousand more from people. I was going to call
(13:37):
for it a listener mail. Yeah, we'll get them for sure. Um,
there are a few medical things that have been uh well,
nothing has been proven to be more effective. It kind
of comes down to the person. And I think a
lot of it's mental. Well, if you think one of
them will work for you, then that's the one you use,
and that might work. And people aren't exactly sure how.
But mental distraction actually can cure hiccups, right, that's true,
(14:00):
especially if somebody comes up to you and demands that
you hiccup on the spot. I've never heard that one. Um,
you haven't. No, Like, if you've got the hiccups, they'll say,
hiccup right, Well, what if you just hiccup? You're like, dude,
that's my problem. I'm hiccuping. I didn't say it was good,
but I'm just saying it's been shown to cure it
in some people. They should go and say, don't hiccup, right,
(14:20):
Like I said, I've I've uh, I can draw in
a big breath of air and that usually cures it. Right.
That's not my method, but I'm gonna I'm gonna save that. Uh.
Most of the best home remedies actually work. Stimulate the
naso pharynx, and that's a part of the pharynx behind
the tonsils and uh like drinking from the opposite side
(14:41):
of the glass. You've heard that one. Biting into a
lemon or pulling on your tongue sometimes that will actually
uh stimulate the naso pharynx and that will work. It's
also you can also just do it with your tongue itself,
the tip of your tongue, if you rub it against
the very back of the roof of your mouth. Yeah,
tickling the roof of your mouth. That that can help.
It can. It also keeps you from yawning interesting or
(15:01):
tickling period. They say, if you're a ticklish person, gets
someone to tickle you, and you might just forget about hiccuping.
And if you're not a ticklish person, you have no soul.
That's true. Uh. Most of the breathing things, um might
work because you're actually interrupting your respiratory cycle. So if
you do the paperbag trick or down a glass of
(15:22):
water really quick, that's that's the reason why that'll work.
Mine is I do the same thing with the breath thing,
but I don't inhale and take a big breath. I
exhale every bit of air I can and then put
my hand over my mouth and close my nose and
literally go till I'm about to pass out, and then
I'll breathe like try and breathe very calmly when I
(15:43):
come back, and usually that will work. So you do
the exact opposite of what I do. Well, you draw
in a big breath and then hold it. You exhale
all of your breath. That's what I do. But both ways,
I think we're interrupting a respiratory cycle. Chuck, Josh. There's
all sorts of medical um treatments, right, Some are some
(16:03):
are cool, like antipsychotics or medical marijuana. Yeah. This is
if you are have persistent or intractable hiccups. So right, yeah,
if you you know, start hiccupping and immediately getting your
car and go see a doctor, what's wrong with you?
But that being said, uh, it does. It is advised
that if you have hiccups that last for forty eight hours,
(16:24):
do go see a doctor because it can be kind
of a problem when you go see the doctor. In
addition to possibly prescribing antipsychotics, medical marijuana depending on your state. Uh.
The doctor may also prescribe a digital rectal exam. I
think that that kind of falls into the mental distraction category. Really,
maybe we're not talking ones and zeros here when we
(16:45):
talk about digital we're talking about something you might digits
of your hand, might find in prison. Perhaps digits another
another term for fingers. Yeah, I don't know why that
would work, but apparent I'm telling you it's the mental
district You're like, whoa, whoa and what cups? You know
have a much bigger problem than hiccuffs. Uh. They will
(17:05):
sometimes tap or rub, rub the back of your neck,
massage the Cartoyd sinus, which is in your neck charatid.
What did I say Cartoyd? Like Cartoyd it is karatid,
You're right. Or apply pressure to your eyeball to stimulate
the nerves of your diaphragm. But we should also c
o a here and say, don't go mashing on your
(17:27):
eyeball too hard. That's not very smart. No, you can
pull on your tongue, but don't mash your eyeball or
sticky sticking your finger in your ears sometimes we'll do it,
but also don't stick something foreign in your ear. And uh,
you know, massage your brain. You don't want to do that.
Nothing bigger than the end of a football, Is that
what they say? Really? Yeah? I thought you're just making
that up. No. Um. There's also surgery to basically disconnect
(17:50):
your frenic nerve or parts of it, make it a
little less prissy. Um. And there is also emptying your
stomach through a tube inserted into your nose or mouth.
That's pretty harsh. I think I'd rather have hiccups. Yeah,
I say that, though I've never had them for forty
eight hours or more. Though now I can't imagine when
you sleep you're still having them in your sleep. That'd
(18:11):
be awful. Let's talk about a couple of people who
have slept through hiccup bouts. All right, Charles Chucky Osbourne.
I don't know that this man had an actual life
as far as a quality life goes. Imagine he got
used to it. Do you think you would at for
sixty eight years? Yes? But isn't it annoying? Though? Isn't
the aren't hiccups one of those things that you just
(18:32):
can't help but find annoying If somebody around you as
hiccups like it almost brings out like this anger response
in people when it doesn't go away fast enough. Yeah,
it's annoying. But like I said, Charles Osborne had him
for sixty eight years. He had him from nineteen twenty
two to nineteen nine, and they estimate Guinness season a
Guinness Book of course, that he had four hundred and
(18:53):
thirty million hiccups over that span. And I'm curious if
if he died in nineteen nine and that's that is
the end of the run, well, I don't know, or
if he was just cured. I'm sure we can find
that out. Uh. There was also a Florida teen named
Jennifer me She hiccuped for five weeks in two thousand seven.
I actually remember that one, and then she was on
the Today, so I think really so she stopped for
(19:16):
a little while and then they returned a few weeks later,
much sure, dismay and um, I think she does not
have hiccups any longer though, which is good. Well. Yeah,
another couple of people, Josh, another Florida person, Jamie mostly
hiccup for eight months, and David Willis of Narrathon Eiland
Uh had two unsuccessful surgeries with a five year hiccup
(19:39):
or deal. Yeah, that's awful. You have the surgery and
it still comes back. Could you imagine anything worse to
surgeries and it still comes back. Well, that's what would
be worse. If you want to learn more about hiccups,
I would recommend pulling your tongue, eating a spoonful of sugar,
and moving from Florida drinking moderation. Yes, oh wait, you
(20:01):
know what. There was one more that I used to do,
and I think this is all mental. I was told
that if you strike a match and then put the
match out in a in a glass of water and
then drink that water real quick, that'll do it. Weird,
but I think that's the water drinking method combined with
just some mind games personally or sulfur. Well, I thought
about that. I don't know if that's true. If you
(20:22):
want to learn more about hiccups and see some cool
diagrams of a diaphram, you can type in hiccups at
the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com,
which means this time for listener mail, Josh, I'm gonna
call this one goaded into being on listener mail? Goadd go?
(20:46):
Did this guy goaded me go? Did basically dared me
to put him on listener mail, and you felt for
I was like, you know what, dude, I will. You can't.
Can't reward that kind of behavior. Reverse I called you Chuck, Okay,
Josh and Chuck. I've made no secretive fact that I
think your podcasts are great. I've also openly declared a
singular mission to achieve global notoriety by getting you guys
(21:08):
to say hello to me and listener mail. I don't
know about global notoriety. He he was written in a
few times and I didn't fall for it, so finally
to keep him from emailing me again. That's why I'm
reading this. I've noted in recent weeks a pattern in
your way to choose you choose your mail. You invariably
choose mail from those of younger persuasion, generally in high
school or below. So premise one you must be young.
(21:30):
I've also noted that you tend to like the mail
that is either written poorly or in some form of
broken pigeon English. Premise to use bad English. I would
also like to suggest that while you are often balanced
and seemingly devoid of ego related behavior, uh, you love
it when people claim to be a big fan. Well,
(21:50):
of course we do. Um, So premise number three, say
I'm your number one fan, actually has nothing to do
with smail. Uh. Finally, there usually has to be something
slightly witty, but not more witty than you. This guy
is dead on. Oh that's not true. I love it
when people are funnier than me. So premise number four
is be smart but not too smart, which is not true.
(22:14):
I've come to realize that I am not young. Indeed,
I think I'm about your age. My English is pretty good.
I did go to university. Some one would expect a
certain level of literacy. Uh no, he's not. He's Australian.
I am well aware that while a fan, I am
most likely not your number one fan. In fact, I'd
be very disappointed if I was your number one fan,
(22:34):
because I am not that good at being a groupie. Finally,
this is the strange one to type out. I think
I'm smart, Not Hadrian Collider smart. I've read Chaucer smart,
but certainly smart enough to keep up with you guys.
Keeping typing that feels weird, he says. So. Not willing
to be fraudulent, I will simply continue to send you
one off slightly funny things I come across in the
(22:57):
hope that one day, just one day, you think of
me and say, how low with something funny added mark
from originally from Wagga Wagga, Australia, now in Sydney, and
now you have to add something funny Wagga water is
pretty funny. Perfect. Yeah, thanks Chuck. If you have something
funny to say, chuck it on like funny you You
(23:17):
can be funnier than us if you dare, uh, send
it in an email right. Oh and don't forget if
you have like a hiccup remedy, I'm sure we want
to hear those. Put in an email to stuff podcast
at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, is that how stuff works
(23:39):
dot com. Want more house stuff Works, check out our
blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
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