I know you don’t care, but I almost just died. Ok, maybe not. But I felt like it. I had the hiccups for 45 minutes and was very seriously close to ending it all, but I chugged a bunch of warm club soda, let out a solid belch, and seem to be ok. Big middle finger to the moron who thought sugar under my tongue while bending over would solve the hiccups.
What have you all heard of the movie the Impossible? I think dad and I are going to go break the hearts of the poor Asian ladies and go for manicures with our mangled ass calloused feet, then hit lunch, and then to the movies.
The Dangerman
This is why videocameras were invented.
Svensker
As a frequent hiccuper I’ve found the only thing that really works for me (unless drinking a whole buncha liquid all at once does the trick) is lying down and meditating my way to a calm diaphragm. Reeelaaaaax the diaphragm. Reeelllaaaaxxxxxx. Callmmmmmmmmm the muscle. Caaaaallllmmmmm.
Has the side benefit of making me feel all refreshed and rested.
Ted & Hellen
After the Tsunami hits, the movie is fairly dull and predictable. But special effects are great.
Violet
My fourth grade teacher took any kid who was hiccuping down to the water fountain, told them to drink while she held the kid’s ears closed. Seemed to work every time. Don’t know if drinking while hunching over (because of the water fountain) is essential. Maybe just drinking out of a glass would work. Not sure how one would do it on their own–maybe use a straw? It has worked for me every time I’m used it, though.
Ted & Hellen
Hiccups: Big-ass heaping serving spoon full of dry white sugar, swallowed as dry as possible, almost always works for me.
But I hardly ever get hiccups since I, you know, stopped drinking like a fish.
Jade Jordan
Father Son Mani Pedi’s – so not OK for WV Hillbillies. Please consider a day of toothless 4 wheeling.
Violet
Tip them well.
danah gaz
“and go for manicures with our mangled ass calloused feet”
That’s a pedicure, sweetheart.
A manicure involves your fingers.
Tokyokie
The Impossible has a Spanish director, a Spanish scenarist, a largely Spanish crew and the studio stuff was shot in Spain (although the special effects were done in München) and tells the true story of a Spanish family. So why did they feel the necessity of hiring native English-speakers to play the leads? Did the Spanish producers think audiences wouldn’t have had sympathy for the family’s plight had Mom and Dad been played by Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz?
Just Some Fuckhead
It’s prolly a little late for lunch.
Bruuuuce
From several years ago, the best hiccup cure I’ve ever found was posted by Diane Duane in a comment at Making Light:
So far, I’ve only had to go to salt once, and it is not pleasant. But it worked.
lectric lady
Three generations of my family have always had success with the vinegar solution. Swallow, all at once, 1 T of cider vinegar. Works for us every time.
JPL
@Just Some Fuckhead: It’s West Virginia and they have a different time zone.
lojasmo
Never going to even rent that movie. Yuck.
As noted above, pedicures are for feet.
I love a mani/pedi though.
hiccoughs….usually I just will them away. I have had about two sets in twenty five years that have lasted more than a minute.
JPL
@Bruuuuce: The first step always worked for me.
rdale
Easy way to get rid of hiccups: make yourself breathe really hard, by running up flights of stairs, doing some kind of aerobic exercise that makes you breathe hard. It’s a spasm in your diaphragm, right? So you make the diaphragm work hard and they go away. Works every time.
Ted & Hellen
@Tokyokie:
The producers are obviously Nazi-level racists. What other reason could there be?
Ben Franklin
Jesus H….hiccoughs.
desertflower
I have the perfect no fail solution for hiccups…do you want to know what it is for future reference, or did you secretly LIKE that warm club soda? :) Ah. The thought makes me want to heave!
Mnemosyne
@Tokyokie:
It usually has to do with who says “Hollywood” to global audiences. I realize it sounds weird to say that an Australian actress and a Scottish actor are “Hollywood,” but it’s true.
Plus Cruz and Bardem had a baby in 2011, so the timing for them to go to Thailand for several months probably would have been very bad.
ETA: And when I say that they needed stars that said “Hollywood” to a global audience, I mean that would have been a requirement to get the financing to make the film.
TaMara (BHF)
Date night in WV.
BTW, if you can press in on your diaphragm, it might take doing it in several spots on the diaphragm, you can usually get the spasm to stop.
zzcool
Generally, hiccups are caused by a diaphragm in spasm.
As Svensker said earlier, deep breathing is very useful as you are consciously regulating the activation of the diaphragm. You may hiccup once or twice but as long as you take a deep breathe in and then hold it for as long as comfortable and then breathe out in a slow, controlled manner. Rinse and repeat as required.
When people suggest drinking liquids etc. they are basically making you do the same thing except if you hiccup you’re more likely to choke.
General Stuck
No shit. Everybody knows you cure hiccups by drinking lizard piss while standing on your head from the roof ledge of a 13 story building. It has to be 13 story, though catpiss will work, also too.
raven
The Spirit Award are on in an hour on IFC.
Redshirt
Hold your breath and count to a thousand. Solves most health issues, I’ve found.
JPL
I happened to be reading the Washington Post online when their reporter was describing what was happening during the tsunami. The description was enough for me and will leave a lasting impression. I doubt I will see the movie.
Jennifer
Sugar under the tongue while bending over? Posh and balderdash.
The cure is to bend at the waist and get a mouthful of water and swallow, while still being bent over. This means you’re drinking from the “wrong” side of the glass. Or you could use a straw, or a bottle. Whichever way, you’re in a posture that’s compressing the diaphragm and the action of swallowing forces it to work while it’s being compressed, which somehow short-circuits the hiccups and ends them.
I wouldn’t recommend doing it in public or in front of strangers, but it absolutely does work.
Bettencourt
@Tokyokie:
Probably because Bardem and Cruz are virtually the only Spanish actors who are also stars in other countries, and if you didn’t get them then you’d have to go with comparative unknowns for an (for Spain) expensive production.
I love the film and have seen it three times, though nothing in it is quite as strong as the extraordinary tsunami scene. (supposedly the real woman Naomi Watts plays was very involved with the film — she even receives the story credit — and recommended Watts to play her).
General Stuck
I honestly didn’t think the manufactured crisis over Benghazi could be topped for mind numbing dumbfuckery, but alas I was wrong.
Congrats to the “sequester clusterfuck”. It is all hands on dick, with every lame meme one could imagine being spun. Republicans, democrats, austifarians, it doesn’t matter. Every body is one on making it a puzzle for the ages, with world ending predictions, to , it don’t mean nothin’.
Musical chairs for dunces.
Little Boots
for what it’s worth, i do care about you, and I’m glad you are okay.
dick.
Capt'n Kurt
@Bruuuuce: I originally wanted to add a comment to say that the sugar cure has worked for me as well, though I have never heard that CO2 theory. I had learned that the grittiness of the sugar stimulated the vagus nerve, which disrupted the whole hiccupping process somehow. I dunno, I am not your, or any, doctor.
So sugar or salt would be equally effective, I think (hell, so would sand as far as I know), but since sugar is way more palatable, you should just try a second spoonful of that instead of switching to salt. How either would affect CO2 levels is beyond me.
But enough of that! While I was looking up hiccup/sugar/vagus nerve stuff, I found this. Charles Osborne has (almost) continuous hiccups, every ten seconds, for 68 years.
I said almost continuously, because his hiccups stopped one time in 1948, but Stephen McDaniel punched him in the gut 2 hours later, restarting the hiccups.
The Wikipedia article doesn’t explain who gut-puncher extraordinaire Stephan McDaniel is, but I believe we can assume he is an asshole.
PS. Looks like the details on Osborne’s hiccup rate is all over the place. While Wikipedia says once every 10 seconds, or 6 times a minute, this page lists it at originally 40 times a minute, then slowing to 20 times a minute. Whatever. It’s still a heck of a lot of hiccups.
Rosie Outlook
My son hiccuped through the last half of my pregnancy. Second-hand hiccups must be life’s weirdest sensation, or at least in the top 5.
gogol's wife
@Ted & Hellen:
The sugar works.
So does holding your breath while drinking nine swallows of water. Don’t ask me why it’s nine. It’s something I heard in an old movie about 50 years ago (I wish I knew what movie that was), and it never fails.
Little Boots
you got a lot of issue, john.
it’s okay, but what the hell is that about?
Punchy
Do me a fave and tip the living shit out of yer pedo-filers. When yer feet suck (like mine do), they deserve the 50% tip to scrape the flotsam and jetsam off your dogs….
Little Boots
I got issues, too.
and where the hell is omnes?
debbie
Not something you want to try in public, but tilt your head back, open your mouth wide, and breathe deeply for about 30 seconds.
ninedragonspot
There’s a Somerset Maugham story, “P&O”, about a man who dies from hiccups after weeks of agony.
TooManyJens
@gogol’s wife: I was just going to suggest drinking while holding one’s breath. Works for me every single time, but I don’t have to have nine swallows. One or two will do, and holding my breath as long as I can.
VFX Lurker
The Impossible won a Visual Effects Society award for Best Supporting Visual Effects.
Speaking of which, a few hundred VFX artists plan to protest the Oscars tomorrow. Something about VFX films making lots of $$$ while the cash-strapped VFX shops burn and their artists starve.
I plan to join the protest tomorrow. Should be fun!
eemom
oh fer fuxsake, stop showing off. You know you could put up a post about farting in the wrong direction and 8 thousand people would show up with diagnostics, home remedies, paypal accounts and pledges of eternal love in the first five minutes.
Little Boots
I still think omnes should show.
Donut
Hiccups are caused by a spasm of your diaphragm.
The only thing that makes them “go away” is you calming down enough to breathe normally. Your muscles need to relax, in other words.
That’s it.
Anyone telling you otherwise is full of shit.
General Stuck
See what I mean. With the sequester, we are all Gilligan’s Island. Subject to invasion from Mars.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Ted & Hellen: The dry sugar didn’t work for me with a nasty case one drunken night. The bartender said, “Nah, try this instead.” It worked great. I was so drunk I didn’t remember what it was and still don’t. But rest assured, there’s a perfect hiccup cure out there somewhere.
cckids
@Rosie Outlook:
Oh yeah. Both of my younger 2 were like this. It is a very strange feeling.
And on the subject of the movie, I was very moved by it, though it was hard to watch some of the tsunami scenes. It may be a bit schmaltzy, but it works. I recommend it.
Redshirt
Can we just give this thread over to Little Boots and Taco sucking up to John?
LB: Hold me John. John? John?! Can you hear me?
Taco: Fuck you bot!
Donut
@debbie:
That is decent advice, though I think you can get the same results if you just breathe in deep through the nose and exhale from your mouth.
Again, your diaphragm needs to relax and stop spasming, which means stay calm and try to breathe as normally as possible. The more tense you get, the more your diaphragm will spasm.
Doing stuff like drinking water or holding your breath is really an attempt to regulate your diaphragm. Your better off just focusing on taking deep, regular breaths and not freaking yourself out.
JoyfulA
When I was very little, the news on the radio every day for a while was that the pope had hiccups, the pope still had hiccups, the pop might die because he still had hiccups. Anybody know how that turned out?
Then again, the story could have been a plot line on Our Gal Sunday, or Helen Trent, or some other of my mother’s soap operas.
Little Boots
goober
gman
Foolproof cure for hiccups: Drink very small amounts of water, one sip at a time, continuously. Don’t pause to breathe, don’t think about breathing, just keep sipping. For whatever reason, while you’re doing this you can’t really hiccup, & eventually the reflex is calmed. Much easier & more reliable than the sugar or salt methods.
AHH onna Droid
What is up with LePage cutting Medicaid in Maine. Only story I found was behind boston.com paywall.
22over7
No, everyone ELSE is full of shit.
I’ve endured hiccups at least twice a week for as long as I can remember, and water, drunk slowly, is the only cure. Sometimes it takes two glasses.
Actually, different remedies work for different people. But this works for me. Geez I hate hiccups.
Enjoy the pedicure, and enjoy the time with your dad.
Patricia Kayden
John Cole needs to write a book — a comedy book because all I could do was laugh when reading this post. Sorry. I know that hiccups for 45 minutes has got to be painful, but that 1st paragraph is hilarious. Especially the rage against the sugar under the tongue suggestion. Glad you’re better now.
Enjoy your pedicure.
Redshirt
@AHH onna Droid: What are your specific questions? In general, he’s a dipshit Tea Bagger and follows the Tea Bagger line. That should explain it.
Donut
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hiccups/DS00975
Please people, enough with the superstitious stuff:
MMM
WOW
Mike in NC
Wife has an extremely bizarre ritual for hiccups that involves placing a knife, handle down, in a glass of water, and then drinking it. I seldom have a problem like that, but breathing into a paper bag worked fine.
Redshirt
@Mike in NC: Does the knife go in her mouth when she drinks? Or off to the side?
? Martin
I can just concentrate and make them end. A bad run of the hiccups is two. I haven’t seen a third hiccup since I was a kid.
Discipline, people.
cmorenc
Which is more annoying to you when you’re experiencing it: a case of frequent hiccups you cannot get rid of, or a case of frequent farts you cannot get rid of (especially if you’re caught out in a public place when it gets going).
Tokyokie
@Ted & Hellen: Well that’s just unfair. They’re Spanish after all, so they’d be Fascists.
Mike in NC
@Redshirt: Off to the side. But why???
Kayla Rudbek
Good thing about going to an sf convention: seeing & hearing Peter Davison live. Quite impressive. Bad thing about this convention: right-wing nut job and SF author Tom Kratmann was there as well. I’ve been around a fair amount of right-wing nut jobs in my day (and am a blood relative of at least one) but three minutes of listening to Kratmann talk and I have never heard anybody more poisonously angry in my entire life.
Some Guy
Cole, sure fire hiccup cure should you ever have this again: a generous spoonful of peanut butter. Do not doubt it, doubt not scoff. ALWAYS works. And its tasty. Fuck every other method ever conceived. All lies and bullshit that work by random chance. Peanut butter.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Gophers finish the regular season undefeated, the first NCAA women’s hockey team to ever do so. Now we just need seven straight playoff wins. The only down note was that Sam Downey reinjured her knee in warmups and I’d guess she’s done. As the founder and sole member of the Sam Downey Fan Club, this makes me sad.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Ted & Hellen: That (a dry-swallowed spoon of sugar) is what typically works for me.
A deep breath held until I’m ready to pound on the floor and kick and scream can also help, but it does tend to have one side effect: I usually get one last hiccup just as I breathe out and try to suck in more air. (I suppose it’s a good test for ESP – if a person can’t hear you thinking “FUCK ME!!” or the equivalent at that moment, they’re not able to read minds, period.)
Another thing that sometimes works on difficult cases is getting the person to try to hiccup. Not to *fake* a hiccup, anyone can do that, but to specifically to to make a hiccup happen. I suppose the idea is you start engaging the parts of the body that are doing that, and that helps you regain control, even though you can’t do it consciously.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Oh, and Minnetonka wins their third consecutive state title 3-1 over Hill-Murray. This despite playing 2 1/2 games of hockey against Lakeville North last night.
Steeplejack
Watching the first episode of Zero Hour off the DVR. Not off to a promising start. Memo to Anthony Edwards: turtle chin and stubbly neckbeard are not a good combination for a leading man.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
One of my cats gets the hiccups sometimes when he starts purring really hard. Given that he is the most purr prone cat I’ve ever had, this is a fairly common occurrence.
cinesimon
The Impossible, if it’s the Tsunami movie you mean, is really, terrible. Cliched, forced emotions, predictable.
The documentaries via PBS and BBC were much more worthwhile, and far more emotionally wrenching.
Just a badly stylized cut and paste of various real experiences, that were actually chronicled in the documentaries.
muddy
@Donut: @? Martin: So right. My doctor told me that the signals from both sides of your spine out to your diaphragm get just a millisecond out of step with each other. Breathing slowly and in a really controlled way, concentrating on your diaphragm will fix it.
The reason people have all these little tricks that they swear by is that while concentrating on the trick they get the benefit of the concentration without realizing it. It’s got the magical part in it to distract you from the fact that it’s all in your mind.
rda909
“I almost just died…I had the hiccups.” – Definition of Drama Queen.
rda909
“I almost just died…I had the hiccups.” – Definition of Drama Queen.
muddy
I’ve just remembered that when my son was little I’d ask him if he wanted me to scare the hiccups out of him. He’d say no, and then I’d scare him anyway. Nice mom. Still, it cured his hiccups.
dance around in your bones
I always had good luck with just holding my breath until the hiccups went away.
That said, I had a friend who was hospitalized with constant hiccups for about 4-5 days. That shit can kill you man, unless you stop them. I think they had to put him in a kind of come or something to stop them.
John, weird shit happens to you.
JoyceH
The hiccup cure that has worked for me every time I’ve tried it since I heard of it several years ago was to inhale, then hold your breath for a count of 15 or 20. Then inhale, but DON’T exhale, and hold for another count.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Eat one hard boiled egg, one-half avocado, and six sticks of black liquorice, then fart into a paper or plastic bag and inhale the contents. It won’t cure your hiccups, but it will take your mind off of them.
Gus
Slice of lemon with bitters. Worked for me every time but one.
Citizen_X
Pah. You people. The only cure for hiccups is tax cuts.
Schlemizel
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Switched between the Gopher men & that game. I was stunned to see Mtka had that much left after playing till after 1AM this morning. I always enjoy seeing the private schools lose so I was glad I missed the small school game this afternoon,
The Gopher Women finished the season undefeated, 34-0-0. Thats never been done before. It was an ugly game, the Huskeys took 9 penalties including 1 major (should have had another for contact to the head but the refs called it a minor) – I don’t think I have seen two games in 15 years where both teams combined for 9 penalties!
MikeJ
A girlfriend of mine had the absolute best possible hiccup cure based on the theory of getting you to not think about it. It never, ever, ever failed. If you had an orally talented girl around the house already you probably wouldn’t be posting to a blog telling us about your hiccups.
Miki
Pope Pius XII had a case of terminal hiccups, or so they say. The 2nd-ex (R.I.P.) was terrified of them, thanks to his Italian Mama telling him a story about it …. Fourteen years later and I still miss that man ( the 2nd-ex, not the Pope).
Schlemizel
I am not complaining – only noting – WP is up to its old tricks again.
jibeaux
John, I’m sure you didn’t almost die, but I bet it was comparable to what Iranian protesters went through in the Arab Spring.
dance around in your bones
@dance around in your bones:
Of course I meant coma, but who knows? Maybe a good come would work.
ETA: And of course, MikeJ got there before me.
Schlemizel
@dance around in your bones:
Always cured whatever was bothering me
Msskwesq
@eemom: you are so right! LOL!
Redshirt
@efgoldman: @71
I sure hope so. I’ll do my part. But the 3rd party Independent guy, Eliot Cutler, is talking big about running again. And the Dems can’t NOT run someone, right? And so whammo – we’re setting up the same 3 way dynamic that got Paul 38% Lepage the Governorship. Mind you Cutler got 36% of the vote in 2010, and he’s a liberal Independent. The Dems got 19% and then some other Independent dude got 5%. Total crazy show, as Maine is a 60% Liberal state, and I urge you all to consider this example whenever thinking about 3 way (or more) elections. Heaven help us if 27% is enough to win an election.
PurpleGirl
@dance around in your bones: I was watching one of those true ER stories shows and one case was a woman with hiccups for several days. Intense constant hiccups. The doctors and nurses tried several things, her boyfriend was freaking out that the medical people didn’t know what to do, the woman just laid there hiccupping. I forget how they finally got them to stop.
dance around in your bones
@Schlemizel:
Indeed. After a good come, all’s right with the world.
Denali
Just finally saw Life of Pi this afternoon. It was amazing! Forget the tsunami movie.
Schlemizel
@dance around in your bones:
Well, to be completely honest, I don’t think the sheep always agrees but I do.
dance around in your bones
@PurpleGirl:
Yes, this really did happen to a friend of mine. I think they induced a sort of coma to get his diaphragm to relax. It was serious shit. He almost died, so I think John saying he almost died isn’t quite in the Drama King Zone.
Except for him it only lasted 45 minutes.
Ok, Drama King.
dance around in your bones
@Schlemizel:
Aw, you’re just pushing them through the fence, right?
Jay C
45 minutes of hiccuping must have been a serious PITA, but at least you seem to have stopped them with no damage. I used to think they were just a semi-comic annoyance, too: until an evening 15 years ago when 2+ hours of hiccups (with “fixes” not helping) led wife & friends to take me the local ER: where the staff were also mildly amused: til my last hiccup hurled about a half-pint of blood onto the ER floor. They stopped chuckling after that. (Prescription NSAIDs had eaten away my stomach lining: I quickly called the Dr., whose sage advice was “stop taking them!” Thanks, Doc….)
Most of the time it’s just annoying: if they go on for any length of time (like over an hour) think seriously about going for help.
hilzoy
Tell me about it.
I am allergic to only two (2) things on earth, both utterly obscure medications, both of which I took and then quickly stopped taking when I was 13-14. One made me hiccup for FOUR DAYS. The really horrible part was the FOUR NIGHTS in which, since I was hiccuping, I could not sleep.
I had never thought that hiccups could possibly make a person so miserable.
Schlemizel
@dance around in your bones:
Can’t help it, its the Scot in me. Kilts are good because sheep are scared by the sound of a zipper
Redshirt
I remember reading in the Guinness World Record book about some poor soul who was hiccuping for 45 years or something. Can you imagine? I suppose he’s gotten used to it, to some degree. But {HICK} still.
SatanicPanic
@jibeaux: As bad or worse than being waterboarded?
Suffern ACE
Pickle juice with sugar for the hiccups.
Went to see “No, the Movie”. I thought it was better than Amour, which will probably win best foreign language film tomorrow. Although I’ve not seen the others.
dance around in your bones
@Schlemizel:
Oh yes, I could see how a kilt could be pretty handy :)
Never scare a sheep with a zipper.
some guy
Our friends in jihad are kicking ass.
funny, neither the Times nor WaPo took much notice of this recent terror campaign our allies.
Joseph Nobles
Hiccup remedies. Umm, try tying a bandana on your head, stripping down to everything but underwear, and then running out in the road, spinning around three times, while saying, “I’m a little teapot.” Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Pics or it didn’t work.
If that doesn’t work, I’ve heard about another one that involves a stalk of celery and some WD-40. But that’s only for extreme cases. Again, pics or you might as well not even try.
(On the serious side, I’ve always stopped whatever I was doing on the very first hiccup and just did slow, deep breaths. Most times I won’t even get a second one. It’s not as effective if you let it get established, I’ve found. The very first one – stop, breath, and then roll.)
Odie Hugh Manatee
My hiccup ‘cure’:
– Pour large glass of milk.
– Take a deep breath.
– Tighten chest muscles.
– Slowly drink as much as the milk as you can (through clenched teeth is about the right speed) until you consume the glass of milk or need to breathe.
– Slowly exhale and then follow with a slow, deep breath.
– Lustily burp once and then wait until you know the hiccups are gone before belching again.
Works every time for me. Another one I use in a pinch is to take a deep breath, tighten the chest muscles, suppress hiccups and belch in between the urges. Repeat until hiccups are gone.
That takes a bit more work but works well enough when no milk is available. Water doesn’t seem to work as well as milk does.
jamick6000
Ezra Klein is John Galt
Redshirt
In the Age of Aquarius, under the Moon of Diana, gather three young herbs of fresh dispensation and shred them over an altar of DVD cases chanting “Star Wars Original Blue Ray”, while sniffing a stiff Zinfandel.
JoyfulA
@Miki: That’s about the right timing. Pope Pius seems to have had several cases of long-lasting hiccoughs in the last decade of his life, according to Wikipedia, and it was probably the one in 1953 that I heard about on the radio so dramatically. Supposedly, he considered resigning because of his health during that time.
Maude
As a kid I knew hiccups could be dangerous. Nor good for babies either.
The sugar always worked for me.
45 minutes is a long time to have them. They get stronger.
I am going to buy and keep a small bottle of club soda for just in case.
Michael
I thought this was pretty funny
The Fountainhead in 5 Seconds
Elizabelle
@Denali:
Planning to see Life of Pi tomorrow. 3D version’s the only one still around in DC area.
Glad to hear you liked it.
TheOtherWA
Got my first pedicure recently. Loved it. They had massaging chairs so while my feet and lower legs were being pampered my back was getting treated too. Yes, I tipped well.
I also saw Life of Pi today. It was wonderful! I’m not really a fan of 3d but this one deserved to be seen that way.
Ash Can
I’m too tipsy and way fucking too impatient to read this entire thread, but this is the surefire cure for hiccups that I’ve discovered, and this may have been posted here already: Take a big mouthful of water (or any favorite beverage), then bend forward so that your head is lower than your chest (hold onto something stable if necessary). Take small swallows to swallow all the liquid in your mouth — 6 or so small, even swallows. Then stand up straight, and give a big ol’ smile, because your hiccups are GONE-ASS GONE.
Ruckus
@dance around in your bones:
First time I can recall that two people have won the internets with snappy repartee.
dance around in your bones
@Ruckus: I am honored, sir, honored, I say!
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Michael:
And they kept all of the good parts!
? Martin
I would like to point out that every one of the so-called remedies above (various drinking exercises, etc.) involve concentrating and regulating your breathing.
Have y’all ever considered just concentrating and regulating your breathing and skipping the water and all of the other hoojoo?
Medrawt
My family remedy – taught to my grandpa by an NYC bartender when he was in grad school – is quite similar to #4, but doesn’t involve bending. I suspect John, like the men in my family, has big enough hands to do it solo: pour a full glass of water, grab it between the fingertips of both hands, stop your ears with your thumbs, slowly drink the glass without pause, breathe calmly, don’t speak for a few seconds, then you’re fine.
Obviously all of it is balderdash, for reasons already explained, but it’s effective balderdash, and it makes you look ridiculous in the process, so I stick with what works for me.
When I was a boy my mother taught me I could stop an oncoming sneeze by pinching my little finger between thumb and ring finger. I have NO idea why it works, and presume it’s psychosomatic, but it’s never failed. (Maybe it really is purely about directing concentration elsewhere?)
srv
Not to be morbid or not because I don’t love John, but I think this community should consider taking out a life insurance policy on John.
Not for the children, but for the animals.
Those wanting to profit could set up a side pool on the method of death.
Michael
My never-failed remedy for hiccups is to take a long, slow, deep deep breath, and then hold it for 5-10 seconds, then exhale very slowly, then repeat. Usually by the 3rd or 4th time, the hiccups are gone. Always by the 5th.
dance around in your bones
@Medrawt:
Pinching the web between your thumb and first finger will stop a headache/hangover in its tracks, too. The hard part is in keeping the pinching up. I used to think about applying a clothespin to the area but was usually too hungover to actually do it.
I don’t drink so much anymore, so haven’t had the necessity to apply that pressure so much. But – it really works! I have no idea why.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
Thumbs up to whoever convinced Cole to stick suger under his tongue and bend over. I’m busting a gut laughing at the visual.
Yutsano
@Michael: I got lost in the comments. There was a Randroid insisting all regulation is ebil and corporations would go under if they sold contaminated food, but don’t you dare sue them, cause that’s bad. I feel icky now.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
{JGabriel tilts head to right.}
{Tilts head to left.}
{Scratches head.}
{Rests chin in palm.}
{Decides he really doesn’t want to know any more than that, not to inquire further, and that it’s probably just best not to comment at all.}
.
Jewish Steel
Quick! Name 10 flowers!
The hiccup cure that works once or twice.
joel hanes
@Citizen_X:
The only cure for hiccups is tax cuts.
A contender on style points alone. The California judge is giving it a 9.5
cckids
@SatanicPanic:
Waterboarding would probably stop the hiccups, tho.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: Don’t read the comments on Young Ezra’s post on the sequester over on Wonkblog. That gave me an urge to start drinking again.
ETA: I didn’t start drinking again.
Amir Khalid
What bugs me about The Impossible (I admit I haven’t seen it) is that it’s about a disaster that takes place in Asia and kills hundreds of thousands of Asians, including thousands in Thailand where the film is set. Yet whom the film chooses to focus on are white people from Europe.
TS
@Maude:
My babe had hiccups a lot for her first few months – every babe professional told me it was common and nothing to worry about at all.
Suzanne
Hiccups are, for me, brought on by only one thing: drinking Sprite (or 7up or Sierra Mist). And only when it’s fizzy and cold. If it’s warm, and/or flat, I’m okay. The hiccups last a least 45 minutes and are so strong that each one ends with a frog-like belch, and I feel exhausted afterward. No remedy makes them go away sooner.
sb
@Amir Khalid: I haven’t seen it, either, but the story of how a family of five survived while so many died fits the title. Additionally, I haven’t heard that the film was racially insensitive, FWIW.
Not sure if I’ll see it.
Redshirt
Under the Moon of Diana, gather 3 Keys of Mt. Dew Extreme, and give your interview at basecamp: Psyched to be here. A real achievement. Humble but proud.
Yutsano
@Redshirt: Whatever you are on, u share naow plz. Kthxbai!
Alison
There is a show on Animal Planet called Too Cute! (with the exclamation point in the guide) and I’ve now watched almost two hours of it and it’s been just watching kittens in various households playing around. Playing with toys, climbing cat condos, one of them was trying to eat an iguana’s tail. (The iguana was another pet in the house that was apparently allowed to just chillax wherever and it was surprisingly nonchalant about the cat.) It’s like the Internet but on my TV. And it is, in fact, cute as a MFer.
SATURDAY NIGHT, WHAT.
Amir Khalid
@sb:
I’m not suggesting that the telling of the story was in any way racially insensitive. I’d be surprised if it were. But to choose a story about white people, set where it was, seems to me to place their experience of it before that of others’.
SatanicPanic
Saturday night, saturday night
Anne Laurie
@Rosie Outlook:
The old wives’ tale, when I was growing up, was that a hiccuping fetus would grow up to be a problem drinker.
Of course, in a working-class Irish-American neighborhood, the odds were pretty much in favor.
wasabi gasp
Michael Jackson – Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough
Redshirt
@Yutsano: Ground up T&H w/ LB, apparently. Yay, me!
Patrician
Re hiccups?- if you are not alone put your arms out to your sides level with you shoulders and have someone feed you a glass of water. I was tahught shis by a Spanish lady and it works everytime.
terben
I know of three effective cures for hiccups. One of which I can vouch for.
1. Digital rectal massage. (see )
2. Orgasm.
3. Apply pressure to the earlobe with the thumb and forefinger.
Obviously some cures are more pleasant than others.
HeartlandLiberal
You do not put the sugar under your tongue, for Pete’s sake. You put a teaspoonful of sugar in your mouth, and try to swallow it as rapidly as you can, BEFORE
HeartlandLiberal
You do not put the sugar under your tongue, for Pete’s sake. You put a teaspoonful of sugar in your mouth, and try to swallow it as rapidly as you can, BEFORE it dissolves. It is the granularity of the sugar against the esophagus as you swallow that breaks the cycle of hiccups.
I am dead serious about this. I have done this for decades, and it has never failed. And every friend I have told, after laughing at me first, thanked me after trying this and doing it right.
Miki
@JoyfulA: That’s probably the one the ex heard/was told about. He would have been 6 or 7 at the time and pretty impressionable. Poor kid …. I met him in his mid-30s and he was still terrified of them.
Nicole
I hated The Impossible. I actually found myself screaming, “You are a terrible father!” at Ewan McGregor’s character. And I am the sort to suffer bad movies in silence.
Redshirt
Seriously though, for any kind of ankle/knee sprain, balance on the afflicted leg. That’s it – balance. Stand on your left/right foot. This will over time not only cure you, but prevent future injuries.
John
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: It was probably bitters on a piece of lime.
Jennifer
@Suzanne: I know how to cure your hiccups.
Stop drinking cold Sprite, Sierra Mist, or 7Up.
01jack
Regarding all claims of hiccup cures: see confirmation bias.
Ted & Hellen
@Amir Khalid:
This again.
Surely you already know that the author of the book on which the film is based, the mother in the film, is a “white” person from Europe. Her family, her husband, and her children, are “white” people from Europe.
Racist.
HeartlandLiberal
@01jack: How about science instead?
A good cure also depends on the person you ask. Almost all cures are based on one of two principles. One type works its magic by overwhelming the vagus nerve with another sensation. The vagus nerve is a cranial nerve that innervates the stomach and conveys sensory information about the body’s organs to the brain. When distracted by overwhelming information of another sort, it basically tells the brain that something more important has come up and the hiccuping should probably be stopped (vagus nerve stimulation is also used to control seizures in epileptics and treat drug-resistant cases of clinical depression). The other method for curing hiccups is to interfere with breathing, increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood, and causing the body to focus on getting rid of the of the CO2 and not making hiccups.
Swallowing a spoonful of sugar is probably the most commonly prescribed hiccup cure and falls in the first category. A teaspoon of sugar is usually enough to stimulate the vagus nerve and make the body forget all about the hiccups. Even ardent supporters of the sugar cure disagree if the sugar should be taken dry or washed down with water, though.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/29674/what-causes-hiccups-and-why-does-sugar-cure-them
Elizabeth
I care.
Also, the ONLY thing that works is to stretch your diaphragm, as THAT is where the spasm is. Bending backwards, if you can manage it, is the key. I lie on my back on the bed, then scootch myself over the edge, ending with my hands on the floor, and my back in an arc, stretching out my belly. I realize this maneuver isn’t for everyone, but something similar that gets the job done works.
I scoff at drinks of all kinds. Stretches. That’s the ticket.
Villago Delenda Est
We need to use the tax code to deal with hack writing like this. Put out an oped this stupid, you instantly are billed for 150% of your yearly income for the year in which said hack writing was published.
Goes up another 25% for each additional instance.
Deficit problem solved very quickly.
I_D_Inuse
Will you PLEASE get over the fortysomethingoranothermyanimalsruleswhine? Age is suppose to be graceful after you learn to walk and quit believing snot on your upper lip is normal. At 2.5 years you should have figured out what Kleenex were for and whines,fat cats, adorable dictator dogs and one fluffy ruffle Supreme Ruler Lolcat does not take away your second amendment rights!! Way to go Cole.. the domestic overlords RULE!! Wayne Lapierre is winning. Cripes I will be eating cat food from now to coffin thanks to you—Simpson-Bowles Cole. Get those wingnut critters in a redistricted liberal frame of mind. Send them to TBogg’s Basset’s Intervention Liberal Therapy Sunshine On The Beach Rehabilitation Center. You will feel better I promise.
moderateindy
45 minutes…………sissy. After major spine surgery last summer I had some complications, one needed a tube to be stuffed up my nose then down my throat into my stomach. When it was removed a couple days later I began hiccuping, which lasted for 11 days. Miserable doesn’t even begin to describe it. Tried every home remedy anyone thought of, to no avail. The doctors said that the only thing that works is , I believe, Thorazine, which they wouldn’t give me because of the possible serious side effects. The worst part was lack of sleep. About two hours a day in 10-15 minute increments before the damned things woke me. The one thing that would slow them down a bit was Norco…Vicodin with acetaminophen. Eventually they went away, although after the first time they ceased they returned about an hour later, but then went away for good after about another half hour. Talk about your mood swings from complete elation when they first subsided to total desperation when they returned, back to total relief when they went away again a little later.
Hiccups- enough to make a grown man cry……literally