One day, in response to a case of the munchies, I started scarfing forkfuls of cold macaroni and cheese from a dish in the fridge. I soon gave myself a case of hiccups, which I proceeded to douse with a drink of milk. This got me to thinking: what are hiccups? Do they have a role in how our bodies function? Why does rich food (even macaroni and cheese) cause hiccups? Why does drinking cure hiccups? And, paradoxically, why does drinking (of alcohol) also cause hiccups?
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Here’s what we know. When you hiccup, your diaphragm and nearby muscles convulse, causing you to briefly gulp air. Within 35 milliseconds the glottis (the opening at the top of the air passage) slams shut, producing the characteristic “hic.”
If you’re able to stifle the hiccup right away, great. But if you hiccup more than seven times you’d better settle in for the long haul. Once in hiccup mode you typically will hiccup 63 times or more. Maybe a lot more. The hiccup record, last time I checked, was 57 years.
Or maybe they’re just, you know, hiccups–an accidental reflex triggered by a stimulus to (usually) the vagus or phrenic nerves. This travels up the line to a nerve control center that for some reason sends out a “commence hiccup” impulse via the phrenic nerve.
Sometimes unorthodox procedures are efficacious. Doctors tried everything they could think of on a 60-year-old man who’d been hiccuping for two days. No luck, so “digital rectal massage was performed, resulting in abrupt cessation of the hiccups.” I’ll bet.
