Stuff You Should Know - What the heck is a hiccup?

Episode Date: March 30, 2010

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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launch, use offer code SYSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. Really? Sure. Okay, I'm Josh Clark. That's Chuck Bryant. Hello.

Hello. I think I said the same thing last time. I think you did. Hello. Right. What a jerk I am. Hi there. That's much better, Chuck.

What's up? I'm going to spice it up a little bit. What's up? Maybe get the phrenic nerve irritated. Ah, look at you. Perfect. So, taxidermy. Chuck.

No. We already did that one. Yes. Okay. We're talking about hiccups today. Uh huh. 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 bout of my hiccups later when we talk about being drunk. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Um, but should we go ahead and set this up? Yeah.

Um, Chuck actually has a fairly ticklish constitution when it comes to hiccups, and he has in his hand a B brand root beer, and he's about to open it and try to give himself hiccups, because he says that it doesn't take very much. So, we're going to see, that's the B brand root beer opening. Sometimes drinking a carbonated beverage will, many times, will induce hiccups. So, my goal is to have hiccups through the episode, so we'll see what happens. Okay. Here he goes.

He's drinking the root beer. He's chugging the root beer. Look at him go. Look at you go, Chuck. Oh, he's got a look of grim determination on his face. He's taken two long sips so far. He's looking at the root beer. Excuse me.

And there's a little burp right there. This is hiccups, Chuck, not burping. I got nothing. Well, keep trying. His eyes are a little watery. Yeah, I feel it. And, um, he's, you can take a, take it faster, faster sip. He looks pain.

He's got some carbonation in his lungs, it looks like. Man, he's not working. He's got to finish that. You have to chug. No, no, no, no. I don't have to down it. Chug. I'll, I'll have that cold thing now on my chest.

The cold is one way that, uh, hiccups are, um, activated, I guess. Yeah. And I think that's what happens when I drink the soda. That's what happens. Yeah. How disappointing. Nine times out of 10, I'll get hiccups the one time I need them. Don't worry about it.

We'll just have Jerry put some hiccups in. We'll see. Oh, look, listen. There's Chuck hiccuping. Crazy. Let's give some, uh, hiccup facts. Shall we? Oh, wait.

Listen to a request. Okay. This is must be fan appreciation week because we did two in a row and this is from Jess in Portland. Thank you, Jess. That's all. What up with hiccups? Yo.

Is that what she said? No. Okay. All right. Uh, Chuck. Yes, sir. Did you know that you have a lifelong specific hiccup pattern? I did not until I read this and that is way cool.

Yeah. I don't know what mine is. Oh, as far as recognizing it. Yeah. Yeah. I've never charted mine. No. And I couldn't find anything else on some, uh, you know, an additional, uh, outside research

hunt. Right. Uh, I couldn't find anything on that on specific hiccup patterns, like if there's five or six or right, uh, if it's just, you know, there's as many as there are people, that kind of thing. Sure. Like your fingerprint. All right.

And snowflakes. Uh, there's also, uh, the fact that the average hiccup spell can last from a few minutes to a few hours. I've never had one last a few hours. I started 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 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. Yeah. There's actually medical terms for these. If your hiccups have lasted, um, I think longer than 48 hours, yes, they're called persistent hiccups. I would agree with that. And then if they've lasted longer than a month, they're called intractable hiccups.

Yeah. And then there's actually, I found out, um, that's very prevalent among, uh, patients with AIDS. Intractable hiccups are, yeah. And I found a study that said, uh, that at least in one patient, uh, medical marijuana or I guess even just plain marijuana, what cures it. Interesting. Yeah.

They had the patient, I think in Spain had intractable hiccups and, uh, tried marijuana for the first time in his life and, uh, it cured it. And then I think 24 hours later it came back again, the patient used marijuana a second time and that was it for the hiccups. Wow. Yeah. You know what? What people with intractable hiccups call their hiccups.

Hell. Those bull. Hiccups. I can't get rid of. Wow. Yeah. That's a medical term too. Nice.

Wow. Um, my face is red. I'm blushing a little bit. Oh, please. Chuck. There's a question that's plagued humankind, can you tell us the 21st century? I said humankind. He also said plagued.

Plagued. Plagued humankind, um, for millennia and that is why do we hiccup and actually we don't have an answer for that. No, we don't. No, uh, uh, the Greek physician Galen, uh, hypothesized that it was, um, angry emotions that, that were created in the stomach coming out. Yeah. It, it's a stamp.

It's a shot at it. Right. I love the Greeks. It's as good as any others. And actually I found another, um, another explanation that was, uh, posited in 2003 by researchers at the PT Salt Petriere Hospital in Perry. Very nice. Thank you.

Um, they hypothesized that what us hiccuping is an, a relic from our time spent in the very distant past as amphibians. Okay. Um, but there is a very, uh, close similarity to gill ventilation, which is how amphibians breathe. Right. Right. Sure.

Uh, because they also have lungs. So they have to close their lungs to breathe, but they also, uh, they have gills as well. Right. Right. And then the, the water has to pass over the gills without going into the lungs. Right. So they take a short, quick breath and they're epiglottis closes and we'll talk about how a hiccup works in a second, but the gill ventilation and 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. Right. Um, the brain circuitry that controls gill ventilation in amphibians is still present in mammals. What? Yeah.

So they're saying that they think that this is a, um, it's a relic leftover from our very, very, very ancient past. Interesting. Isn't it? I also thought was interesting was the, uh, recapitulation theory or part of it, uh, proposes that fetuses actually use hiccups as part of their respiration before their lungs are fully developed. Right.

And they actually do. The theory part comes in as to, to why, um, and that is that basically it's that it's the, it's akin to how we learn to crawl before we learn to walk or we can crawl before we can walk. Yeah. We can hiccup before we can breathe normally. We should start saying that. You know, you got to hiccup before you can breathe.

People be like, what? It would be like, Hey, we're the little men on the top. You're going to say that. Um, and that, that's actually supported by the fact that, uh, preemies spend 2.5% of their little preemie life hiccuping and that's a lot more than regular full-term babies. Yeah. They're sitting there like, like, I don't have it hard enough. I know.

I hiccup all the time. I weigh three pounds and I'm hiccuping. Give me a break. And apparently hormones can play a role in hiccuping women who, uh, who are in the first two weeks of their menstrual cycle, hiccup more, um, than pregnant women do. Uh, so there's a whole grab bag of questions attached to hiccuping. You're more likely to hiccup in the evening. Exactly.

And you hiccup 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, I subscribed to the recapitulation theory, frankly.

Do you? Yeah. Um, but we do know what happens. We do know the physiology of a hiccup, right? Yeah. That's the easy part. And it all comes down to the phrenic nerves, which after reading this article, I have concluded the phrenic nerves are the sissiest nerves of all.

Yeah. Yeah. The vagus nerves are in there too. I found out, uh, they, if they get, uh, annoyed, then you can hiccup as well. Right. The vagus nerve, right? It controls the diaphragm and the diaphragm is that muscle that goes over your big belly. Yes.

And under your rib cage. Yes. You're, so it's, it's in between the stomach and the abdomen. Right. It goes down when we inhale. Yeah. Try it. It goes up when we exhale.

So it helps out the breathing process. Yeah. Did you hear that horrible struggle for breath? Yeah. It was like, yeah. So when we are breathing, we're, we're taking an air through the nose and the mouth. Right. Yes.

Hopefully. And it flows through the pharynx. Yeah. Past the glottis. Hello. Glottis. And, uh, into the larynx and trachea, which eventually terminate into the lungs. Right.

And then it follows a opposite path on the way out as we exhale. Sure. Now that phrenic nerve that controls the, um, the diaphragm, uh, is, as I said, kind of sissy, a little prissy kind of a punk. Uh-huh. Uh, and anytime it gets irritated, well, I shouldn't say anytime, but when it's irritated, uh, it can induce an abdominal spasm. That's a hiccup.

Well, that's part of a hiccup. A hiccup is a quick short breath we take in because our, uh, 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.

It closes all of a sudden and there's your hiccup. That is what a hiccup is. Yes. Right. The end. What are some of the things that can, uh, cause that little phrenic nerve to throw a tantrum, Chuck? Well, Josh, there's only a few things that can cause this.

Uh, one of the main things that can happen is that you overeat and you've got a full stomach. So you're swallowing too much food or air, uh, your stomach distends and gets all fat and it pushes against the phrenic nerves and they're like, oh, you ate too much hiccup. Right. So that's one way. Yeah. Uh, 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 phrenic nerves as well.

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 the, with the coke and the root beer, um, a rapid temperature change inside the stomach like during it's something really cold or really hot. Right. So that can all irritate the little, what's, uh, frantic nerves, frantic, almost frantic. I think it is a little frantic, if not hysteric, it should be the hysteric nerve. Right.

And then stress and emotion on the, uh, psychological side, that can cause them to 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, you can use, uh, chlorpromazine, which is an anti-psychotic to cure, uh, 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. Another layman's term for OCD. Really? Yeah. That's a good band name too.

Mental hiccups. Yeah. Actually it's kind of lame. This story, since we brought up the drunk thing was I famously had hiccups in Athens one night. And this is after I graduated. I went back to, uh, see the flaming lips at the 40 watt and I had hiccups for about six hours straight and, uh, I had imbibed a bit much.

So it was kind of one of those nights. It was, uh, I was the butt of many jokes because I was walking around and kind of doing this and it, you know, it lasted forever. It was awful. That's what the Wayne Coyne have to say about it. He said, you need to be hit to death in the future head. Oh, okay. Which is one of their albums.

Sure. 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. Chuck, let's say that you've, um, eaten a lot of Indian food, you've smoked half a pack of cigarettes.

No. You took a cord of crazy horse and, uh, you followed it with a big ol' glass of coffee. Gross. A glass. A glass. A glass. You have no regard whatsoever for the sensation in your hands. Right.

Um, and your phrenic nerve is going berserk. Berserker like a mad viking. Yeah. On mushrooms. Um, what are some of the things you can do aside from taking, you know, anti-psychotics to cure hiccups? Are we getting to the cures now? I think so.

There's a lot of them. And even if we read 20, we'll get a thousand more from people. I was going to call for it at 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.

Like 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. Especially if somebody comes up to you and demands that you hiccup on the spot. Yeah. I've never heard that one. Um, you haven't.

No. Like if you've got the hiccups, they'll say hiccup. You're right. Well, what if you just hiccup? You're like, dude, that's my problem. Right. 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. Like I said, I've, uh, I can draw in a big breath of air and that usually cures it. Right. That's my method, but I'm going to, I'm going to save that, uh, the most of the best home remedies actually work, stimulate the nasopharynx and that's a part of the pharynx behind the tonsils and, uh, like drinking from the opposite side of the glass. You've heard that one fighting into a lemon or pulling on your tongue.

Sometimes that will actually, uh, stimulate the nasopharynx and that'll 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. Uh-huh. That can help. It can, it also keeps you from yawning. Interesting.

Or tickling period, they say. If you're a ticklish person, get someone to tickle you. Right. 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, the breathing things, um, might work because you're actually interrupting your respiratory cycle.

So if you do the paper bag trick or down a glass of 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 come back. And usually that'll 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. Yes. That's what I do. Crazy. I'm interrupting the respiratory cycle 2023 is already well underway everybody. So don't wait any longer to level up your small business. And the way you can do that is by joining up with stamps.com.

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So head on over to Squarespace.com slash S Y S K for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code S Y S K to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Chuck. Josh. Uh, there's all sorts of medical, um, treatments, right? Some are, some are cool, like antipsychotics or medical marijuana. Yeah, this is, if you are persistent or intractable hiccups, right?

Yeah. If you, you know, start hiccuping and immediately get in your car and go see a doctor, what's wrong with you? But that being said, uh, it does, uh, it is advised that if you have hiccups that last for 48 hours, yeah, do go see a doctor because it can be kind of a problem when you go see the doctor in addition to possibly prescribed being antipsychotics, medical marijuana, depending on your state, uh, the doctor may also prescribe a digital rectal exam. I knew that was coming.

I think that that kind of falls into the mental distraction category really. Maybe we're not talking ones and zeros here when we talk about digital. We're talking about something you might digits of your hand. Yeah. Might find in prison. Perhaps digits. Another, another term for fingers. Yes.

Yeah. I don't know why that would work, but apparently it's the mental distra, you're like, whoa, whoa. And what hiccups? You suddenly have a much bigger problem than hiccups. Uh, they will sometimes tap a rug, uh, rub the back of your neck, uh, massage the cartoid sinus, which is in your neck, um, carotid, carotid. I think so.

What did I say? Cartoid. I like cartoid. It is carotid. You're right. Uh, or apply pressure to your eyeball to stimulate the nerves of your diaphragm, but we should also see away here and say, don't go mashing on your eyeball too hard. That's not very smart.

You can pull on your tongue, but don't match your eyeball or sticky sticking your finger in your ear. 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? Yeah.

Really? Yeah. I'll tell you, just making that up. No. Um, there's also surgery to basically disconnect your phrenic nerve or parts of it, make it a little less prissy. Sure. 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 48 hours or more though. No, I can't. Well, I imagine when you sleep, you're still having them in your sleep. Oh, that'd be awful.

Let's talk about a couple of people who have slept through hiccup bouts. Okay. All right. Charles, Chuck E Osborne. I don't know that this man had an actual life as far as a quality life goes. I imagine he got used to it. And you think you would? For 68 years?

Yes. But isn't it annoying though? Isn't it? Aren't hiccups one of those things that you just can't help but find annoying if somebody around you has 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 it for 68 years. He had them from 1922 to 1990. And they estimate Guinness, he's in the Guinness book of course, that he had 430 million hiccups over that span. And I'm curious if he died in 1990 and that was the end of the run. Well, I don't know. Or if he was just cured, I'm sure we can find that out. There was also a Florida teen named Jennifer Me.

She hiccupped for five weeks in 2007. I actually remember that one. I did too. And then... She's on the Today Show, I think. Oh, really? She stopped for a little while and then they returned a few weeks later, much to her dismay. And I think she does not have hiccups any longer though.

Which is good. Well, yeah. Another couple of people. Josh, another Florida person, Jamie Mosley hiccupped for eight months and David Willis of Nerthin Island had two unsuccessful surgeries with a five-year hiccup ordeal. Yeah. That's awful. You had the surgery and it still comes back.

Yeah. Could you imagine anything worse? Yeah. If you want to learn more about hiccups, I would recommend pulling your tongue, eating a spoonful of sugar, and moving from Florida. Yeah. Drinking moderation? Yes.

Oh, wait. You know, 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 glass of water and then drink that water real quick, that'll do it. Weird. It's a 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. Okay. If you want to learn more about hiccups and see some cool diagrams of a diaphragm, you can type in hiccups at the handysearchbar at howstuffworks.com, which means it's time for listener mail. Josh, I'm going to call this one goaded into... Goaded? Goaded.

Goaded. This guy goaded me. Goaded. Basically dared me to put him on listener mail. And you fell for it. I was like, you know what, dude? I will. You can't reward that kind of behavior reverse psychology, Chuck.

Okay, Josh and Chuck, I've made no secret of the fact that I think your podcasts are great. I've also openly declared a singular mission to achieve global notoriety by getting you guys to say hello to me in listener mail. I don't know about global notoriety. You've written in a few times, and I didn't fall for it, so I 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. 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 two, use bad English. I would also like to suggest that while you are often balanced and seemingly devoid of ego-related behavior, if you only knew, you'd love it when people claim to be a big fan. Well, of course we do.

It inflates our egos. So premise number three, say I'm your number one fan, that actually has nothing to do with listener mail. 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.

I've come to realize that I am not young. Indeed, I think I'm about your age. My English was pretty good. I did go to university, so one would expect a certain level of literacy. Is it British? 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, 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 Hadron Collider smart. I've read Chaucer smart, but certainly smart enough to keep up with you guys, even typing that feels weird. So not willing to be fraudulent, I will simply continue to send you one off. Slightly funny things I come across in the hope that one day, just one day you think

of me and say hello 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 and I like funny. You can be funnier than us if you dare.

Send it in an email, right? Yes. Oh, and don't forget if you have like a hiccup remedy, I'm sure we want to hear those. Put it in an email to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry.

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