Jennifer Mee of St. Petersburg has tried scores of remedies and seen several doctors. Still, the 15-year-old's hiccups persist. LINK at source above to hear her hiccups.
Posted on 02/14/2007 12:19:07 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Jennifer Mee of St. Petersburg has tried scores of remedies and seen several doctors. Still, the 15-year-old's hiccups persist. LINK at source above to hear her hiccups.
ST. PETERSBURG — She has tried holding her breath. Drinking water from the far side of the glass. Putting sugar under her tongue. Sipping pickle juice. Holding a paper bag over her face as she inhales and exhales.
None of that stops 15-year-old Jennifer Mee’s hiccups.
It started more than three weeks ago during first-period science class at Northeast High School. After about 15 minutes of nonstop hiccuping, she went to the medical clinic on campus. The staff there worked with her for five hours, and still she hiccuped.
That was Jan. 23.
In the weeks since, she has seen a pediatrician, a cardiologist and a neurologist. She has had blood tests, a CT scan and an MRI. She had an allergic reaction to one medicine, which triggered hives.
Something like 50 times a minute, Jennifer Mee hiccups, a staccato routine that sounds a bit like a smoke alarm whose battery has run out. Her mother, Rachel Robidoux, likens it to the sound of chihuahua barking.
When they go to Wal-Mart, strangers come up to them and try to scare the hiccups away. They offer prayer and healing hands and folk remedies, none of which has worked so far.
So Robidoux turned to the St. Petersburg Times.
“I’m just looking for some answers,” she said, “where somebody’s gone through this. At this point, we’re willing to do anything.”
A slice of lime covered in Angosora Bitters works like a champ for me.
just suck, chew, and swallow the lime.
Great, now I'm blind and have hiccups.
LOL I'm surprised it took all the way to post three for that to show up.
Works every time. I mean... EVERY time.
-Not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn the other night.
It was long ago so I don't trust my memory 100%.
Aren't hiccups just spasms of the diaphragm? You'd think if this has been going on for weeks they would just anesthetize that muscle.
While writing that, I realized the potential downside - she wouldn't be able to breathe. But they could use a low does that would be cleared out quickly and/or something that has an "antidote" that they could administer to reverse the anesthesia. She could be on a respirator for a few minutes during the procedure.
Extreme, I know, but if I had the hiccups for weeks I'd want something extreme. As for me, holding my breath has never failed to work, although sometimes it's taken a few minutes before they really go away.
She's trying to stop the hiccups not a train!
Ouch!
Worked for me.
That is quite a downside.
All the gadgety hiccup cures are all about one thing: controlling your breathing. I haven't had a bout of hiccups last more than 5 minutes since I figured that out. Deep slow complete breaths, bring it all in, let it all out.
That was actually based on a treatment for hiccups that was published in the medical lit I think rather recently which calls for stimulating the vagus nerve through the other end (i.e., anally) as opposed to the the more conventional approach of pulling on an ear lobe & slapping your carotid artery.
For short info about the treatment that was featured on House:UK Guardian medical column, scroll to second question. I feel pretty sure this little blurb is where the writers on House (the best in the business) got their storyline, too, lol.
A story about this ... bottom line treatment.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061006-ignobels.html
Winner of an Ig Nobel award in medicine (the IgNobel awards reward improbable scientific research).
Hiccup Cure?
On a stage strewn with paper airplanes flung by the audience, the Ig Nobel winners received their awards.
A crowd favorite was the Medicine award, which went to doctors who probed the edges of medical practice to find a cure for incessant hiccups.
They found that as a last resort an effective remedy is a "digital rectal massage."
The first to use this technique was Francis Fesmire, a doctor at Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
He treated a patient in the emergency room who suffered from hiccups every two seconds for three days.
"Initially gagging and tongue-pulling maneuvers were attempted with no change," Fesmire reported in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
After various other attempts, Fesmire resorted to sticking his finger where the sun don't shine. Applying a slow circular motion stopped the hiccups within seconds.
"I want to make it clear, I've done this once to a patient," Fesmire said. "It worked, and I was pleased. I have no desire to do it again."
Fesmire, who walked out to receive his award with his curative digit held up high, shared the prize with a team of Israeli doctors who later put their fingers on the same cure.
Actually the diaphragm is only one of several muscles of respiration so it's quite easy to keep breathing without it for a while. Anesthesia (general or local to the nerves supplying the diaphragm) has been used with mixed success.
I refuse to take that at face value. This will require much experimentation and research. Give me a year or so and I'll get back to you. I have a hot lead on an orgasmatron on eBay.
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