Dr. Oz reviewed the causes of hiccups and how to cure your hiccups quickly! He called on lucky seat 40 (Jamie) to help him.
When you get the hiccups, your diaphragm (the muscle underneath your lungs) starts to spasm, which pulls down on your lungs, and the epiglottis (the skin that is behind your tongue and closes over your windpipe) closes, all of which create the hiccup sound. The real culprit behind hiccups is air in your stomach. Therefore, the most common triggers for hiccups are:
1. Eating too much – this makes you swallow a lot of air, because you always swallow air whenever you eat.
2. Carbonated beverages (like soda)
3. Drinking too much alcohol
So what home remedies work best to get rid of your hiccups?
1. Stand on one leg (either your right leg or your left leg), hold your nose with one hand, and jump up or down.
OR
2. Drink a glass of water upside down.
The reason both of these cures for hiccups work is because if you can store carbon dioxide, it soothes your diaphragm out.
Karen Rossi says
Dr. Oz, The only hiccup remedy my family has ever used is a simple spoonfull of powdered (confectioners) sugar. It always works and is much easier to administer, especially for kids . Please test this out. I have never known it to fail.
Sylvia Parsons says
I’d like to send you my tried and tested home remedy for hiccups:
Step 1 – Take a slow, very deep breath in, until you can’t breathe in anymore
Step 2 – Hold your breath for a short while
Step 3 – Exhale slowly and steadily until all breath is exhaled and you can’t breathe out anymore.
If during this time you continue to hiccup, just take a few normal breaths and start again as it doesn’t work if you’re still hiccuping during the process.
Friends and family have tried this and it’s been very successful. Would love to hear if it works for you!