City of Destiny

[roadrunnertwice]

I will now tell you about the Tacoma Hiccup Cure.

So okay, sometimes, usually when I've been drinking, I get the hiccups; hate 'em, 'nuff said. One night, when I was out assisting in some Tacoma Ruckus, bobbygalaxy's housemate Leah taught me the One True Hiccup Cure, which I will now share with you:

1. Take a deep breath and hold it for 2-5 seconds.
2. Breathe in another small breath on top of the big breath. Hold the lot for another 2-5 seconds.
3. Repeat step two 2-5 times.
4. Let it all out in a big old whuff.

Easy, right? There's a catch. You can't ever do the Tacoma Hiccup Cure on yourself. It won't work. Someone or something else has to decide how many breaths and how long per time, and it can't be predictable.

I have a theory, of course: hiccups are a weird neurological/physical feedback loop, and what makes the Tacoma cure work is that you have to control your diaphragm on command and can't tell when the command is coming. It drives a wedge between the part of you that just does things and the part of you that tries to predict the future, and apparently that's enough to stop the annoying chest spasms.

It's eerie—As long as there's enough entropy in the count and intervals, I've never seen the cure fail. You can even teach the cure to someone who's never heard of it, and they'll immediately be able to cure your case.

Unless they're being jerks and won't listen to your drunk ass, which has been known to happen.

Comments

[nadreck]

I once had hiccups for about 18 hours straight. We tried every cure anyone had every heard of (I used to do something similar to the Tacoma Hiccup Cure the rare time I'd get the hiccups, but it didn't work this time). By the end of it, I felt like somebody had hit me in the chest with a baseball bat.

What finally cured my hiccups? A physical therapist friend had me lie down and taught me out to massage the diaphragm directly by push in and up from just below the sternum. Now, the rare time i get hiccups, I just do that. :)

[roadrunnertwice]

Huh! Interesting. Did the cure that failed have the random element in it?

Either way, the fallback is good to know about.

[(Anonymous)]

"Unless they're being jerks and won't listen to your drunk ass, which has been known to happen."

Awwwwww, poor baby has the hiccups... — @bobbygalaxy

[roadrunnertwice]

Ahahaha, fuck you! It totally sucked!

[pantswarrior]

Okay, so, today Thea had the hiccups, and I remembered this and explained it to her, and she was like... well, this is annoying, so let's give it a shot.

It totally worked. So thank you! I'm definitely going to have to remember this in the future.

[roadrunnertwice]

Hurray! Glad to hear it. :D

[gyladia.livejournal.com]

I hesitated to say this because I thought it was unladylike, but I should be breaking gender norms and not reinforcing them: A lot of times when I hiccup it's because I probably need to burp. So I just start chugging water until I need to breathe and then I burp and the hiccups are gone.