I don’t know much about hiccups so I’m not writing this post to enlighten you. In fact, I am hoping that you can enlighten me.
I am fascinated by hiccups. I used to get them all the time, throughout my whole life. And then, when I went Primal, they miraculously stopped. But I never really knew why. This sudden recovery didn’t follow any logic that I could see. After eliminating gluten and going Primal, my digestion was still a wreck for years to come. My nutritional status wasn’t much better. I still had a laundry list of symptoms. But the hiccups were gone.
What’s even odder is that my daughter Evelyn was a hiccuper as well. I say was because after she eliminated fructose they stopped. Now Maya is a hiccuper and she drinks nothing but breast milk. And I don’t eat fructose or dairy or just about anything allergenic.
Does it run in families? Some kind of genetic defect? I don’t recall ever seeing my brothers or sisters bouncing up and down with hiccups every week… Ahhh! My ignorance drives me nuts!
Hiccups: a spasmodic inspiratory movement of the diaphragm involuntarily checked by a sudden closure of the glottis that produces a characteristic sound – Merriam Webster Unabridged
Okay so that’s what they are, but why are they? And…
Why does a fetus get the hiccups in the womb?
Why do babies get the hiccups after they eat?
Why do children get them more than adults do?
Why do some adults get them frequently and others not at all?
Is the spasming of the diaphragm sort of like a twitch? Is this a nervous system thing? Could it be related to food allergy, to iron deficiency, to the immune system, undigested food passing through the intestines? Or is it related to the maturity of the digestive system?
Maybe mine wasn’t able to mature until eliminating gluten, Evelyn’s until eliminating fructose, and Maya is just 2 months old and still has an immature digestive system. Is this it? Are they an indication of maturity? (digestive maturity that is. I dont’ have the hiccups anymore but I’m just as immature as ever)
I got hiccups until I was about 26 years old. I had them often. Now I don’t get them ever. No matter what I eat (granted, there are many foods that are totally off limits no matter what the circumstance). No matter how bad my gut feels. No matter how stressful life gets. I just don’t get them. Why?
Please leave links, experience, research, and whatever else in the comments!
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October 10, 2012 at 10:46 am
definitely a very interesting thought, now that you mention it since i went raw/primal I havent had any hiccups at all either. Not that I got them often but I would get them on occasion… Hmmmm interesting
October 10, 2012 at 11:01 am
I’m interested in this as well… I’ve never really had the hiccups much except the occasional fit, but when I got pregnant I just started having hiccups randomly, not a part of any fit, throughout the day. That has seemed to stop in the last month or so (I am now about 27 weeks along). I always hear that babies will get hiccups in the womb, and though the baby kicks and moves all the time, I have never noticed anything like hiccups.
October 10, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Maya started getting hiccups daily around 34 weeks. I don’t remember if Evelyn did or not.
October 10, 2012 at 11:07 am
I only get hiccups if I eat too fast. From my personal experience it as more to do with how I am eating not what I am eating. Slow calm eating I never get them, fast movement eating..I do. So there may be more than one cause.
October 10, 2012 at 11:36 am
The same thing happens to my husband. It’s only when he eats too fast. If he takes a moment, has a drink and eats slower they go away.
October 10, 2012 at 11:12 am
This is very interesting! I haven’t looked into hiccups, but now I’m thinking I should. I used to get them a lot as a child, they slowed down around my teens, and then when my health declined in my early 20s I started getting them more often again.
I guess, like most of my symptoms, they eased up after going Paleo, but didn’t totally go away – until recently, but I still haven’t been able to pinpoint what it is that has made me so much better these past 8 months. I mean, I finally got access to raw dairy and started eating it in abundance, but I feel like it’s not the dairy in itself, but the fact that enabled… what? A general tightening up of the diet so I consume less things that disrupt my digestion? A higher intake of animal fat? I wasn’t exactly skimping before. A higher intake of some amino acids my body needed? I just don’t know.
Your guess about digestive system maturity is an interesting one though. It seems the most probable based on the way hiccups pattern to age.
October 10, 2012 at 11:21 am
As a chiropractor, we were taught in neurology that “C3, C4, C5 keep the diaphragm alive”… meaning that the diaphragm is innervated by the cervical (neck) vertebrae 3-5. So, whenever someone presents with hiccups, I always check that level of their spine for dysfunction first. 9/10 times that works. Speaking from experience with my own kids, the mid & upper thoracic spine tends to be involved as well.
My daughter, especially, tends to get hiccups more often. I find that she gets them most often when she starts to hurry… especially if she eats then has to hurry to get ready. Makes sense to me b/c the emotion of stress causes a release of stress hormones that can cause subluxation of the spine. Ta-daaa! I usually see the connection right away.
She gets adjusted and the hiccups go away.
In chatting with practice members who have hiccups often, I also tend to find that they have anterior carriage of their head, putting increased stress on the spinal cord and brain stem… and/or they sit/work/sleep in positions that reinforce this forward posture of the head. Another trigger for chronic cervical and upper thoracic subluxation.
I also agree that hiccups (and a gazillion other less-than-desirable health conditions) seem worsened by gluten/grains & dairy in the diet, as well as junk food, factory food, and fake food in general!
That’s my 2 cents! : )
Colleen
October 10, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Thanks Colleen! Maya definitely hurries when she eats my rapid fire breast milk. hehehe. In general, we don’t hurry with meals much around here, but then we never have, so why the change I wonder.
That is really interesting about the spine. I’m sure you have noticed that back and neck problems can totally resolve themselves after changing the diet. I had terrible back and neck problems myself for years and visited a chiropractor regularly years back. He was pretty surprised when I called him up one day and said I didn’t need him anymore because I changed my diet. Anyway, maybe whatever was wrong with my spine was causing the hiccups. Interesting…
June 28, 2013 at 7:15 am
Collen- I was just researching this and found your answer. Worries me because my hiccups just started Sunday- I was in a bad wreck, car hit on my side. I was taken by ambulance and had some x-rays but just had a sprained neck, shoulder and pelvis. My sternum or in the area of the sternum has been killing me, and I have been getting hiccups and they hurt my sternum so bad. Do you think this could be my spine??
October 10, 2012 at 11:24 am
I get hiccups any time I have dairy
October 10, 2012 at 11:30 am
Foetuses hiccup in the womb to practise breathing, as they can’t do any real breathing or they’ll get amniotic fluid in their lungs, but they have to strengthen up the diaphragm before birth so they can get that crucial first breath right.
Personally I get hiccups when I’m thirsty, I don’t have much sense of thirst so it seems my body uses hiccups to tell me instead. But I also sometimes get hiccups when my posture is poor, and straightening my back and getting my shoulders good stops them.
October 10, 2012 at 2:50 pm
I haven’t heard of that one before! Hiccups when you’re thirsty…
October 10, 2012 at 11:32 am
I read something recently (but now typically cannot find again!) about hiccups in utero being a natural reflex and babies tend to do it more often when they are small simply because it’s a habit. I can’t recall the detail of what it actually does…but I seem to remember it being something to do with the fact that they are breathing fluid in there rather than air.
October 10, 2012 at 11:41 am
A weird but effective way to get rid of the hiccups is something my cousin showed me, and believe me when I say I was skeptical. But, after you’ve been going on for hours you kinda become desperate.
If someone has the hiccups, have a second person pour a glass of water then hand it to them while saying, “I’ll trade you this glass of water for your hiccups.” Then the hiccup person takes and drinks the water (some or all) and voila. I have had 100% success with it for 2 years running. Thanks Heidi!
October 10, 2012 at 2:51 pm
If Evelyn gets the hiccups again, I’ll definitely be trying this.
October 10, 2012 at 12:41 pm
I’ve begun associating my hiccups with electrolyte imbalance or change (like after eating very salty things). Wikipedia actually has some interesting information on hiccups http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiccup
October 10, 2012 at 1:37 pm
i’m very interested in this as well! my 6 week old gets hiccups every day, multiple times a day, and got them daily in utero for months. they really seem to hurt her sometimes, and i just have no idea what to make of it!
October 10, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Peggy, I’ve wondered about this recently myself (my new baby was a BRUTAL hiccupper before birth!).
The electrolyte imbalance theory makes sense. I assumed that the in utero ones were sort of an electrical storm in an unmyleanated brain. My baby also has sort of all-over shivers or chattering lower jaw now and again, for no apparent reason, which I chalk up to the same thing. The upper thoracic connection is interesting – maybe I should keep an eye on our BFing positions if the hiccups recur earthside.
October 10, 2012 at 2:53 pm
My baby gets hiccups only after eating (even well after) if I put her on her back. Only lying on the back will bring them on.
October 10, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Just to add a couple of data points: I’ve induced hiccups by eating something exceptionally spicy, and by drinking too much alcohol.
October 10, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Ah yes, alcohol will do it. I may have actually got drunken hiccups once or twice in the last 8 years since going hiccup free but it’s hard to remember.
October 10, 2012 at 5:07 pm
I used to get hiccups all the time. And thinking about it, they have eased up in the last few years since experimenting with my diet. When I do get them, my trick is 9 sips of water
I think it helps regulate my breathing.
I inhale as I take in the water and exhale as I swallow. Works most of the time unless it’s a reallly bad case. But I wouldn’t know for babies…
October 10, 2012 at 8:41 pm
I have no idea if this is based in anything except my unique body, but when I was a kid, I could not burp for nothing, but when I had the hiccups (which I did, often. The doctors thought I was going to be a boy because I kicked so much in utero until they caught me hiccuping on ultrasound) I’d burp at the same time.
I don’t hiccup near as much anymore, and I’m not near as gassy as I used to be. Coincidence? Entirely possible. But that’s my story.
October 10, 2012 at 9:39 pm
Hi!
In Chinese medicine hiccups are what is known as “rebellious qi.”
Qi means energy. It what flows through the vessels (meridians) and it is what animates blood… when it comes to “rebellious qi,” it is about energy becoming pathological and not going where it usually goes. In the case of hiccups, this means that the Stomach Qi (somewhat related to the actual stomach organ) is going up instead of down.
So babies and children are new and still forming. For them, it is all about educating the digestive force, or what is know as the Earth element. The Earth element (there are 5) dominates the Spleen and Stomach meridians.
From a Chinese medicine perspective, Earth is especially key at this time and especially susceptible to attack (from Chinese medicine pathogens, which would be things like dampness).
There are other manifestations of rebellious qi. Like vomit. Or vertigo. Or even a cough. The rebellious qi that shows up as a hiccup is generally related to the Stomach meridian.
Adults get hiccups for similar reasons that babies do– the only difference is that babies are across the board going through a certain phase of development (their qi is unfolding into certain networks that coincidently corresponds to leaky gut and naive immune system– it’s complex and may or may not make sense) that makes them more susceptible to hiccups.
October 10, 2012 at 11:26 pm
My mother-in-law gets hiccups if she eats too many carrots.
October 11, 2012 at 9:50 am
Hiccoughs are a standing wave in the esophagus. A new muscle contraction starts before the previous one has finished, and the process continues until something interrupts it or until the wave dies down. Tricks like drinking a glass of water upside down crash the snake-brain, resetting the hardware, much like killing the power to a Windows computer. Incidentally, continuous orgasms in women are a similar phenomenon, a standing wave in the Pubococcygeus muscle. Hiccoughs are less fun and much less avidly pursued.
October 11, 2012 at 11:04 am
So what is the cause of the “standing wave” either in the esophagus or in the pubococcygeus muscle?
October 12, 2012 at 9:38 am
The standing wave results when a new muscle contraction starts before the prior one has finished. I don’t know that you could deliberately induce this with hiccoughs. It’s a functioning error caused by the autonomous nervous system — the snake brain.
You can deliberately induce multiple continuous orgasms simply by applying continuous intense stimulation to the ObamaParts while an orgasm is already happening. The contraction of the PC muscle takes about 20 seconds. If each succeeding orgasm overleaps the prior orgasm, you can set up the standing wave. The trick at that point is to keep the stimulation from becoming too intense. If it does, there will be what I call an ejection event, and the whole system will try to shut itself down with a spastic abruptness. If men could achieve this kind of orgasm, it would be much better-documented.
October 15, 2012 at 8:26 am
Ok, so we still don’t know what induces the standing wave in the esophagus? Is it some digestive irritation? Inflammatory pressure on the diaphragm? A nervous system glitch?
October 11, 2012 at 10:34 am
I like I read somewhere that if you get chronic hiccups you might have low stomach acid. I rarely get them now but they are downright painful for me.
October 11, 2012 at 11:55 am
I get hiccups when I’m very hungry. My now 14-year-old son had a couple of bouts of hiccups as a baby but hasn’t had them since. I can usually cure my hiccups by holding my breath (sometimes it takes a couple of tries), which kind of fits in with the diaphragm thing.
October 11, 2012 at 12:25 pm
Ha Ha! yes, I only get them now after drinking alcohol (which hasn’t happened in a while since I’m pregnant). I did use to get them every once and while when my diet wasn’t as clean. Aside from going primal/paleo I have cut out egg whites (since I’m allergic). Egg white allergies are actually fairly common in children (with many out-growing the allergy by the time they’re adults).
October 11, 2012 at 12:40 pm
My babies all hiccoughed in the womb and for the first 3 months or so. My theory was that the hiccoughs were churning the milk, separating the liquid from the proteins and fats to prepare for digestion. Fascinating about your adult hiccoughs ending when you went paleo though.
October 12, 2012 at 9:59 am
That is very interesting. I don’t often get hiccups, but I think the connection between diet and posture (hence spinal alignment) is very strong. If I have been making poor choices, and am bloated or constipated, I have a pronounced pooch in my belly. I notice that I will then slouch to relieve the pain and pressure in my belly. It is probably not obvious to observers, but I have been paying attention to my posture because of my horse riding for several years now, and I definitely have trouble engaging my core and maintaining adequate posture when I’m bloated. So, especially for children who are so sensitive to discomfort, if there is any bloating from either rushed eating or poor food choices, I could see how that would lead to a slouching posture, and from there to the cervical configuration which can enable hiccups.
October 15, 2012 at 8:18 am
The same thing affects my signing, Laura. If I eat something that causes bloating, I too slouch a bit and can’t engage my core properly to sing well. Another reason to avoid eating bad foods!
October 12, 2012 at 12:59 pm
I remember hearing something about hiccups being a vestigial reflex left over in mammals from distant amphibious ancestors. The fast gulping spasm was a motor reflex used for breathing. And we still have remnants of this same pathway that crops up once in a while. Fascinating…
October 13, 2012 at 1:22 am
Hiccups are a very interesting topic! Thanks for bringing this up. I have been getting them since I was a baby, but in my case they only seem to start when I laugh a lot. When I was a baby, my parents were afraid of making laugh too much because I was getting the hiccups all the time.
What works in my case is to hold my breath for as long as I can – that seems to stop the diaphragm spasm or whatever it is. I am not sure, I haven’t paid much attention to this part of my life, but I do seem to get the hiccups much less now that I have been low carbing for 3 years and primal for this past year.
October 18, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Our doc mentioned that hiccuping in our infant son was due to his belly being so full that it was pressing a nerve. We started thinking about it, and it made sense – he was hiccuping right after he had a big belly of milk, so we started using that as an indicator anytime we were worried whether or not he had really gotten enough to eat.
Always thought hiccuping in the womb was for the kid to develop their diaphragm.
October 18, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Maya only hiccups with a full belly as well. I distinctly remember that Evelyn used to hiccup anytime of day before she quit eating fructose. For her, and for myself, a full belly had nothing to do with it.
Maybe the cause of hiccups is elusive because there are many possibilities.
October 19, 2012 at 12:31 pm
I’m not sure about the origin of hiccups, but I do have a cure that I love to share with anyone who will listen, as it works 100% of the time for me! It’s similar to Christine’s method of nine sips of water, except I take them while holding my breath … a big inhale, halfway exhale, and little sipsipsipsipsips. Then I have a teeny-tiny burp and the hiccups are gone.
Peggy, I just found your blog and am SO glad I did! I’m enjoying it enormously. Thanks for putting yourself out there – I’m finding your sharings incredibly valuable.
October 19, 2012 at 2:20 pm
I am so glad to hear that, Emma, thank you! This is such a funny remedy. Actually all that have been posted are. I wish I still got the hiccups so I could try them! hehehe
October 20, 2012 at 5:00 pm
I am 64 & still get hic cups – especially in my sleep- often keep a candy by my bedside & that cures it. BUT now researching because I have bloating and greatly increase of gas/flatulence & considering case of fructose malabsorption. Both my girls had hic cups in womb & after birth and 2 grand daughters get them at times- not sure how often. Hmmmmm -interesting after reading your info
October 22, 2012 at 4:17 pm
I still get hiccups a lot. Maybe less so now. I used to get it every day- now it would be a few times a week. I have no idea what the triggers are for me other than eating too fast and not chewing enough.
I’m already pretty strict paleo (and not the almond flour muffin kind) but eventually I’m going to have to eliminate more things from my diet to reach optimal health. I’m just not at a point in my life at the moment where I feel I can switch things up again.
October 31, 2012 at 9:14 am
On the issue of your fructose intolerance, do you find that you are able to eat carrots at all? I made a GAPS carrot soup and was violently digestively ill several times the next day. I just find it hard to believe that carrots have that much fructose in them…
November 1, 2012 at 3:31 pm
Carrots are high in fructans as I understand it. I don’t do well with much of them myself. If you’ve ever made carrot juice you’d know that they are actually super duper sweet too. And that sweetness is all fructose. Anyway, I’d steer clear of carrot soups and carrot juice. A little grated on a salad is probably ok.
November 29, 2012 at 8:28 am
during my ultrasounds, my fetus (now a real live 7 month old baby!) had hiccups.. all of the ultrasounds. then, when i delivered her and the doc layed her on my chest, she STILL had the hiccups. she now gets them occasionally, but as a newborn she was just hiccuping all the time?! no docs could explain it!
February 23, 2013 at 12:59 am
My 7 y/o daughter gets what I call the hard hiccups. She will literally regurgitates foods that come up into her mouth after the hiccup contractions. Sometimes, I can just hear the fluid going up her throat. She says it feels like a bicycle going up her throat. This happens when she eats some offending food she has problems with. Thanks to your post and other info I am now reading, I have figured out she has fruictose malapsorption issues. This happens after ingesting some of the fructose items on the list. Still trying to figure it all out. Oh, also Just found out she is in the “pre-diabetic” range. Have others with fructose interolerances also come back with insilin resistance ?
February 23, 2013 at 6:58 am
There definitely seems to be a connection to FM with my daughter, Evelyn’s, hiccups. I have not read anything about FM and insulin resistance but I personally believe they may be related. I think that unabsorbed fructose causes a drop in blood sugar, which in turn causes a release of cortisol and insulin. (Obviously, this same thing could happen to people without FM, who simply over load on fructose, as many Americans already do.) I have not seen research on this yet but I would expect it in the near future.
The science of disease has to catch up with rapid development of the disease itself.
February 23, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Hi Peggy and/or any other readers,
When your daughter or yourself, get the hiccups, do you have food come back up your throat or regurgitate? I am a little worried that my daughter may have an more of an extreme case of hereditary fruictose intolerance. There were times when she was a baby and I gave her certain baby foods, especially carrot baby food bought from the store, that her skin around her lips would turn orange also. I watched very closely and none of the carrots hit the outside of her lips because I was spoon feeding her. Then, she would become almost unresponsive. Her body would freeze up and her eyes would have this glossed over look to them, and I swore I thought she was going to seizure on me, but it never happened thank goodness. She would come out of it, in about 30 seconds, which seemed like 10 minutes to me, because it scared the crap out of me.
We have been through numerous tests with my daughter, because at age 4 we figured out she was having reflux and she was regurgitating foods. She also had the bloating and constipation. It’s a long story like many others probably out there. We even went to see a psychologist because the only fruit and vegetable I could get my daughter to eat that wasn’t pureed by age 4, was canned green beans and applesauce. She was extremely fearful of the foods, she would gag, cry, and regurgitate. Well, being the strong willed little girl she is, and wanting to earn prizes for trying new foods, that the psychologist put together for us for a positive reward system, she started slowly eating some more foods, but had to start out with very tiny pieces and slowly increased the size of them. Well, this was when her reflux got worse, especially at night. We always thought it was a texture issue, but now I know it’s the fruictose intolerance or malapsorption. She always loved her meats, soft white bread, and the canned green beans I boiled. Also, we were giving her applejuice to help with the constipation. Man, I made things worse for her. I thought it was better to give the applejuice than all the constipation medication. I was making her more constipated!
I am going into see FP doctor next week, to discuss the fruictose malapsorption/intolerance issue and talk about the pre-diabetes/insulin resistance. Just curious if anyone else out there has had these “extreme reactions” or maybe this extreme is normal…… Other odd thing, is she would tell me that when she sat next to kids at lunch at school within the last 2 years, if she sat next to anyone who was eating that puppy chow they serve, it’s chex mix covered like with chocolate and powdered sugar of some sort. Anyways, she would say she can’t even sit next to them, it makes her nose burn. Hard to know what that means coming out of a 6 / 7 year old, but she can’t even handle the smell of it. Anyone else with extreme nose sensitivity?? I would be curious for any feedback before I go talk to the doctor about all of this. Thanks!!
March 16, 2013 at 10:07 am
Funny story, I had a friend who also suffered from unstoppable hiccups, he went to tons of dr.’s, tried every and any stupid suggestion to find relief. Well one day he started smoking pot and guess what, he was cured! Anyhow years later his daughter (13 at the time) starting having the same problem hiccupping all the time. No one in his family had this problem and he never even thought about passing it on, (he was cured so basically forgot he had it till then). Now imagine his dilemma should he/could he ease her pain with letting/giving her pot or watch her suffer and endure the “legal” medical lab rat ways he had to, trying to find relief. I moved and lost touch with him so I don’t know if pot worked for his daughter or not but this post made me laugh and I had to share my story. Just a suggestion, not medical advice and I have no idea if it was a coincidence or a cure but I believe in medical marijuana and its great healing powers so for all you hiccup sufferer’s out there…Puff, Puff, Pass!
March 16, 2013 at 10:57 am
Years ago I was at a friends house and felt horrible, I don’t know how to explain it but I felt kinda bloated like air bubbles were trapped, like I needed to burp or puke (maybe acid reflux cuz I could feel/taste it wanting to come up). Her mom gave me a table spoon of Apple Cider Vinegar and a table spoon of water, told me to swish in my mouth then swallow (you can put it in a shot glass instead of mixing in mouth). OMG it was sooo crazy, relieving, and awesome at the same time, I could actually feel the air/gas bubbles popping/dissipating in my intestine tract as it made its way down. Wow, I felt so much better in minutes, now whenever anyone says they have an upset stomach I pass on this wives tale and it has helped them (it takes some convincing to get them to try it tho, lol) but it works every time. I think it also evens out the pH in your system or something. Don’t use this as medical advice I just know from experience it helped me and is worth a shot if nothing else has worked. It also supposedly has tons of other useful benefits and I am a true believer.
April 29, 2013 at 9:22 am
Have not read all the comments, so I am not sure if what I mention has been covered already. BTW, what brought me to this was your section on self-experimentation. I love to self experiment, from learning vast amounts of myself in a shamanistic way via hiking in the desert mountains barefooted, to various body hacks. I am own my lab, my universe is my lab. I am not a doctor and have zero education as such. I am a person, who has examined his own life.
Here is my two cents: I have noticed that when I eat and am dehydrated there seems to be a higher incident of getting hiccups. Eating, like a typical male American, I eat too fast at times, especially when very hungry. What has seemed to me is a possible two fold issue here-Hydration/eating. A spasm created when eating and a further dehydrating effect while ingesting food. The drinking water (ten swallows in one breath) may aid in solving the two fold issue here. Holding the breath may be aiding in cancelling out the spasm in diaphragm or breathing issue as well as introducing a lot more hydration to body. The first attempt. too, may not succeed, and more hydration may still be required via a second attempt. This also seems to give credence to a few comments made above using a psychological method to help break a breathing spasm that may be at work by holding the breath.