Don’t let hiccups sour your mood!
Dr. Jeremy London, a heart surgeon based in Savannah, Georgia, is sharing a hack that he says will stop hiccups fast.
“Drip lemon juice or lime juice into the back of the throat. It’ll stop them almost immediately,” London assured his 393,000 TikTok followers in a clip last month that’s scared up 28,000 views.
Hiccups are involuntary spasms of the diaphragm, which is the muscle that separates the abdomen from the chest. They start suddenly and tend to last only a few minutes, though there have been cases where they’ve gone on much longer.
Potential hiccup triggers include eating too quickly, chewing gum, which causes a person to swallow air, experiencing stress or laughing too hard.
The next time you get hiccups, London suggests trying his citrus remedy. He isn’t exactly sure why it works, but he proposed four potential reasons for its success.
“The first may be stimulation of the vagus nerve, which runs from the brain down to below the diaphragm,” London said. “This can reset the sensory input from the diaphragm and stop the hiccup arc.”
London also theorized that the juice halts hiccups because it activates muscles in the back of the throat or because it causes a sudden change in throat pH.
“And No. 4, it may just be a simple distraction, a sudden sensory input that stops the hiccups in their tracks,” London mused.
In 2022, CNN had experts test a few hiccup solutions. They offered support for holding a breath and gulping down air; swallowing water while plugging the ears, sucking on a lemon slice and being scared.
Distraction can help “reset the brain to stop the hiccups. It’s not exactly known how, but it may work,” Dr. Ali Seifi, director of the Neuro-ICU and an associate professor in the department of neurosurgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, told the outlet.
Targeting the phrenic nerve, which controls the diaphragm, and/or the vagus nerve, which triggers the body’s relaxation response, may be key to treatment.
In the comments section, London’s followers also recommended eating a spoonful of peanut butter and drinking very cold water.
