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Struggling with hiccups? One doctor may have found the cure

Stock photo of a stethoscope in the pocket of a doctor's lab coat. (Dtimiraos/Getty Images)
(Dtimiraos/Getty Images)

They happen to the best of us and, once they start, there’s often no controlling them.

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A Wisconsin doctor believes they are close to finding a cure for hiccups, CBS News reported.

There’s also not much research on the cause of hiccups but it starts in the womb.

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“It may be the nervous system and muscle system just practicing before they put on a big show at birth,” Dr. Stephen Stacy, a physician with the Mayo Clinic in La Crosse, Wisconsin, said.

Stacy is one of few researchers in this field, with the help of his residents, they researched the most important hiccup-related question: Is there a cure for hiccups?

He and his partner recently confirmed a cure with a study.

“We tried it on a lot of people and it worked for all of them,” he said.

The key he says is “controlling the diaphragm and having the acid level go up.”

Try breathing in and then keep your throat open, like you are just about to talk, but you are just breathing in and you are still trying to move your diaphragm and then after about 30 seconds, you leave your throat open and then slowly breathe out.

He says the key is leaving your throat open while holding your breath.

“People need to know about this,” Stacy said.

He says another hack that may also cure the hiccups is to chug a glass of water without coming for air.

Stacy says we don’t know what triggers hiccups and research is tricky because you have to catch people in the act. They researched the breathing technique by monitoring people in their clinics who just happened to have hiccups.

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