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Rather Wretched Things ………

Hiccups.

On of the oldest annoyances in the world (right after your mother in-law and the sibling that should have been shot at birth). Hiccups aren’t all that much of a mystery really. They’re just a reflex that we never use. Think of them as an knee jerk reflex (the thing that happens when the doctor hits your knee with a mallet) that happens with your respiratory muscles (diahpragm) and throat (well a fair chunk of it anyway) when one of two nerves in the area are stimulated (the Phernic nerve or the Vagus nerve, which supplies a whole slew of areas from your mouth to your asshole literally. It’s the only structure that goes through your heart, stomach brain and rectum. Not in that order)

Interestingly hiccups work in the exact same way as amphibian breathing (the way that frogs breath) which has lead many experts in the field to assume that it’s just a residual impulse from years of evolution which like the appendix and tail bone serves no real purpose other than to support Darwinians all over the world.

Knee Jerk Reflex for those of you who’ve never been to a real doctor.

Video also demonstrates how to provide evidence for child custody suites …. that kid is staying with his mom.

And while many of you seem to line up at your local poly clinic claiming that your 5 hours of hiccups are abnormal, most cases can’t even compare to poor old Charles Osborne who had to bear with it for  over 65 years.

Treatment of simple hiccups is non existent. All you have to do is stimulate those nerves into stopping and the best way is to shock them into rebooting. For example, stand on your head, drink ice cold water, or if you’re a sadist you Can try searing hot water, eat some icecream and forget about it or spray vinegar into your nose.

But long standing (1 week) hiccups are a little more challenging. For one thing they usually point to something a little more sinister such as kidney failure (because salts such as sodium and potassium build up in your blood and that makes the nerves more sensitive). Note I said one week not two fucking minutes. If anybody shows up at a hospital claiming kidney failure after an hour of hiccups s/he’ll be giving informed consent to me taking one of his kidneys to sell on the black market. If it’s under a week it’s easy to treat.

Another group of people who tend to suffer from hiccups are people on chemotherapy (for obvious reasons).Three in ten people on chemo-therapy will suffer 2 weeks of hiccups straight. For them the only option is to sedate them and try to give drugs that will slow down nerve impulse. Another option (yet to be approved by the FDA is an implantable nerve stimulator that acts like a switchboard bypassing the hiccup reflex).

And ofcourse as with all things medical if all else fails do something unexpected, shocking and stimulating. With this in mind a rather smart (well in a House MD* kind of way I suppose) daring and hopefully gentle and small handed colleague from the Department of Internal Medicine, Bnai Zion Medical Center in  Haifa, Israel. Decided to stick a finger up a poor 60 year old mans backside and massage him into stopping. Lets hope that Dr Odeh was gentle with the poor man ……. then again the guy may have faked the hiccups just to get some action ……… 60 year olds make the most needy of all of us ……..

*Rest assured, there is a House MD bashing coming …. right after Dr. Foz’s and the penis fart post ……..

oh and DO NOT TRY THE VINGEGAR THING OR THE FINGER UP THE BACKSIDE! ONLY TRAINED PROFESSIONALS CAN PULL THAT SHIT OFF.

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