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Posted
I think it's a sort of spasm of the diaphragm... yout get the same occasionally with other muscles, such as in your eyelids and fingers.

 

Isn't it because air gets trapped inside your lungs, or something?

 

I dunno, somebody tried to tell me once, but as you can gather, I wasn't paying much attention.

Posted
Isn't it because air gets trapped inside your lungs, or something?

 

I dunno, somebody tried to tell me once, but as you can gather, I wasn't paying much attention.

To Wikipedia!

 

A hiccup or hiccough (normally pronounced "HICK-up" (IPA: /ˈhɪkʌp/) regardless of spelling) is an involuntary spasm of the diaphragm; typically this repeats several times a minute. The sudden rush of air into the lungs causes the epiglottis to close, creating the "hic" noise. A bout of hiccups generally resolves itself without intervention, although many home remedies are in circulation that claim to shorten the duration, and medication is occasionally necessary. By extension, the term "hiccup" is also used to describe a small and unrepeated aberration in an otherwise consistent pattern. The medical term is singultus.

 

While many cases develop spontaneously, hiccups are known to develop often in specific situations, such as eating too quickly, taking a cold drink while eating a hot meal, belching, eating very hot or spicy food, laughing vigorously or coughing, drinking alcoholic beverages to excess, crying out loud (sobbing causes air to enter the stomach), some smoking situations where abnormal inhalation can occur (in tobacco or other smoke like cannabis, perhaps triggered by precursors to coughing), electrolyte imbalance, talking too long, or from lack of vitamins. Hiccups may be caused by pressure to the phrenic nerve by other anatomical structures, or rarely by tumors and certain kidney disease. It is reported that 30% of chemotherapy patients suffer singultus as a side effect of treatment.

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