A simple device can be the solution to a very nasty problem that has plagued humanity for thousands of years: hiccups.
Match hiccup Strike, brainstem fires a signal diaphragm The muscles contract and draw in a mass of air lungThe epiglottis, a flap of tissue behind the tongue, then flips over to cover the trachea, triggering the characteristic “hiccup” sound that names hiccups. Live science previously reported.. Involuntary reflexes can serve some purpose in the foetation and newborn in that hiccups can help train the brain regions and muscles involved in respiratory control. But at some point, they are almost simply annoying, as “hick” serves no obvious purpose for older humans.
A quick internet search produces many home remedies for hiccups. The most well-known tricks include holding your breath, drinking water from the other side of the glass, and eating a spoonful of granulated sugar, but in some case studies, the following strange treatments are available: It has been proposed. Rectal massage And Orgasm..
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However, none of these solutions are backed by strong scientific data, with typical home remedies “suffering from unclear instructions, inconsistent performance, and inadequate efficacy.” Researchers wrote in a new study published in the journal on Friday (June 18th) JAMA network open.. “We need an easy and effective way to stop hiccups,” they write.
Dr. Aliseifi, the lead author of the study, an associate professor of neurosurgery and head of neurocritical therapy at the San Antonio Health Sciences Center at the University of Texas, needs treatment for squirming while working in the intensive care unit. He said he felt it.
“Many patients with brain damage, stroke, and cancer chemotherapy have hiccups on my floor,” he told Live Science by email. For example, one of his patients developed hiccups after undergoing neurosurgery and became increasingly frustrated as a nurse helped him with a variety of treatments, including drinking from the other side of the cup. Just a few days later, Safie hiccuped while giving a speech to a medical student, and at that frustrating moment he really decided that “I had to find a clear but simple solution. “He said.
So Sefie invented a forced inspiratory suction and swallowing tool, or a device called FISST. (He also has Patented The tool is branded with the slightly catchy name “Hicc Away”. The device is a rigid plastic tube with a mouthpiece on one end and a pressure valve on the other end. The user operates the tool by submerging the tool in half full of water, sucking “powerfully” water through the mouthpiece, and then swallowing the liquid.
The act of sucking up water stimulates the phrenic nerve NervousSending motor signals to the diaphragm, the act of swallowing stimulates the vagus nerve, which helps control unconscious activity Gastrointestinal tract It’s connected to the epiglottis, Mr. Sefie said. “If we were busy with these two nerves with different obligations, they wouldn’t have time to get confused and hiccup,” he said.
When people use FISST, “hiccups are usually expected to stop immediately after one or two attempts,” the team wrote in a report.
To test the device, researchers launched a crowdfunding campaign in 2020. In this campaign, volunteers were able to receive and try the free FISST. A total of 249 participants participated in the survey, completed the questionnaire, and evaluated their experience on a scale of 1 to 5. 1 means “strongly in favor of home remedies” and 5 means “strongly in favor of FISST”. Participants also evaluated product satisfaction in terms of feasibility compared to home remedies.
Over 69% of participants reported having hiccups at least once a month and most seizures lasting less than 2 hours. Over 90% of participants rated FISST superior to home remedies in terms of both efficacy and feasibility. These ratings were consistently high, regardless of the frequency or duration of hiccups by a particular participant.
The results suggest that FISST works better than other hiccup mitigation tactics, but the study relies on subjective evaluation scales and lacks a control group, a group of individuals who did not use the tool. It is limited in that it is.
“Future studies will need to evaluate the effectiveness of FISST in randomized clinical trials,” says one group getting a fake device and another testing a real device. Seifi said the team has already begun such trials in the United States, Japan and Switzerland.
Originally published in Live Science.
