Painful Hiccups

[Aksannyi]

Okay so this doesn't happen too terribly frequently but when it does, it actually causes me to have trouble functioning.

I will get these really painful hiccups. They hurt in my chest, and they shake the entire top half of my body. They make me so uncomfortable and I have to keep my mouth tightly shut so that I don't hiccup loudly (they really are loud). It affects my ability to do my job, and even with my mouth closed, my coworkers can hear me hiccuping and they say that they do sound rather uncomfortable.

Not only this, but when I get them, I get them several times in a 24-48 hour period. I had them last night and twice again today.

I've tried home remedies for getting rid of them and they work (to varying degrees of success) but what I really want to know is if anyone knows what may be causing them and how to make them stop happening in the first place.

I haven't eaten anything out of the ordinary. And just as I'm typing this, they stopped ... but I'll surely get them again in a few hours. HALP me BG.

[Mina]

I have those exact same symptoms.
I can't give any advice here but I want to follow this in case you get a solution.

I get them maybe... once a month. I do all the tricks in the book. Hold your breath, scare/startle me, drink water, etc and none of it works. It's bad that they last so long your upper chest starts really hurting. When it happens to me at work, my coworkers laugh for a bit but I know it eventually annoys them so I end up wrapping a scarf around my face to prevent sounds from escaping.

Note: I also get regular hiccups which are pretty silent and go away with just drinking some water.

[Howie Roary]

I can often cure myself of hiccups and the only way I can describe the process is try to imagine the way your throat muscles are when you are waiting for something

I've cured people of it many times by: telling them to hiccup--now-- or make them do something stupid like stand on one leg and they are waiting for me to let them stop and they feel stupid

it's not holding your breath and it's not necessarily stopping your breathing passageway, but it's like.. a pause in your breath. The trouble is it works best when you don't understand the process, which is not to say it doesn't work once you do. Try to get used to the feeling I describe and if you have to trick yourself mentally in some way then try that if it makes it easier

if nothing else, try distracting yourself, although I understand that's not always easy or possible at work or when trying to sleep

[Blubbartron]

Sounds like a spasm in the diaphragm. Hold your hands on the top of a doorway and lean forward until you feel a stretch in your chest, then breathe deeply a few times. Works for me.