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Hiccups are probably caused by eating or drinking too quickly or too much, which leads to irritation of the diaphragm, the large sheet of muscles attached to your lower ribs that separates your chest from your abdomen. The stomach rests just below the diaphragm, which is the main muscle used during breathing. When you have hiccups, the diaphragm contracts more strongly than usual, jerking and forcing you to take sudden noisy breaths. The sudden rush of air forces the flap at the top of your windpipe, called the epiglottis, to shut quickly, resulting in the "hic" sound. People have all sorts of crazy remedies for curing hiccups (like startling a person or eating certain foods, like peanut butter), but they usually go away by themselves after a few minutes. Some rare cases, however, do last for weeks, months, or even years!

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14y ago

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