There are various home remedies available for hiccups. Although some people encourage holding breath for a while, others swear by chugging water during hiccups. But Ali Seifi, a neurosurgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, has created HiccAway device that offers a scientific solution to cure hiccups instantly.
This straw-like device is intended to distract some parts of your nervous system that results in hiccups. According to a preliminary study found in the journal JAMA Network Open, HiccAway, also known as “forced inspiratory suction and swallow tool, can relieve around 92-percent users. Seifi is also planning to conduct a more detailed study with hiccup specialists in Switzerland and Japan.
What’s the inspiration behind this creation?
Seifi through of creating such device for hiccup cure while working in an intensive care unit. Many patients with cancer chemotherapy, stroke, and brain injury get hiccups. But home remedies, such as drinking water from a cup can be frustrating for patients healing from surgery.
Therefore, Seifi decided to find a simple solution to this problem.
How does HiccAway work?
Usually, hiccups occur with the contraction of the diaphragm, making the body inhale rapidly. After that, closure of epiglottis (flap of tissue covering the windpipe while swallowing) makes a ‘hic’ sound of a hiccup.
The HiccAway has been shaped like a bent, wide straw that comes with a pressure valve on one end and a mouthpiece on the other. When an individual uses HiccAway for drinking water, they suck around four times harder compared to a regular straw. All this effort distracts nerves that are responsible for the epiglottis and diaphragm, known as the vagus and phrenic nerves.
This device basically fools the brain, as the diaphragm stays occupied with the suction of water. After that, the brain forgets to keep spasming the diaphragm.
HiccAway Straw Availability
Seifi created the HiccAway design somewhere between 2016 and 2020. His project was also successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter. Now, you can order the device through the official website for $14.
