Use natural remedies for intractable hiccup

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 by: Dr.Sanjay Pisharodi
Tags: hiccups, natural remedies, health news

(NewsTarget) Hiccup is a sudden involuntary muscular contraction (spasm) of the diaphragm that occurs repeatedly when the vocal cords snap shut producing the hiccup sound. Allopathy says most hiccups have no obvious cause, which reveals ignorance, but Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) understand and address the real causes.

Causes:
The best explanation for cause of hiccup is found in TCM:
(1)Liver chi stagnation (stagnation of energy flowing through liver)
(2)Stomach chi rebelling upwards (which normally flows downwards)
Liver is the principle organ that regulates chi or energy that circulates all over the body. Rebelling of stomach chi is a result of the first cause. Ayurveda says it is a vata disorder.

Modern medicine attributes causes to eating too quickly or too much, irritation of nerves of the diaphragm due to infections, cancer etc, which are also results of the two causes above.

Complications of intractable hiccups:
(1) Cardiac arrhythmias: Liver chi stagnation disrupts the wind energy causing Cardiac arrhythmia (a wind disorder of heart). If you treat the liver chi stagnation, the arrhythmia will be cured.
(2) Gastro esophageal reflux: due to stomach chi rebelling upwards.

Logical explanation of allopathic treatment:
Antiemetics or Antipsychotics are prescribed in modern medicine for intractable hiccups. Muscle relaxants and sedatives have also been tried, but none of them address the real cause.

Liver malfunction impairs metabolism of toxins in blood. When the toxins are not metabolized, they circulate and eventually end up in the brain agitating the receptors in the CTZ and causing hiccup. Antipsychotics block the chemoreceptor trigger zone (CTZ) in the brain.
A popular antiemetic and prokinetic (that which moves bowels) causes psychological side effects like anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and parkinsonism like symptoms.

Any complication arising from malfunctioning of liver can only be made worse with modern medicines since liver cannot completely detoxify or metabolize the chemical drugs; this results in a vicious cycle of increasing toxicity!!!
If these fail, the only way in modern medicine is to chop the phrenic nerve that supplies the diaphragm. How horrifying!

Treatment:
Home Remedies like holding your breath, pulling hard on tongue, biting on lemon are known to be used.

To treat the root cause, we must look at the two basic causes given above.
In case of infections or cancer those issues should be addressed. In other cases, use the following:

Acupuncture:
Liver chi stagnation will require cleansing of the liver; acupressure massage at certain points on the body will restart chi flow (Liv 3, Liv 5, Liv 8, GB 34, P 6, SJ 6).

Yoga postures:
Snake pose, Peacock pose and Swan pose to massage the liver.

Life style:
Consume half of your capacity in one meal. Follow yoga diet - 50% of stomach with food, 25% water, 25% air. Eat very slowly in a pleasant mood.

Diet:
Foods helpful for treating liver stagnation are beetroot, alpha sprouts, green leafy vegetables with chlorophyll, Brussels sprouts, artichoke, asparagus, fennel, horse radish, dill, carrot, celery, cumin, plum, mustard, cardamom, strawberry, lettuce, cherries, plum and chestnuts. Drink one tsp of olive oil mixed with one tsp of lemon juice on empty stomach in the morning to cleanse liver.

Emotional:
Emotional causes like anxiety, irritability, bitterness, repressed anger and frustration resulting in liver stagnation is addressed by meditation and pranayama.

Why use artificial chemicals to treat hiccups if they don`t address the real cause? They can be easily cured by natural methods. Good bye hiccups!

Resources:
http://www.medicinenet.com/hiccups/article.h...
A Manual of acupuncture by Peter Deadman, Mazin Al Khafaji and Kevin Baker; 2nd edition, Journal of Chinese medicine publications; p 467, 365, 415, 385
http://www.acupuncture.com/education/points/...
http://www.medicinenet.com/metoclopramide-or...
Dravyagunavignyanam by V. M. Gogte; Chowkhamba Publications,1st edition 2009, (p 291)

About the author

Dr. Sanjay Pisharodi is an integrated holistic health practitioner, specialized in hospice and palliative medicine from Cardiff University (UK) and University of California (USA). He is also qualified in several alternative natural therapies-Ayurveda,Traditional chinese medicine,Naturopathy,Energy medicine,Sujok,Medical astrology & Yoga. He is the Founder-Director of Purnarogya Holistic Health Care and regularly conducts health & wellness seminars/workshops for corporates and private groups. You can visit his website at http://www.purnarogya.com