| starlight | Date: Thursday, 25-June-2015, 10:59 AM | Message # 1 |
-- dragon lord--
Group: untoten mage
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In the early 1980s, there was an obscure cartoon character by the name of Mr. Hiccup. A little, greenish-tinted man who wore a tie and a fedora, Mr. Hiccup had a “normal life, a normal job, and a normal home,” yet endured a “not-so-normal” dilemma: despite his sincerest efforts over the course of 39 episodes, he couldn’t stop hiccuping.
While Mr. Hiccup was humorous and lighthearted, the fictional character’s plight is actually a very real problem: at any given time, physicians estimate that some 1,000 people in the United States suffer the intolerable hell that is chronic hiccups.
Known medically as “synchronous diaphragmatic flutter,” hiccups are involuntary spasmodic contractions that occur in the diaphragm, resulting in rapid, successive closure of the vocal chords. Typically triggered by increased abdominal pressure, hiccups are an affliction we’ve all dealt with in our lives — but the vast majority of the time, they go away naturally after an hour or two. When hiccups last longer than a few days, they are deemed to be “persistent;” any bout that lingers beyond a month is “chronic.” There is no medically prescribed cure.
The longest recorded case in medical history can be credited to one Charles Osborne, a farmer who continuously hiccuped for 68 years.
Read more/full article/source - http://priceonomics.com/the-man-who-hiccuped-for-68-years/
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