Could be worse (trying to cheer you up
).
Today I found out Charles Osborne (1894-1991) had the hiccups non-stop for approximately 68 years,
from 1922 to June 5th, 1990. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, this is the longest bout
of the hiccups ever recorded.
His hiccups first started in 1922 while weighing a hog for slaughter. As he says, “I was hanging a 350
pound hog for butchering. I picked it up and then I fell down. I felt nothing, but the doctor said later
that I busted a blood vessel the size of a pin in my brain.” The result being that he damaged a small
part of his brain that inhibits the hiccup response, according to Dr. Terence Anthoney who treated Osborne
later in life.
In the beginning, Osborne’s hiccups occurred at a rate of around 40 times per minute on average. Throughout
his life, this gradually slowed to about 20 hiccups per minute until they finally stopped mysteriously about one
year before his death in 1991. It is estimated that he hiccuped over 430 million times in his lifetime!
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/07/charles-osborne-had-the-hiccups-for-68-years-from-1922-to-1990/Bonus Facts:
Another dramatic case of the hiccups occurred in 2006 with a man named Christopher Sands who lived in Lincolnshire, England.
Sands’ hiccups lasted around 3 years and robbed him of his career as a musician and vocalist. His hiccups were so bad at times
that he would be unable to breath properly and would occasionally pass out from it. He also had significant difficulty in sleeping.
Sands eventually received media attention in 2009 and doctors in the United States investigated and found he had a tumor in his
brain stem that was causing the hiccups. After removing it, the hiccups went away.
In 2007, Jennifer Mee of Florida hiccuped over 50 times per minute for around 35 days straight before the hiccups went away.
This same girl was later arrested for murder in 2010 after taking part in a robbery.
