Marathon Hiccuper

In his mail last week, Jack O'Leary got this piece of medical advice: "Tie your ears together with a piece of string, then hold a pencil in your mouth." As nearly as he can figure, it was the 44,200th suggested cure that he has received since he began hiccuping four years and two months ago. It was no more effective than any of the rest.

Most hiccups can be cured in minutes or hours by holding the breath, drinking water, applying heat to the diaphragm or breathing into a paper bag (to raise the carbon dioxide content of the air breathed). But not Jack O'Leary's. Hiccuping that goes on for months or years can eventually kill the victim through exhaustion and starvation.

As a boy, Jack O'Leary hiccuped no more than any of his schoolmates. After high school he worked in a Los Angeles grocery so that he could save money to study for the priesthood. He had saved almost enough when, in 1948, he had a ruptured appendix. As soon as he began to recover from the peritonitis, Jack began to hiccup. The doctor said this was normal after such a severe abdominal upset, and it would soon stop. It never has.

Worse than the actual hiccuping is the vomiting it brings on. Since his illness, he has eaten nothing but mashed carrots, peas and toast with tea. He has never been able to hold food for more than 40 minutes, and now the time is down to ten minutes--not long enough for his digestive system to extract the nourishment his body needs. Standing 5 ft. 6 in. and always slight (never over 135 Ibs.), he is now down to 76 Ibs. He sleeps fitfully, twitching all the time. Lately the hiccups have speeded up from 60 to 70 a minute.

All the money that Jack had saved, and more, has gone on doctoring--$10,000, he estimates. Nobody knows exactly how many doctors he has seen, but his mother puts the number at 350. The doctors have tried such standard remedies as sedatives and drugs to slow down the impulses in the phrenic nerve, which controls the diaphragm. Jack has tried many of the unorthodox suggestions from his mailbag, and friends once tried to scare him out of his hiccups by phoning and impersonating the FBI. The scare only made him hiccup harder.

Two basic remedies for hiccups which Jack has not tried are psychotherapy and an operation to crush the phrenic nerve. But, he has been told, he cannot have the operation until he puts on weight and gains strength, and apparently he cannot do that until he stops hiccuping.

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