Brain surgery cured my THREE YEARS of hiccups



Chris Sands, who has finally stopped hiccuping after three years, thinks the situation is 'funny'

They came without warning and stopped him driving, sleeping and eating properly for three long years.

But the hiccups that plagued musician Chris Sands for so long seem finally to have been stopped ... by brain surgery.

Mr Sands, 26, suffered his first hiccupping attack in September 2006.

It halted for no apparent reason after a fortnight, then returned in February 2007, becoming as frequent as every two seconds, 24 hours a day.

The normal remedies all failed, including hundreds of different ways of drinking water and eating a teaspoon of peanut butter, medical schemes including an oxygen chamber and alternative therapies such as yoga and hypnotherapy.

Finally he appealed for help on the internet and was flown by a Japanese TV station to see a Tokyo hiccup specialist.



The doctor found a tumour the size of a Malteser on his brain stem which seems to have been causing the problem all along.

Following an operation to remove it, Mr Sands is back at home with his parents in Timberland, Lincolnshire, and believes he has been cured - after hiccupping an estimated 20million times.

As a result of the dangerous operation he is suffering numbness down his left side and difficulty with co-ordination which he has been warned could last for years.

Mr Sands, pictured before the operation, had tried a number of different remedies for his hiccups

But any problems are more than outweighed by the freedom from the curse which ruined his life for so long.

He had been told he faced an early death without treatment, yet now hopes he will soon be able to play guitar and sing backing vocals with his indie band, Ebullient.

Still wary that the hiccups could return, he said: 'I just couldn't take it any more.

'It's incredible to think how much I've gone through.'

Mr Sands was forced to put his music career on hold back in 2007 after the constant hiccupping meant he was often awake for 24 hours at a time.

He lost weight because he was unable to keep food down.



At one stage doctors told him the problem was caused by a damaged valve in his stomach, which was leading to acid reflux. That turned out not to be the case.









He finally went under the knife at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield in September.

Mr Sands went on: 'I always think, even when it was at its worst point, that it was definitely funny I had hiccups for that long.

'And even when I found out I had a tumour and was in hospital, I could still giggle to myself.'

The unenviable world record for hiccupping was set by American farmer Charles Osborne, who began in 1922 when he was weighing a hog - and stopped without apparent reason 68 years later.

In the meantime he managed to marry twice and father eight children.

Mr Sands features in The Man Who Can't Stop Hiccupping on BBC1 on Tuesday night at 10.35pm.

