To the editor:

Back when this 84-year-old gentleman (by act of Congress) was a boy, I often was involved in belch-bullet shootouts with other kids. It was sometime during those early years that I discovered that belch blasting myself while hiccuping stopped the process. After that I became a one-hiccup guy by remembering to belch blast myself right away. In time, blasting hiccups became automatic, no thinking involved — even to this day.

Now it is my hope that the girl mentioned in Dr. Roach’s Nov. 12 article with long-term hiccups might be able to use my method to blast them away. That also was my hope for the Florida Hiccup Girl, who was hiccuping for days in her jail cell back in 2007. It was to help her that I first revealed my hiccup stopping method to anyone. I called it in to the Tampa News when they were requesting ways to help that girl; I heard she did stop — method not given.

Lately I’ve been wondering if a belch which shoots air down to the diaphragm could somehow be performed manually with some kind of device; someone out there should check it out.

Clarence Hanley

Saranac Lake

P.S.: At a high school dance, I noticed a girl hiccuping violently, and when I asked her if she could belch, a girl there with her told me, “Get out of here — you’re gross.”