For most of us, hiccupping is a mild inconvenience easily solved when one of our children scares the bejaysus out of us by jumping out of a cupboard.
But for teenager Chris McKernan, hiccups have become the bane of his life.
The 19-year-old from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, starting hiccupping on November 20 last year – and has been having the diaphragm spasms at the rate of 25 times a minute ever since.
That's an astonishing 1,500 times an hour - meaning as he's awake around 16 hours a day, hiccuping 24,000 times each day.
So, in the past 60 days he has hiccuped an astonishing 1.4m times.
In between hics, Chris, who works as an accounts manager, said he is 'sick and tired' of the affliction and has tried 'every trick in the book' to try and get rid of them.
Traditional 'cures', such as sucking a lemon, standing on your head, drinking water upside down, breathing into a plastic bag, getting a scare and eating a huge spoonful of peanut butter, have failed to work.
Chris said: "Everyone gets annoyed or laughs at me when I can't stop hiccuping.
"My girlfriend doesn't seem to mind, but it would be better for everyone if they went."
Doctors have failed to cure the problem after prescribing him acid relieving tablets, which did nothing to help.
The world record for hiccups was set by American Charles Osborne, who had hiccups for an incredible 68 years - hiccuping regularly from 1922 until 1990 and notching up an estimated 430m hiccups.
