ICYMI: Manchester Student to Show off Her Patented Hiccups Cure at the White House

Editor’s note: This article was published earlier in the week on Manchester Patch. We’re republishing it here in case you missed it:

Mallory Kievman has her cure for the hiccups invented and now being manufactured by a factory in Texas — and she’s taking it on the road — to the White House Science Fair this Monday, March 23.

Her budding business has its own website, too (named after the product): Hiccupops.com. The Manchester girl is one of two representatives from the Connecticut Invention Convention who are representated at the science fair.

Not bad for a 16-year-old.

Kievman invented “hiccupops” after her own bout with the hiccups around the seventh grade. She researched cures and found three things that helped cure them (and were backed up by some scientific research) — apple cider, sugar and sucking on lollipops.

She decided to combine all three into one product. When she was a student at Talcott Mountain Academy, she took Hiccupops to the Connecticut Invention Convention in 2011 and, as a prize, won help with patenting it.

Kievman then started setting up a business to manufacture it. Right now, she’s on the brink of getting it distributed and ready for sale.

“Her creation is believed to work by over-stimulating a set of nerves in the throat and mouth that may be responsible for the hiccup relflex arc,” according to a statement released by the Connecticut Invention Convention. “Doctors and nurses at top research institutions have expressed interest in Hiccupops, and further clinical research is being conducted in 2015.”

The White House Science Fair can be seen on an Internet live stream starting at 11:55 a.m., Monday.

Along with Kievman, now a student at Loomis Chaffee School,another past winner of the Connecticut Invention Convention (CIC) is going to the science fair: Lilianna Zyszkowski of Southfield, MA, a student at Indian Mountain School in Lakeville, who invented “a series of products focused on alerting users to critical [medical] situations,” according to a news release from the CIC.

“The two girls were chosen to participate from over 15,000 K-12 students who participate annually in the CIC to develop and build inventions to solve problems they identify in their lives,” the news release said. “Kievman and Zysyzkowski are two of CIC’s Next Step Inventors who have taken concrete steps to commercialize their products or develop serial inventions along a theme.”

Photo: Tania Palermo Studio on Main