What's worse than having the hiccups smack-bang in the middle of a date? Well, probably having the hiccups for years on end. That was the cruel reality of the man who experienced the longest case of hiccups ever.

There are few things more annoying and frustrating than suffering from a serious case of the hiccups.

It's hard to do anything, and even simple things like talking become an annoyance.

To some, though, the difficulties we all experience from time to time have become a constant and irreversible problem.

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So, who holds the world record for the longest hiccup attack in history? What caused this insanely long ordeal, did he ever stop hiccuping, and are there any similar stories?

Let's take a look!

The world's longest hiccups attack was the case of Charles Osborne, who hiccuped for 68 years between 1922 and February 1990.

Never finding a cure before he miraculously recovered a year before his death, Osborne managed to live a long and fruitful life despite his terrible affliction, even earning a Guinness World Record for his troubles.

Between his two marriages, Charles Osborne fathered eight children. Born in 1893 in the United States, he lived through both world wars, eighteen presidents, and countless historic events. After trying every possible home remedy for his bizarre affliction, Osborne eventually gave up the search and learned to live with the hiccups.

His hiccups began when Osborne was 29-years-old, in 1922, when he was preparing to butcher a hog in Union, Nebraska. First thinking nothing of it, the then-farmer continued to work and carry out his duties. It didn't take long, though, for him to realize that something strange was afoot.

"I was hanging a 350-pound hog for butchering," Osborne told People magazine in 1982. "I picked it up and then I fell down. I felt nothing, but the doctor said later that I busted a blood vessel the size of a pin in my brain."

The condition was so awful that he could hardly eat food, but Charles Osborne managed to maintain a healthy weight and consume normal food until a few decades before his death. After that, he had to start blending his food and drinking it to prevent it being thrown up during the hiccups.

Of course, the other big question is how on Earth he managed the noise. Using techniques that doctors taught him over the years, Osborne breathed between hiccups, allowing himself to avoid the embarrassing and constant noises. Luckily, the hiccups would subside during his sleep.

Hiccuping every now and again can be troublesome. We've all experienced it, but hiccuping continuously could be debilitating. It is truly extraordinary that Charles Osborne managed to live such a long and fruitful life despite his affliction.

Doctors never got to the bottom of what happened to Charles Osborne, despite him visiting countless doctors over the years and even trying various experimental treatments, as well as a plethora of home remedies.

According to doctors who have studied the matter, it is not necessarily impossible that a busted blood vessel could have caused damage to the area of the brain that would usually stop the hiccup response.

This theory, however, is just one of many, and has not been proven. Other theories look at the relationship between strokes and hiccups, and one doctor even managed to stop the hiccups for a few hours. Sadly, it was not a sustainable treatment in the end and couldn't be put into place permanently.

To this day there is no firm theory as to why Charles Osborne hiccuped for the majority of his life, just an outpouring of sympathy. The dude went through a lot, we hope that he enjoyed that one final year of peace.

There are a variety of cases where people have hiccuped for extended periods of time, from the Californian man who couldn't stop hiccuping, to the case of poor Christopher Sands who called the condition a "living nightmare" in a 2010 BBC One documentary.

It's extremely rare, sure, but there have been a few people throughout history who have suffered from long-term hiccups, and it's a condition that can cause very serious health side effects. For starters, constant hiccuping can limit the passage of oxygen to a person's lungs. In extreme cases of the hiccups, people have even died (though this is extremely rare).

While it is initially funny to see someone who is constantly hiccuping, it's a pretty awful condition that ruins lives - and certainly no laughing matter.

There is no known reason why Charles Osborne's 68-year hiccup attack stopped in 1990. Sadly, Osborne only lived for a year or so after they stopped, meaning that the poor man spent almost all his life in the midst of a hiccup attack.

On the bright side, though, his historic hiccups didn't impact upon his life expectancy - he lived late into his 90s!

It must have been challenging to put up with the hiccups for 68 years, dealing with it throughout WW2 and over the course of thirteen presidencies, but it seems that Charles Osborne made the most of it. He lived a long and fruitful life, did a lot with his time, and even earned himself a Guinness World Record.

It's a helpful lesson for most of us: If endless hiccuping doesn't have to ruin your life, temporary hiccuping doesn't have to ruin your dinner party!