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Comment by mchahn | Hacker News Reader

At least this will work better than the copper bracelets tons of people wear on cruises. I couldn't convince my daughters they were b.s. But maybe I shouldn't interfere with the placebo effect.

Speaking of placebos, I wonder how these glasses compare to placebos.

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I'm all about evidence based medicine but as a father with a 3 year old that couldn't go in the car for longer than 10 minutes without throwing up everywhere, I was willing to try anything.

We tried the pressure point bracelets, the anti-static strips, ginger drinks, everything. We moved her seat forward facing and sat her in the middle of the vehicle so she had a (somewhat) unobstructed view of the horizon. For a while, we even removed the headrest on the passenger seat and the passenger sat in the back.

We started to give her regular mints and it seemed to work. She might have grown out of it, the mints might have worked... who knows, but when it affects your everyday routines, you'll do anything.

> She might have grown out of it, the mints might have worked... who knows

Well, has she tried going without the mints to see what happens?

Ya on occasion we'll run out and she'll go without. Without all things being equal (trip distance etc) it's hard to say really. If you have kids, you'll also know that they learn very quickly that if she says "I'm feeling sick" that she gets a mint, regardless if she is actually feeling sick. My kids are Pavlov 2.0 basically, or maybe it's me that is the dog!

Copper bracelets for sea-sickness? When I was a kid, the scam was that they cured arthritis.

The scam is w/e they tell you to get you to buy it :)

Medical scams have traditionally been cure-all’s. If you look at claims made by old patent medicines, orgone boxes, electrical therapy devices, it’s easier to lost what they don’t claim to cure.

> I couldn't convince my daughters they were b.s. But maybe I shouldn't interfere with the placebo effect.

Wow, why were you trying to convince her if you knew why they were effective?

That they could be a placebo was an after-thought. I should have known. Placebos are especially effective when the problem is worrying about something that probably won't happen.

My parents told me as a kid that listening to music would make the nausea go away and even though I know it's bs, the placebo effect is so ingrained that it still helps me to this day.

So please do the right thing and just let them believe :)

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