The Rolling, Lurching, Vomit-Inducing Road to a Seasickness Cure

When I was doing the flight school, the first 20 hours were early morning or late evening to avoid turbulence. At around 30 hours, I was flying light planes very low over fields and forests in the middle of the day, I had motion sickness so bad that I was barely able to ride my motorcycle back home. I asked the instructors about this and they said something in the lines of "we all had it, it is going away with time".

The next year I never had motion sickness when I was in control of the plane, but if I had a copilot when we were switching control I still had some motion sickness in bad conditions. Several years later I almost never have any problems, unless I spend too much time looking at the maps and not outside of the cockpit. It goes away with time, it seems. I never tried sailing in the past few years to check if I can get seasick, but I noticed I am almost unaffected by car sickness that I had a lot when I was a kid.

One way to partially train for this was doing a couple of in-flight maneuvers that provoke sickness to almost anyone, including some seasoned pilots: inducing close to zero-g conditions, either by doing short slingshot maneuvers (point at 20-30 degrees nose-up and then push the stick keeping 0.5g, then 0.3g, then 0.2g) or doing it faster while extending the flaps to full, the sensation is very bad if someone does it to you, but it can be even enjoyable if you doing yourself flying alone. I practiced the slingshot part for a few weeks, this is what it took me to get to ~ 0.2g without feeling sick.

Stephen wolfram turned me on to these goofy glasses (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/could-these-glasse... his description said that he could code in the back of a car with them on.

I find them very effective at reducing seasickness below decks. I won’t say there are no funny feelings being below with roll, but I will say I could definitely work hanging upside down angled to roll direction with only mild discomfort: a HUGE improvement over folk remedies.

The way they Are said to work is the liquid in the glasses shows a real horizon and this settles your brain into being able to believe your inner ear. I think a less goofy version of this could be built out digitally on the inside of sunglasses; I think it would be pretty popular.

I tried numerous ways to combat motion sickness when I'd fly passengers in light aircraft.

Everything from those wristband-watch type devices that use pulses of electricity to stimulate nerves, to dramamine and other OTC options.

The most effective treatment by far was ginger root powder. You can take it in capsule form and it was the only really effective treatment I came across.

Unfortunately, I am extremey susceptible for any kinds of motion sickness. As a passenger of a car I regularly get sick, sometimes even when driving myself. Trains are mostly ok, if I keep looking into the distance. I even experience it with other kinds of irritation, like a malfunctioning mouse, where the mouse motion and the pointer reaction are not tightly enough correlated. It took a while until they made optical mice I could use.

I agree with everything said in the article, perhaps one tip: if you have someone whom you know that that person is susceptible to motion sickness, don't ask that person if she or he is still feeling fine, that might push them over the border. You should of course watch them closely, as the dangers described in the article are absolutely real. At minimum you loose any concern about your own wellbeing when affected.

One substance, that has been quite effective for me, has not been mentioned in the article, and that is Cinnarizine. It has to be taken at least 3 days before you plan to take part in any motion sickness inducing activity and from then on every day, e.g. during travel, in low dosages. While not granting complete immunity, it allows me to ride cars as passengers - once I was even texting on my phone! - and travel by plane etc. If you are suffering from motion sickness to an extend preventing you to travel otherwise, I can only encourage you to talk to your doctor about it.

So, indeed, I wish desperately for a cure for motion sickness, preferrably before self-driving cars become a thing :).

P.S. I am probably one of a few people who have never watched a movie on a plane :p. Despite of this, I managed to acquire a sailing boat license, due to the help of cinnarizine. Speak of braveness/stupidity.

If any of my experience might help, please ask me any questions.

I was a little disappointed they had no cure for seasickness yet, other than looking at the horizon (which works, unless the seas are so rough the horizon is rolling as well). You can control some of the symptoms (upset stomach, lethargy, and nausea) with Diet Coke. The soda calms the stomach, and the caffeine keeps you alert to fight the nausea. Crawling into the fetal position and hoping you would die also helps :)

No mention of the most interesting recent development, low frequency vibration applied to the skull. Unfortunately development is moving incredibly slowly but I think it has promise. https://otolithlabs.com/science/

Another tidbit that may be interesting to those that suffer from motion-sickness, especially on boats, that I was taught by sailors in northern norway (was stranded there during the pandemic) is that a lot of them are more affected by the rolling of a boat rather than the waves that hit the boat perpendicularly. Thus, their advice was to face the direction of the roll - either by turning your chair or sitting sideways - and face the horizon on that side as that motion is easier to acclimate to. I've tried that one and I admit it did help. By no means a panacea though.

If you're curious about an engineering approach to attack the root cause of seasickness, check out the Sea Keeper (https://www.seakeeper.com). It's a big gyro that eliminates boat roll, which is one of the main culprits of seasickness.

The landsickness treatment thing is something I would have paid money for. I was on a 3-day sailing trip and when I got off it was a couple of weeks before everything stopped spinning.

Nothing seems to help me when I go sailing, nothing other than just doing it regularly and if I'm out on a multi-day sail I'll get my "sea legs" and it seems to stop. Only to return back on land where I'll be hallucinating waves with my eyes closed and feeling like interior spaces are rocking back and forth for days if not weeks.

I am mildly prone to motion sickness in actual motion situations, e.g. small planes (love to get my pilot's license, but cannot), reading in a car, etc. But I am extremely sensitive to motion sickness induced by visual stimuli. I have to take Dramamine just to watch a movie. Switching to a larger smartphone will trigger it for a few days. Putting on reading glasses will have me really sick in about 10 minutes. It has a huge impact on the things I can do, and the reading glasses problem is now a big problem because I'm getting old enough to need them.

I'm going to try the 'see sickness' treatment that I see on the net, but it almost seems scammy, though they claim they're not selling anything. But if I can find a way to even partly cure it, the quality of life improvement would be worth paying real money for.

The adaptation to sea and then to land reminds me of the adaptation to space (and back to Earth) described by this NASA doctor:

http://omegataupodcast.net/34-space-medicine-and-telemedicin...

Pot right? Hemp for ropes, flowers for sea legs? Adam Savage mentioned something about it on Tested. I don’t think I’ve personally been motion sick when I had some pot around.

I didn’t see it mentioned? I have a bad habit of skimming but no mention at all?

For those considering the glasses I can find two versions of them [1] and [2] at 90€ and 80€ respectively (latter on sale). I've never tried them but they're too ugly-looking not to work .

[1] https://boardingglasses.com/ [2] https://lifestyle.citroen.com/en/shop/_/pr4619/lunettes-seet...

Article mentions scopdex (scopolamine) for treatment found these links which are interesting:

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/scopolamine-devil-s-breath-nasa-us... https://youtu.be/ToQ8PWYnu04

Well this article was about seasickness but nothing about a cure, sigh. I'm about immune now but my partner is not.

I thought it was interesting that they say those who never get seasick have a "dysfunctional" vestibular system; they have a slow vomit response, even if poisoned. I wonder if I am just adjusted or if my vestibular system is now dysfunctional.

I'm surprised to find no mention here or in the article of the Bárány chair, as it's very effective for some: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bárány_chair

I've spent a few months at sea and the trick that worked well:

Stare at the horizon. Seems to help calm the senses down.

Interesting!

I just had the idea to take Vomex A before using a VR headset. :D