Motion sickness

[CajunDiva]

It's partially in your mind. It's absolutely not all in your mind. Sometimes, it's all over the deck.

Here's where I'm coming from on this: I'm board-certified in psychosomatic medicine. A big part of my work used to involve nausea control in seriously-ill patients. I've also worked with people with disabling motion sickness and disagree with the assertion that either one is necessarily worse than the other. Even if you have yourself both gone through chemotherapy nausea and had severe motion sickness, you only have your own experience to go by, which differs from that of others.

I have personally become seriously airsick while flying a plane (there was nobody else present to take over, so things got unpleasant). I've also worked with military pilots and NASA astronauts, who are typically highly-motivated, highly-trained, and still at times subject to motion sickness.

Motion sickness is complex and poorly understood and involves an interplay among a number of factors, only some of which are psychological. It almost certainly involves 5HT3A receptors in both the gut and brain, and as I mentioned before muscarinic acetylcholine receptors as well.

Some people are much more prone to motion sickness than others. Those who practically never become motion sick obviously have a much easier time of it. Their "tips and tricks" may still help some, but work much better for them than they do for people who are highly prone to motion sickness. Once someone is nauseated, it's usually too late for any of those things to work at all.

It's presumptuous, unhelpful, and irresponsible to presume that because one hasn't personally experienced something that this means it's "all in the mind" or that what works for one person will work for all. It's equally unhelpful and irresponsible to presume that something that really is "all in the mind" is somehow easily overcome. Pain, for example, is "in the mind" yet most people still experience it to some degree under certain circumstances.

Believe me, I've got nothing against using Jedi Mind Tricks to overcome various medical problems - that's my schtick. To claim that's all that's ever needed is highly bogus.

FINALLY...someone who understands the true depth of motion sickness :cool3:

I can't tell you how tired I am of being told it's "all in the mind". That is the most idiotic, inconsiderate thing anyone could suggest. As if it's not difficult enough suffering so terribly being sick - then you have to listen to people suggest your mind must be weak, as if you should somehow be able to overcome the problem.

I was involved in a near fatal head-on car crash during which one of the cranial nerves in my brain was damaged. Since this event in my life, I have suffered terribly from motion sickness. I guess I'm not much of a "Jedi Warrior", but I am very thankful for Scopace and Sturgeron because they allow me to function as if nothing ever happened.

 

[Blastman4444]

kell490 - as DandyDon said, the "harbor is closed" means that the island controller Harbor Master has said that no boats can go out. Almost all dive boats on the island are kept in one of two harbors overnight, not at the piers of the dive ops/hotels like in many destinations. I wasn't being mean to you when I said ROFLMAO. I was laughing at how they handle the rough seas in Cozumel. There are a few dive ops that have big boats, and those are sometimes allowed to go out diving in rough weather, but 6' seas would mean that no diving is allowed. It is not a decision that each individual dive op can make... what the Harbor Master for the island says is Law. I really don't know why it is done that way there, but it is.

I have been several destinations where the boats go out in 3-6' seas (California is one). I have even tried to get back on a rocking boat where the ladder was coming completely out of the water every roll. Not fun at all. Cozumel in summer has the flattest seas I have seen anywhere... sometimes so flat that you can see 100' down to the reef.

I have never known anyone who needed seasick meds in Cozumel. Maybe they are out there, but I haven't seen it.

robin

That is exactly how it was in GC last week when you got to about 15' from the surface one would get dizzy watching this boat jump around. The ladders would be coming out of the water. You had to time it to climb out I guess it's the trade off to go to the east side of GC where it's dived less. Thanks for the info looks like we will try to book in July I wanted to try for the 4th of july but now I'm worried about being too many people. i can't stand these crowded airports on holidays.

 

[Kevrumbo]

It's partially in your mind. It's absolutely not all in your mind. Sometimes, it's all over the deck.

Here's where I'm coming from on this: I'm board-certified in psychosomatic medicine. A big part of my work used to involve nausea control in seriously-ill patients. I've also worked with people with disabling motion sickness and disagree with the assertion that either one is necessarily worse than the other. Even if you have yourself both gone through chemotherapy nausea and had severe motion sickness, you only have your own experience to go by, which differs from that of others.

I have personally become seriously airsick while flying a plane (there was nobody else present to take over, so things got unpleasant). I've also worked with military pilots and NASA astronauts, who are typically highly-motivated, highly-trained, and still at times subject to motion sickness.

Motion sickness is complex and poorly understood and involves an interplay among a number of factors, only some of which are psychological. It almost certainly involves 5HT3A receptors in both the gut and brain, and as I mentioned before muscarinic acetylcholine receptors as well.

Some people are much more prone to motion sickness than others. Those who practically never become motion sick obviously have a much easier time of it. Their "tips and tricks" may still help some, but work much better for them than they do for people who are highly prone to motion sickness. Once someone is nauseated, it's usually too late for any of those things to work at all.

It's presumptuous, unhelpful, and irresponsible to presume that because one hasn't personally experienced something that this means it's "all in the mind" or that what works for one person will work for all. It's equally unhelpful and irresponsible to presume that something that really is "all in the mind" is somehow easily overcome. Pain, for example, is "in the mind" yet most people still experience it to some degree under certain circumstances.

Believe me, I've got nothing against using Jedi Mind Tricks to overcome various medical problems - that's my schtick. To claim that's all that's ever needed is highly bogus.

Then as a professional and "board-certified in psychosomatic medicine", you should also know it's a matter of degree & scope within the continuum, spectrum or milieu of the motion sickness syndrome -- together with the person's general health-- which determines how morbidly debilitating the condition can be.

My point restated is that most divers in good health in mind & body can learn to manage sea sickness without medication, using only the self-hypnosis/visualization method described above, and that this condition is relatively benign compared to the extreme conditions and pathologies (and other rhetoric) mentioned above in your example.

The motivation is to do all means cognitively to help yourself without any over-the-counter drugs (and the side-effects they can produce), but only seek professional help with prescribed medication as necessary when those avenues, methods of self-help are not viable. There's nothing "presumptuous, unhelpful, or irresponsible" in this objective, sensible and encouraging mind strategy now --is there??? ("It's all in the mind" --this statement is simply a motivational mantra, and not meant to be insensitively condescending. My apologies. . .).

 

[mstevens]

Then as a professional and "board-certified in psychosomatic medicine", you should also know it's a matter of degree & scope within the continuum, spectrum or milieu of the motion sickness syndrome -- together with the person's general health-- which determines how morbidly debilitating the condition can be.

My point restated is that most divers in good health in mind & body can learn to manage sea sickness without medication, using only the self-hypnosis/visualization method described above, and that this condition is relatively benign compared to the extreme conditions and pathologies (and other rhetoric) mentioned above in your example.

The motivation is to do all means cognitively to help yourself without any over-the-counter drugs (and the side-effects they can produce), but only seek professional help with prescribed medication as necessary when those avenues, methods of self-help are not viable. There's nothing "presumptuous, unhelpful, or irresponsible" in this objective, sensible and encouraging mind strategy now --is there??? ("It's all in the mind" --this statement is simply a motivational mantra, and not meant to be insensitively condescending. My apologies. . .).

You've studied this? You've worked with a significant number of people with motion sickness? If not, you're being presumptuous.

In over 20 years of practice, I've never seen any benefit from someone's being told anything is "all in the head," even when that's likely true. That's simply unhelpful. Always has been, always will be. That's different from saying "there are psychological tools you can use that are likely to help."

When you say that those healthy in mind can overcome motion sickness by trying harder, you are indeed being condescending. You're stating a position that means that either they're not trying or they're crazy. Try working with an astronaut candidate who barfs on the Vomit Comet. If that keeps up, they're never going to end up on orbit. They're not going to get antinausea drugs for flight. You're unlikely ever to encounter another person who is more motivated and goal-oriented than someone who's made it into the space program, yet the best we could come up with in terms of non-medication treatment still did not work for all of those people, so they washed out. Sure, there's a place for encouragement, but there's also a place for being realistic.

The primary distinction between benign and not benign is the degree of impairment. If motion sickness keeps you off the dive boat, it's no longer benign. If medications used for that cause problems with diving, they're not benign either. What's needed is a reasonable balance. If non-medication strategies work, then that's usually better. If they don't, there's no point criticizing people for that.

My impression is that the OP just wanted some quick and easy tools to offer his wife who gets urpy on the boat. Why rule out simple somatic remedies?

 

[Kevrumbo]

Doc (mstevens), with all due respect to your experience & practice, it would be my opinion as a layperson based on your replies to this discussion that you're too quick to medicate instead of spending time to assess, treat and educate relatively less acute patients in this instance with just as effective cognitive therapies. (Notwithstanding astronaut candidates, airplane pilots, ship's captain & crew and the unique demanding conditions they face as compared to us recreational divers.)

I'll graciously concede & compromise based on my own anecdotal subjective experience: There's nothing wrong with quick & easy somatic remedies/medications for sea sickness, but you can break the dependency on them over time with self-hypnosis/visualization only, building up in the process your own "psychosomatic tolerance". I've not "studied this" per the scientific method --but I've achieved it & am comfortable with this schema and it works for me. . .

If that's still being "presumptuous" in your view . . .well, my reply in light of my own chosen practical treatment method would be:

You don't know if you don't try. . .

 

[Pelagicsal]

C'mon, Doc, what could you know? You obviously don't care about people and wouldn't waste your precious time with diagnosis or non-pharmaceutical treatments on all of us delusional divers!

 

[divenutny]

Hi - My wife gets sea sick, she has tried the remedies you listed and more, ( except for ginger). All of them wiped her out for the day. We also tried the wrist pressure point band, and the electric shock band. They helped, but eventually she would lose the battle.

2 years ago, We met a couple from Canada on one of our trips to Cozumel. They recommended groval. It worked well, no side effects were noticed. We shared it with a nurse that also dives with us, it helped her with no side effects. I'm not sure you can get a prescription in the states. We got it from Canada. We were unable to buy it in Mexico.

The dose we got was 50 ml. I have no idea why it is not available in the states.

Sea sickness sucks! I hope you can get a few pills to try and it works for you as well as it have worked for us.

Tom

 

[DandyDon]

I don't think I've ever heard of Groval or it's generic Dimenhydrinate.

I'm sure you'd want to discuss it with your physician and/or pharmacist, but it seems to be OTC in the US, administer in pill form, liquid, or suppository - like for times when vomiting prevent oral applications.

If you search google for gravol motion sickness you get a lot of hits, and if you search for Dimenhydrinate you get more info.

 

[mstevens]

I don't think I've ever heard of Groval or it's generic Dimenhydrinate.

One brand of dimenhydrinate you've probably heard of is Dramamine. The Canadian brand is Gravol, not Groval.

It's easily available in the US and in Mexico.

The dose we got was 50 ml. I have no idea why it is not available in the states.

Was this a liquid? If you meant mg (milligrams), that's the typical dose of generic dimenhydrinate or brand-name Dramamine in the US.

 

[DandyDon]

One brand of dimenhydrinate you've probably heard of is Dramamine. The Canadian brand is Gravol, not Groval.

It's easily available in the US and in Mexico.



Was this a liquid? If you meant mg (milligrams), that's the typical dose of generic dimenhydrinate or brand-name Dramamine in the US.

Yeah, when I searched for groval motion sickness, good ol' google corrected it to Gravol, and I did see it's packaged as Dramamine but skipped that as brand names package a variety of drugs at times. It's an old one isn't it? But sometimes the old ones are worthy of revisit.

Wasn't the original Dramamine actually Meclizine, and the original Benadryl actually Diphenhydramine? The retailers want to build name recognition of course, then sell different mixes. All pretty confusing, but I've been thru lots of different antihistamines with my allergies over the decades.