do sea sickness bands really work?

[pleasan7]

Myth Busters did that one tonight. They tried several alternatives to OTC or perscription drug methods including the wrist bands. BUSTED. They did find that ginger tablets prevented sea sickness without the narcotic type side affects.

The idea was to find something that did not leave you sleepy and groggy like the perscription medicine.
What I found interesting on this episode is that one man only "thought" he got sick so when he thought he was using the perscription medicine (they substituted sugar pills)then he showed no symptoms. The man who really had motion sickness only did well with the ginger tablets taken well in advance or the real perscription medicine. He still got sick when they told him it was the real medicine and it was just sugar pills.

My guess is the amount of ginger you need to take goes along with how much you weigh. Be careful though because I had friends who added to much ginger to their chinese cooking and found that it can also make you sick without adding motion.
Yes, I was trained in nutrition in college - I just try to forget all the stuff I learned..
Grin

 

[ECPaul]

Those battery operated relief bands work like a charm for me. The trick is to turn them up high enough (typically a setting of "4" or "5") to get just a bit of a painful periodic jolt, and this is enough to distract your brain from the vomit-inducing motion of the boat.

Of course, you can't wear the damn things when you're diving, and so I get no relief at all while I'm bobbing up and down on the surface at the end of a dive waiting for my turn to get up the ladder - that's often the time that I get the most nauseous!

 

[cnctina]

One day, two guys come onto the dive boat and unload there gear. Then one of them pulls out this patch and sticks it on his neck and is telling us all how he never gets seasick any more. The patch had fallen off his neck during the first dive so I inform his buddy of this and we work out a plan. After the second dive is complete and the boat starts heading back to port, the buddy then informs him the patch is missing. It wasn't 3 minutes before he was chumming.

 

[Doc Harry]

Sea-sickness wrist bands do work, yes.

They work in the same manner as those little sugar pills they give patients in double-blinded, placebo-controlled medical studies.

It's called the P-L-A-C-E-B-O effect.
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[cra2]

Sea-sickness wrist bands do work, yes.

They work in the same manner as those little sugar pills they give patients in double-blinded, placebo-controlled medical studies.

It's called the P-L-A-C-E-B-O effect.
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Your statement could only be valid IF the user was hoping/thinking this solution was THE solution that was going to save them. But I've been with folks who had that (desperate) hope about EVERY solution they tried, one after the other - from various meds to ginger to patches to crackers to standing up in the center, facing the horizon to the accu-pressure bands to the electric reliefbands. And for them, just like myself, most of the solutions don't do a thing and then suddenly, by luck, we find the one that works for us. Everyone's chem is different.

If it was placebo, the very FIRST solution would have worked because I had as much hope riding on that one as all of the subsequent ones.

The meds have worked for me - but with varying levels of undesirable symptoms.
The ONLY thing that has worked 100% and with ZERO symptoms so far (for me) has been the electric reliefband.

Believe me.. if the placebo effect could have done ANYTHING for me, it would have done so back when I was desperately trying the $12 accu-band, not the $100 reliefband. I would have been THRILLED with a cheaper solution.
But hey.. over the long run, the electric band's gonna be cheaper than all of those scope patches I was getting prescribed.

And now I don't have those dizzy, dry-mouth, tunnel-vision symptoms the scope patch causes me to have for 12-24 hours. As SOON as I take the reliefband off and hit the dock, I'm back at 100% as if I'd never been on a boat.

(all of this is said having only taken a few boat trips with the reliefband so far. And only in mild to average conditions. Haven't had it out in rough seas yet... but then again, don't plan on getting on any dive boats in rough seas. lol. That's just asking for trouble. The one (and only) time we made that brilliant move, we had the joy of trying to pull ourselves up the drag line through 6' waves and heavy current only to find ourselves being sucked at the ladder and prop that was rising 5' out of the water with every wave. Still don't know how everyone escaped with only minor bruises and cuts.)

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

It kept my dive buddy from getting vomit on that part of his arm. He was so grateful....

 

[cleung]

I used the sea bands initially but switched to popping a Gravol in the morning before diving which worked well too. After being on dive boats quite a lot from the many dive trips, one usually gets used to the waves. For newer divers, I would suggest taking something like a Gravol before diving rather than the sea bands since the bands might get in the way of dive watches. Sometimes, they are just not comfortable to wear.

 

[wedivebc]

They only work if you believe they work

 

[cra2]

They only work if you believe they work

well I believed the ginger and the accu-pressure bands would work and THEY didn't.
would've saved me $100 if that theory were true.

 

[wedivebc]

well I believed the ginger and the accu-pressure bands would work and THEY didn't.
would've saved me $100 if that theory were true.

I didn't say they will work if you believe in them did I?