Motion sickness question

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It's worse when there are no trees to lean on:wink:
 
Tough to answer. I have fought it my entire career. Even as an Army Ranger in Vietnam thru owning my own 45 ft boat. Firstly I found Zodiacs less nauseating. I don't drink coffee or tea prior to a dive. Stay in the front of the boat in he wind and away from exhaust fumes. And keep ginger roots pills or Canada dry handy! Hope that helps
 
I too suffer from motion sickness.
Promocop is very correct: caffine drinks and greasy foods for breakfast will return.
I eat a lite breakfast of fruits and (if possible) yogurt.
An Air Force pilot once taught me to eat banana's. They are the only thing that taste the same coming up as they did going down!!

Boat fumes will put me over the edge in a heart beat. Watching the shore line helps me. I also take Ginger Root pills, alot. You can not over dose on Ginger Root.
 
It is a pretty long-known thing, Susceptibility to seasickness: influ... [Aviat Space Environ Med. 1979] - PubMed - NCBI , problem is you can't change hull design or direction. Yes, some boats ARE more likely to make you seasick. side-to-side roll is a killer...

I gave up long ago. Fact of diving life. Do what works for you, a fair portion of the battle is mental and how well you behaved the day and night before.
 
Nah. Nothing mental about it. All physical In my line of work I had the pleasure of interviewing many many astronauts. Except for Yeager, every one of them at some time or another got some form of MS. The military has spent millions trying to figure out why. It's a human condition. Yawl is the worse. Look just deal with it. It does get easier with age. Watch what you eat no alcohol and keep our face in he wind and your eyes on the horizon!
 
A boat can undergo any of six types of motion when under way, or any combination thereof: pitch, yaw, roll, heave, surge, and sway. When you're in a sea with a variety of sea states present, with seas and swells from several directions, your body is attempting to anticipate a rhythm in the combined motions when there may be none. Even hard-core offshore sailors often need 2-3 days at the start of a voyage to make the adjustment. I'm a fan of ginger too. Any health/natural food store will have a variety of capsules, chewables, etc.
 
I gave up long ago. Fact of diving life. Do what works for you, a fair portion of the battle is mental and how well you behaved the day and night before.
It is only partially a mental thing. You can try and lessen the intensity of the sensation using imagery, deep breathing techniques, etc. they only go small way to decreasing unpleasant sensations.

What happening is that your brain is getting conflicting signals from your eyes and your inner ear. As your brain gets the signal you you are moving it then sends signal to your eye trying to make your eyes move as well. Your eyes don't really need to move and the differing signals produce a vibrating motion of the eyes called nystagmus. Fixing your eyes on a fixed point helps. Also, seasick pills also help decrease the sensation.

But, some people will always be more sensitive to the sensation. And, the medications dont always help everyone or infective sometimes are only partially effective. I prefer ginger pills personally. Virtually no side effect and does seem to help me for mild symptoms. I keep meclizine in my dive bag just in case for more dramatic symptoms.

If over the counter remedies don't work you can ask your MD for rx scopolamine patches.
 
Well, it's not all in your mind, but it is mostly in your brain. The conflicting signals that you get from your eyes and the equilibrium apparatus in your ears are the root cause.

But like just about everybody else, I haven't answered the question: Is a zodiac better than a solid boat of the same size? I don't see why that would be the case and that is not my experience (though I'm not particularly prone to seasickness, I'm not immune, either).
 
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