Motion sickness

If you have it, you know you gotta hate it! I’m the unlucky ones I have it. But can it be under control? Can you reduce it?

Motion sickness is when one part of your balance system is getting conflicted signals from your eyes and inner ear. Your body is moving, but the other parts don’t. This causes headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting. I mostly sense this, when I start yawning, followed by drooling.

Since my childhood I get motion sick very easily. We only traveled by car and I couldn’t know I get motion sick on every moving object.
Sometimes I wonder myself why I still love traveling. Getting on a plane and feel horrible the whole flight. Or if I get on a boat and just can’t enjoy it since it moves too much and I feel nauseous or jet worse, starting to vomit.

So what do I do just to keep myself from vomiting in busses or not getting nauseous?

First thing to do is make peace with the fact you have motion sickness and don’t be ashamed when you actually have to vomit. Just make sure you always keep plastic bags with you. Or better, take those air sickness bags from the plane, those won’t leak.

If you start feeling uncomfortable, start sweating and feeling nauseas, you can try to eat dry crackers. Try to drink Coca Cola (not cold!). This can relief the nauseousness.

Triggers

If you travel a lot, you might know your triggers which get you sick. The worse for me are buses and boats. For that, I try to avoid rides on buses, by taking trains or planes. The same counts for boats. Try to take a plane.

The worse thing you can do is reading. I know, it can be difficult when you have to read a map, but just try to avoid this. Your eyes and inner ear are getting conflicting signals, because of the still object like a book and the movement around the object.

Another trigger are milk products. I try to avoid them before I have to make a journey and this might help a bit.

Try to sit in front of a car/bus and try to sit facing forward. Make sure you can see the horizon. Your eyes will notice a still object and it can relax your stomach. Sometimes it helps to notify your neighbors sitting next to you, so they won’t be shocked when it actually happens and you have to vomit.

Try to get some cool breeze, fresh air makes you feel better. When I was really motion sickness on a flight from Curacao, the stewardess opened the back door of the plane as soon as the aircraft stood still! I could stand in the open door and breath the fresh air. This was really friendly of them! And I felt better soon!

Motion sickness pills

Those pills you can buy at your pharmacy. The tablets have a strong taste. You have to take one or two (depends on brand) 1 hour before you leave. It will prevent from nausea for about 8 hours.

I have used different brands like Primatour, Suprimal and cheap ones which I bought at Boots in Thailand. Last years I have been using the brand Suprimal, or whenever I have them, the ones from Thailand. These seems to have more effect to me like other brands. Sometimes they help, but not always.

And still I feel really sleepy and fussy due to those pills. So when you’re traveling during daylight, this can be uncomfortable.

Ginger

I’m using the motion sickness pills whenever I have an overnight bus or flight. But those pills makes you really sleepy and fuzzy, so I prefer not to take them.

I recently discovered ginger. This natural root should help to feel you better, so I’m still trying to find the best way to use it.

Now I’m drinking a cup of ginger tea before we leave. And I’m using natural capsules filled with ginger powder. In the morning at breakfast I’m taking 2 capsules and 2 capsules before we actually set of. This seems to work, but not always. I might have to adapt the right amount, so I have to experiment with this a bit more.

Another ginger product are ginger chewing. Those candies you can buy in natural shops. When I’m starting to feel nauseous this almost immediately helps to reduce the nauseousness! This helps me a lot! Within 5 minutes after chewing, I feel the nauseousness decrease.

Since this is the most easy way, just put some of those candies in your handbag.

Seabands

These wristbands you can buy at your pharmacy. It is basically a wristband with acupressure due to a plastic stud. You have to place the plastic stud between the small bones of your wrists. Due to the pressure nausea decreases. Since this product has no side effects like feeling sleepy, woman can also use this product when they suffer from morning sickness, when pregnant.

This seems to help. I’m always wearing these bands, but since the stud has to be on the right spot, sometimes I fail on that. And then it won’t work, obviously. So I use those bands as an extra prevention.

I’m still looking for the best solution. So when somebody has a new tip, please let me know!