Anything new in to combat motion sickness?

Originally Posted by Gary Emerson

Greetings,

I typically suffer from motion sickness early in the season and
sometimes on longer flights if the thermals are rough.

I have one of the electronic wrist devices. It's of some benefit, but
it's not an instant cure, at least for me.

Just curious if there are any new meds or other solutions that might be
in the works??

Gary

Gary,

I am a motion-sickness sufferer & also a pharmacist. I've tried all to commercial "over the counter" remedies, & while most (drug type, not herbal) work well enough, the side effects which can include drowsiness, dry mouth & urinary retention preclude safe flying.
However, these side-effects vary widely in degree among individuals; some people notice none at all.
I suggest you try several types recommended by your pharmacist (not all at once!) while firmly on the ground & see how they affect you.
One which I have found personal success with is "Scopoderm TTS" which is a small patch (about the size of a quarter dollar) which you stick on your body the night before you fly & which will give relief from motion sickness for 72 hours. I have never felt sick with these & find them great for competitions etc where you tend to dolphin soar more than normal. I suffer no drowsiness at all with these. BUT you may be different so try before you fly.
I maintain a pilot suffering for motion sickness is a more dangerous pilot than one with a slightly dry mouth from his medication.
Good luck
Brett

On Feb 3, 11:57 am, Brett
wrote:
Gary Emerson Wrote:

Greetings,

I typically suffer from motion sickness early in the season and
sometimes on longer flights if the thermals are rough.

I have one of the electronic wrist devices. It's of some benefit, but

it's not an instant cure, at least for me.

Just curious if there are any new meds or other solutions that might be

in the works??

Gary

Gary,

I am a motion-sickness sufferer & also a pharmacist. I've tried all to
commercial "over the counter" remedies, & while most (drug type, not
herbal) work well enough, the side effects which can include
drowsiness, dry mouth & urinary retention preclude safe flying.
However, these side-effects vary widely in degree among individuals;
some people notice none at all.
I suggest you try several types recommended by your pharmacist (not all
at once!) while firmly on the ground & see how they affect you.
One which I have found personal success with is "Scopoderm TTS" which
is a small patch (about the size of a quarter dollar) which you stick
on your body the night before you fly & which will give relief from
motion sickness for 72 hours. I have never felt sick with these & find
them great for competitions etc where you tend to dolphin soar more
than normal. I suffer no drowsiness at all with these. BUT you may be
different so try before you fly.
I maintain a pilot suffering for motion sickness is a more dangerous
pilot than one with a slightly dry mouth from his medication.
Good luck
Brett

--
Brett

I'm a physician, glider pilot, and also have had motion sickness at
times. I second what
Brett says. The ScopeDerm Patches contain scoplomine, a tropane
alkaloid
drug that comes from the "deadly nightshade" group of plants.
Scopolomine
is a very powerful drug with strong "anticholinergic" effects. It is
actually related
to LSD, and in larger doses has the same type of effects in causing
hallucinations and
psychotic behavior. Of course, the doses used in the patches have
been tested to be small
enough to minimize the possibility of hallucinations, psychotic
behavior, amnesia and
somnolence. However, it can induce the dry mouth mentioned in the
small dose
that is used in the patch.

If you are a male, and have "BPH" - benign prostatic hypertropy, which
is common
in the elderly, ahh.. sorry.. older middle age ;-)
bracket of pilots that can afford the latest competition sailplanes
and have the
time on their hands to indulge in sailplane flying, you could be
much more prone to the possibility of urinary retention than are women
or younger
males. The small doses used in the patches can also affect the
ability of the eye to focus and tend
to dilate the pupils. Some people who may be walking around with an
condition called "narrow angle glaucoma" and do not yet know they
have it, may have
a sudden attack of increased pressure in the eyes accompanied by
severe pain and
difficulty seeing from this drug when the pupil dilates. This is
not a very common condition,
but people who have it do not often know about it until they have
taken a medication that
dilates their pupils, such as when they go in for an eye exam. This
makes it very important
as Brett says to try them on the ground before flying with them. I'm
not an aviation medical examiner and I'm not really sure what the
FAA's position is on using these patches while flying. I know there
is a question on the form when you go for an FAA physical that asks if
you have "Motion Sickness Requiring Drugs" I'm not sure what happens
if you check "Yes". Anybody have any experience with that?

I think NASA has tested scopolomine for astronauts 50% of whom get
space sickness. However, I read that the most common drug they have
used is "promethazine" also known as phenergan. It has less
problem with the anticholingergic type of side effects mentioned above
but makes one more
sleepy.

I do believe in the "conflict" theory that motion sickness when there
is a conflict between what the eyes are seeing and what the vestibular
system is telling your brain. When you can anticipate and
predict the motion, it is much easier for your system to adapt and
reduce the conflict. That's why
you don't get sick as easily when you are flying vs. being a passenger
when you cannot control the
maneuvers of the aircraft. However, even when you are doing the
flying, the motions from turbulent air
are not very predictable.

There are definitely certain head motions, which when associated with
certain maneuvers of the aircraft, are known to cause very strong
vesibular stimulation that could accentuate the tendency to motion
sickness or even cause the pilot to put in control inputs that are not
proper and dangerous because of the very strong tendency of the brain
to react to a vestibular signals that is telling your brain your are
tumbling, cartwheeling or spinning - to the point of
overriding what the eyes are telling it. In Aviation Medicine, they
have have categorized some of these and given them names. This link
is an excellent overview of the subject:

http://weboflife.ksc.nasa.gov/learni...ularSystem.htm

Dan Johnson, a physician, glider pilot and FAA medical examiner who
sometimes frequents this group, has done some excellent work
and given talks at the SSA convention on his opinion that a number of
otherwise difficult to explain
accidents, particularly stall/spin accidents in the landing pattern
may be the result of some of these type
of vestibular illusions inducing the pilot to put in the wrong control
inputs that actually cause
the stall/spin. He has an excellent article he

http://amygdala.danlj.org/~danlj/Avi...SDO/index.html

The eyes can even be sort of disabled by the strong vestibular signal
and start uncontrollably beating from side to side, a phenomenon
called "nystagnus".

Adrenaline, and/or having your mind occupied with urgent tasks that
absorb all your thinking energy, such as flying xcross country with
imminent outlandings also seems to counter the
tendency to get sick. A boring flight close to the airport where you
are not using 100% of your brain
capacity for the flying will allow the visual/vestibular conflict to
get the upper hand and start
the motion sickness process.

One interesting theory on the cause of motion sickness is on the
Wikipedia and I am quoting it here, not sure if you can prove it, but
it's an interesting idea:

"The most common theory for the cause of motion sickness is that it
evolved as a defence mechanism against neurotoxins. The area postrema
in the brain is responsible for inducing vomiting when poisons are
detected, and for resolving conflicts between vision and balance. When
feeling motion but not seeing it (for example, in a ship with no
windows), the inner ear transmits to the brain that it senses motion,
but the eyes tell the brain that everything is still. The area
postrema will always believe the inner ear signal over the eyes, as
the eyes are more susceptible to trickery (see optical illusion). As a
result, the brain will come to the conclusion that one is
hallucinating and further conclude that the hallucination is due to
poison ingestion. The brain responds by inducing vomiting, to clear
the supposed toxin."

I'm a physician, glider pilot, and also have had motion sickness at
times. I second what
Brett says. The ScopeDerm Patches contain scoplomine, a tropane
alkaloid
drug that comes from the "deadly nightshade" group of plants.
Scopolomine
is a very powerful drug with strong "anticholinergic" effects. It is
actually related
to LSD, and in larger doses has the same type of effects in causing
hallucinations and
psychotic behavior. Of course, the doses used in the patches have
been tested to be small
enough to minimize the possibility of hallucinations, psychotic
behavior, amnesia and

Aplogies to the group:

It was pointed out to me by another physician/pilot that scoplomine
and
LSD are not chemically related and actually are thought to operate on
different neurotransmitters in the brain. They are only similar in
their
effects in causing hallucinations. He stated that the hallucinations
from
LSD are different than those from scopolomine and that is also
correct,
I'm sure.

My partner did have one elderly patient accidently forget that she
had
already placed a patch behind her ear that day, and put another one
on at the same time. Because of the excessive dose, she did go
on a "trip" that lasted about 4 days even though the patches were
removed,
and had to be hospitalized, although eventually she recovered with no
apparent long term effects.. I don't have experience with any
patients
on LSD, so I guess to me it seemed like a similar example to use
regarding
the hallucinogenic effects.

But I messed up if it left the impression that scopolomine and LSD
are
close pharmacologic relatives. I was just thinking to myself, "My God,
there might be somebody out there with some LSD laying around that
might get the idea that if scopolomine and LSD were related, maybe
I'll just try a very small dose of this LSD for my motion
sickness." ;-)
I couldn't live with myself if that happened, so if anybody got that
impression - DONT TAKE THAT LSD AND TRY TO FLY!!!! ;-)

But if you've ever seen someone who's tried "Jimson Weed", that IS
closely related pharmacologically. So that might have been a better
example to use than LSD. BUT DON'T TRY JIMSON WEED FOR
MOTION SICKNESS EITHER!!!! ;-)

Gary Emerson wrote:
Greetings,

I typically suffer from motion sickness early in the season and
sometimes on longer flights if the thermals are rough.

I have one of the electronic wrist devices. It's of some benefit, but
it's not an instant cure, at least for me.

Just curious if there are any new meds or other solutions that might be
in the works??

I've had good luck with ginger Altoids candies. Avoid Pepperidge Farm's
banana loaf. You can guess how I know :-P


Shawn

Gary Emerson wrote:
Greetings,

I typically suffer from motion sickness early in the season and
sometimes on longer flights if the thermals are rough.

Recently, I've begun to wonder if some pilots are experiencing sickness
caused (or at least increased) by a contaminated water container. My
hypothesis is the container sits around all winter, half full of water,
and some crud grows in it. The pilot starts flying again, drinks water
with crud in it, and gets sick (or sicker than just motion sickness
would make him). After a few flights and several quarts of fresh water
now run through the container, the container is relatively clean again,
and the pilot no longer gets sick.

Plausible? Is there any evidence?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

Very plausible. Replacement bladders for these "camelback' things only cost
about $15 - I buy a new one each Spring.

I does concern me that several posters mentioned flying while suffering from
airsickness. BTDT and I know I wasn't a great pilot under it's effect.
Fortunately, age and experience has overcome it. I think of you suffer from
airsickness it is a good idea to fly a 2-seater with another pilot for a
while each spring until you re-adapt to flight.

Bill Daniels


"Eric Greenwell" wrote in message
news:hocxh.1279$fT1.1038@trndny02...
Gary Emerson wrote:
Greetings,

I typically suffer from motion sickness early in the season and sometimes
on longer flights if the thermals are rough.

Recently, I've begun to wonder if some pilots are experiencing sickness
caused (or at least increased) by a contaminated water container. My
hypothesis is the container sits around all winter, half full of water,
and some crud grows in it. The pilot starts flying again, drinks water
with crud in it, and gets sick (or sicker than just motion sickness would
make him). After a few flights and several quarts of fresh water now run
through the container, the container is relatively clean again, and the
pilot no longer gets sick.

Plausible? Is there any evidence?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

Bill Daniels wrote:
Very plausible. Replacement bladders for these "camelback' things only cost
about $15 - I buy a new one each Spring.

Where do you buy them Bill? I just paid $30 at the Boulder REI for a
new 100 oz bladder.

I use my camel backs (I think we have five of them) for cycling, skiing,
hiking, road trips as well as flying. The drying rack they sell is well
worth the bucks to keep them mold free. Also, after emptying any left
over water, I grab the hose near the bladder and spin vigorously to
force the last of the water to the end (that sounds bad doesn't it?).
Squeeze the bite valve to drain the last of it. No icky green tubing
for a few years now.



Shawn

Try WallMart or Target.

Bill

"Shawn" wrote in message
. ..
Bill Daniels wrote:
Very plausible. Replacement bladders for these "camelback' things only
cost about $15 - I buy a new one each Spring.

Where do you buy them Bill? I just paid $30 at the Boulder REI for a new
100 oz bladder.

I use my camel backs (I think we have five of them) for cycling, skiing,
hiking, road trips as well as flying. The drying rack they sell is well
worth the bucks to keep them mold free. Also, after emptying any left
over water, I grab the hose near the bladder and spin vigorously to force
the last of the water to the end (that sounds bad doesn't it?). Squeeze
the bite valve to drain the last of it. No icky green tubing for a few
years now.



Shawn

Eric Greenwell wrote:

Recently, I've begun to wonder if some pilots are experiencing sickness
caused (or at least increased) by a contaminated water container....snip

Plausible? Is there any evidence?

Yes, Eric, I think you're quite right. I've seen some Camelbak tubes
which are almost completely opaque with some form of living crud! A
friend who was sick at a comp suspected a dirty water bladder - and the
problem stopped when he changed to a clean, new one.

Since they can never be drained completely, I've taken to emptying my
bladders and tubes and putting them in the freezer when they're not in
use. So far, no crud after several years - and no sickness.

GC

My wife suffers occasionally and has found great relief
with the electronic wrist device but only if she turns
it up to a level that is slightly uncomfortable. I
suffer rarely but on those occasions have had the same
experience. If you can't tell that it's firing, it
won't help. If you start to feel queasy, turn up the
intensity. That always works for both of us. Whether
the mild electric shocks are bad for you in other ways,
I don't know.

Forest

At 02:12 03 February 2007, Gary Emerson wrote:
Greetings,

I typically suffer from motion sickness early in the
season and
sometimes on longer flights if the thermals are rough.

I have one of the electronic wrist devices. It's of
some benefit, but
it's not an instant cure, at least for me.

Just curious if there are any new meds or other solutions
that might be
in the works??

Gary