Anything new in to combat motion sickness?

Alan Meyer wrote: Like others, I often get airsick on early season
flights around the
airport. I don't get sick later in the season and have never been
sick on a cross country flight.

Obviously, there is a powerful psychological component to
airsickness. Why else would so many of us successfully
acclimate to it, and why else would we not get sick on
cross country flights, where we know we don't have the
option of landing?

I think that, too!

One times I flew as passenger and I was getting a little dizzy in my
stomach. So we decided to land. In the same second as our gear touched
ground the dizzy feeling changed to real sickness. After leaving the
glider immediately I had to sit down and ten seconds later I had to puke.

Thats why I think its psychological in many cases. I never had a real
sickness feeling during flight and I'm not anxious for it.

Andreas

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!!!! ;-)

[To clean the tube of my camelback I disconnect it & run a "pull-through"(for cleaning rifle barrels in the field) through it. Amazing what comes out.

bumper wrote:
I've found that not all water is created equal when it comes to "sliming".
When I lived in the North Bay area of California, we had water that was
mostly from Lake Berryessa and was "pre-treated". It was further treated
before being piped to the city folks, but we lived in the country so it was
sort of marginal, sometimes chlorine odor, sometimes not. Brown algae grew
in our pipes. I used a reverse osmosis filter, but still water left in a
Camelback would slime within a few days.

Where we live now, in the Sierra foothills just SW of Minden, Nevada, we
have well water that we could bottle and sell to Californians (g). This
water seems to stay pure and drinkable for months at a time. Never any slime
unless the container wasn't cleaned properly to begin with.

The one thing I use bottled water for is filling my Camelbak. I use the
cheaper brands available in my local supermarket. The Camelbak is never
filled with anything else and its never got slimy, smelly or bad tasting.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

bagmaker wrote:
Try ebay for imitation bladders, store always in the freezer, I dont
think I would bother drying the bladder before freezing, the bugs will
still be there.

Anybody know of a decent, economical, NO LEAK hi flow valve for the
damn things?? This part drives me berserk, they either leak or dont
give you more than a sip at a time.

Camelback makes straight and 90 deg shut-off valves that plug into the
hose just up stream of the bite valve.



Shawn

One of the bladders I'm using now is 3 years old. I carry two: one for
hydration, one for survival.

Good flying,
Bullwinkle- -

I'm is the same camp as Mr. Bulwinkle, one for hydration, one for
survival, and cleanliness is next to Godliness in all water systems!

About the motion sickness, I owned larger sailboats for a long time
and found that passengers could even get over seasickness (Mal de
Mer), by staying still, either sitting or standing, and looking at the
horizon. Many studies I'm read verify that it's the conflict between
the Equilibrium/Balance sytem (the vestibular system) vs the visual
system that cause the uneasyness. Concious training of the eyes vs.
head motion will reduce/eliminate the motion sickness. Even though I'd
sailed for over 30 years on & off before taking up soaring, my first
few soaring flights of any length and violence would give me "Queasy
Stomach" until we went into interthermal flight.
All in all, I'd recomend trying to get the attention away from the
center of the thermal circle and looking out toward the horizon more.

Many thanks to Dr. Alex for his excellent discussion of the causes of
the motion sicknes and its association with toxic substance control by
the body.

FreeFlight Libelle