sea sickness

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Location
United States
# of dives
50 - 99
I get sea sick very easy. I dove the u-352 recently along with other wrecks in morehead city NC. We had 3-5 seas and I used Scopalamine patch and still got sick. I also used the wristbands with no success. Could I mix Scop patch and Dramamine? Any other suggestions? I did also use ginger snaps. I have the U-701 as well as the U-85 coming up in 2 weeks and id like to enjoy these dives and not get sick
 
.... Any other suggestions?

Questions:

1) At what point do you get sick? On the boat? Underwater? On the surface?

2) What do you eat pre-dive and how long before?
 
Did you put the scop patch on right before you got on the boat? Mine work best when I put the patch on 12 hours or so before my dive.

I don't think I'd try mixing seasickness drugs. Taking one is risky enough as-is. You might try bonine if scopalomine isn't working for you. Also, there's a number of techniques you can apply to try and avoid it. Dan published a couple articles you should read here:

DAN | Medical Articles

DAN | Medical Articles
 
I am not a fan of ANY seasickness meds. They affect your body in ways that can cause problems.
My recommendation is to eat smart before you get on the boat... like toast, banana, and yogurt, NO coffee or orange juice, bacon, or anything acidic or greasy. Ginger ale to drink, as well as ginger tablets or chews help to settle a stomach. Stay well hydrated, drinks lots of water... stay up in fresh air, look at horizon, and keep talking to other divers and distracted.

I have done the trip out in NC, with the 3-5' seas. My husband and I did not get sick but we saw several people who did. Many of them did exactly what I mentioned here NOT to do... some of them actually said they were surprised at how rough the seas were and they weren't prepared. Being prepared is important! Know what to expect, and how to counteract it.

robin
 
After years of trying various medications, I found the following combination to be completely successful at preventing seasickness without side-effects of drowsiness:
Transderm scopolamine (1.5mg) patch, applied the evening before embarkation;
plus Promethazine 25mg (aka Phenergan), take 1 tablet the evening before and then 1 tablet 1 hour before embarkation;
plus Pseudoephadrine HCl 120mg (aka Sudafed 12-hour, NOT Phenylephrine), take 1 tablet 1 hour before embarkation to counteract narcotic effect of Promethazine .
 
There's nothing wrong with quick & easy somatic remedies/medications for sea sickness, but you can break the dependency on them over time with self-hypnosis/visualization only, building up in the process your own "psychosomatic tolerance".

The motivation is to do all means cognitively to help yourself without any over-the-counter drugs (and the side-effects they can produce), but only seek professional help with prescribed medication as necessary when those avenues, methods of self-help are not viable.

Here again is the method and the logic behind using the cognitive visualization technique which I've posted about in few boards including several threads in the past here on Scubaboard:

Most people don't get motion sickness while driving a car or piloting a boat/plane; the reason being because you're directly effecting the action of the vessel, you see what actions you have to take to steer a clear passage, you anticipate and react to the dynamic forces that result from such actions. Your mind/body kinesthetics are synchronized, your vestibular senses unconfounded, and you don't develop the nausea associated with motion sickness.

Here's how to achieve that state as a passenger on a diveboat:

Look not only at the Horizon, but also at the railing of the boat in the foreground --and see how it all moves relative to each other as the boat makes way through the swells. Memorize that movement and close your eyes, feel the boat's rhythm moving through the swells, and "see" that railing/horizon movement in your mind's eye. Anticipate where that railing/horizon orientation will be when you open your eyes . . .and finally open your eyes to see it and confirm it. Convince your mind and inner ear that you are in dynamic motion based on your sense of balance, tactile/kinesthetic feedback, and coordinating-synchronizing it all with the movement pattern of the railing/horizon which you just memorized. . .

In other words . . .don't anticipate being seasick --anticipate being in control, knowing & feeling what the boat's motion is going to be. With practice of this simple visualization, you can even "quell the queasiness" in the roughest sea conditions --all without any medication of any kind.

Again --All you gotta do is look at the horizon, see how it moves relative to the boat's motion and memorize that pattern, and then get a feeling for the rhythm of the swells and synchronize it with horizon's motion. Now when you go down belowdecks, just play it all back in your "mind's eye" as you begin to feel & anticipate the boat's apparent motion --or even imagine the boat belowdecks is transparent and you can actually see the horizon & swells in sync with the boat's apparent motion-- it's all just visualization without medication and it works!

That's the visualization technique you gotta practice, and unfortunately it's difficult to do if you're concentrating on something else like setting up your gear, reading a book, watching a video, worrying about running out of ginger pills/dramamine/bonine etc. But once you get good at it, you can hold the malaise to a reasonable level even in stormy seas --a "four" for instance on a scale from 1 to 10, with "ten" being projectile vomiting, extreme nausea, hugging the rail and begging for someone to shoot you . . . (In my thirty hour passage from mainland Costa Rica to Cocos Island, I was cognitively exhausted performing the technique over an extended period, and just simply fell asleep naturally). . .

Motion sickness is just a nuisance ailment . . .really!!!

The only scenario for a diveboat passneger where it becomes an issue is excessive prolonged vomiting resulting in dehydration & electrolyte imbalance, which requires IV treatment --If you have a trained medic onboard this should not be a problem.
 

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