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From: Rosalie B. (no email)
Date: Wed Mar 22 2006 - 01:05:16 EST
On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:48:03 -0000, you wrote:
>Becoming seasick is a reality for me. I have never sailed for longer
>than a few days of which I was sick most of the time. Had 3-5 feet
>plus. If I had stayed aboard longer, 38' Hunter, would it finally go
>away? Three days, Four days…?
>
>Also, if I used a prescription medication (Scopace or other), would
>it reduce or even eliminate the symptoms until I got my sea
>legs/equalized my inner ear?
>
>Many thanks, John in TX
>
>
You will get/have gotten lots of answers to this. And that is because
it isn't the same for everyone. Or to put it another way - everyone
is different.
I've only gotten motion sick when I've had an earache and when I was
also reading. I've crossed the English channel on a ferry when the
waves were breaking over the bow and half the crew was sick, but I was
OK.
Bob had his midshipman cruise on a destroyer and what they told them
to do was to look at the horizon and eat saltines. So that's what he
does, and that's what he wants everyone else to do. But it doesn't
work for everyone. He tried to give saltines to our son when it was
rough, forgetting that said son had just had his tonsils out and his
throat was pretty raw. Not a good idea.
My dad would get seasick almost anywhere and my first daughter also.
They take medication and that helps. But you have to experiment with
what works for you because sometimes the side effects will be too much
for a person. And in particular you have to take it far enough in
advance that it will be already absorbed into the system because once
you start throwing up, a pill isn't going to do any good at that
point.
When we first got the boat, we took it out to go from the Patuxent to
the Potomac, and it was one of those nasty days on the Chesapeake with
a south wind and square (short period) steep waves. The waves were
crashing over the bow (knocked the anchor loose) and the bow would be
down and the stern up on the previous wave and then v.v. I started to
feel a little nauseated and Bob insisted that the best thing for that
was for me to keep on at the helm. So I did. We didn't have an
autopilot then so it was hand steering. I was there queasily at the
helm from about 10 or 11 o'clock until about 5.
Finally I said, You have to take over steering this boat!!! HERE.
And I let go of the wheel.
And he did take it. I dropped a pencil and bent over to pick it up
which produced a wave of nausea, but when I sat up, after a minute or
two I was quite all right with no more nausea. I am convinced that
the nausea was due to tension and anxiety more than to the motion of
the boat. Lynn Pardee reported something of the same thing - she is
usually nauseated and sick at the beginning of a cruise, but it went
on for much longer than usual, and eventually she identified the cause
as tension.
So seasickness may be due to an inner ear disturbance - your brain
doesn't believe what the ear is telling it is happening - in that
case, looking away at the horizon will help reprogram the brain to
believe what the ear reports.
Or it may be due to tension or apprehension, or any one of a number of
causes that we don't know yet. In that case something like those
acupressure bands may help especially if you think they will help.
And you may get your sea legs quickly, after a day or two, or not at
all.
Some people can take ginger (my mom's remedy was to drink Canada Dry
Ginger Ale (that had real ginger in it), and some can't.
I have had attacks of vertigo which were completely unrelated to the
boat (I was lying in bed in the house and the ceiling was spinning -
and no I had not been drinking) and it has possibly made me more
susceptible.
I personally find that if I lie down and will myself to go to sleep
(which I can do and Bob can't) that I will get over the sick feelings
faster, but Bob doesn't believe that will work because it doesn't work
for him.
grandma Rosalie
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