I've got a remedy for seasickness. It's a pocean.

June 12, 2020 9:50 PM

In 1838, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet reported that “the best treatment of sea-sickness” would be to place the patient with eyes covered in a hammock slung with long strings and on deck as near the center of the ship as possible. The article added that “if any palliative be given, it should be large doses of ammonia with opium.” It’s sound advice, minus the opium and ammonia.

--The Rolling, Lurching, Vomit-Inducing Road to a Seasickness Cure
posted by MoonOrb (48 comments total)

Wow thanks for sharing that article and thanks especially for sharing Hakai Magazine, which looks to be a beautiful endeavor worth following!
posted by notyou at 11:35 PM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

This is a great article, although the video clips made me worry I would get motion sick.

I would have liked more discussion about motion sickness from video games and movies.
posted by suelac at 11:44 PM on June 12, 2020

The style of the article left me a bit twee-sick.
posted by jenkinsEar at 3:44 AM on June 13, 2020 [2 favorites]

Sea-sickness will just almost fucking kill you. The fact that it won't take that last swipe and relieve you of the agony is what makes it all the more vicious. If you've ever been properly sea-sick then the idea of staying on Iceland (an otherwise barren, unpopulated island, rather than get back in that fucking boat, makes perfect sense.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:56 AM on June 13, 2020 [20 favorites]

My ex father-in-law found out he had severe seasickness when he was taken on a deep-sea fishing trip for his birthday. He had to be taken to the ER for rehydration.

I've never been on anything like heavy seas so I don't know if I would be affected that badly, but I often got miserably carsick as a kid. Especially if I tried to read. And I definitely remember my whole family taking a puddle jumper plane once and all getting queasy.

I hope they find a treatment/device/cure eventually because I'd pay a lot never to feel like that again, and I'd love to go out in the ocean without fear.
posted by emjaybee at 6:39 AM on June 13, 2020 [2 favorites]

I've had mild car sickness, but that has never been nearly as bad the time that I got full-on seasickness on an open ocean ferry crossing. (If nothing else, in a car you can pull over and get out; when you are at sea, you are stuck for the duration.) That was about the worst I have ever felt, for the several hours that it lasted. At some point I guess my body adjusted and I didn't get sick again on that trip, but I felt spacey and lightheaded for a day or so.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:59 AM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

Weirdly I have been on many boats and never get seasick but if you put me in the back of a moving car for more than 5 minutes I WILL get carsick. It’s awful. Back in the pre-Covid era whenever I would take an Uber or Lyft I would always ask the driver if I could sit up front with them, and when they looked weirded out by my request I would say “well either I sit up front or you hand me a barf bag, your call”.







...I would FUCKING LOVE to be cured of this.
posted by Doleful Creature at 7:26 AM on June 13, 2020 [2 favorites]

My worst seasickness ever? - while working 12 hour shifts on a tiny Great Lakes drilling barge. I got yelled at by the boss for moving too slow and also received quiet threats of violence from co-workers for same.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:37 AM on June 13, 2020 [2 favorites]

Interesting stuff. I have only been seasick once, during what most of us who aren't open sea sailors would consider quite rough seas. But lately I have been trying to watch the POV videos Kenji López-Alt has been shooting during the lockdown. He uses a GoPro mounted to a headband, and the rapid changes in perspective as he whirls around his kitchen give me virtual motion sickness that is fairly mild but nevertheless strong enough that it can make watching them unpleasant.
posted by slkinsey at 8:46 AM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have terrible motion sickness, and the only thing that has worked is (prescribed) scopolamine patches, which aren't covered by my insurance, but I could at least get them from a CVS Minute Clinic after a quick consultation (so I could take a snorkeling boat trip the next day). I don't know that they actually "fix the brain's problem", per se, but they effectively suppress the nausea/vomiting aspect, as long as you apply one behind your ear at least 24 hours in advance. I thought it was odd that these weren't mentioned in the article? It's not at all the same as OTC remedies.
posted by unknowncommand at 8:48 AM on June 13, 2020 [3 favorites]

When it came to reading on the bus, acclimatization worked for me. I couldn't do it at first but I gradually worked at it, until I could read with no problems at all. That was years ago, so I imagine I'm back to square one now.
posted by storybored at 9:00 AM on June 13, 2020

Before VR-induced motion sickness, before the wide-screen cinema, we had binocular microscopes with movable stages. A couple of hours doing cell-counts in a haemocytometer where you need to always be moving the stage while tracking what cells you’ve counted visually will make you sick as a dog and since you’re only doing it half the day you never get habituated. (No, you can’t always just use metabolic assays or turbidity)
I used to take hyoscine, since I never had to do it for more than a few days in a row, but a friend in the next lab had to quit her side-gig dissecting out hair follicles for transplant as it was ruining her life.
These days I imagine they just use computer vision (or some sort of plate-feeder for a flow cytometer) for cell counts, but someone with a strong stomach and a pressing need for cash is likely still suffering for male vanity.
posted by memetoclast at 9:09 AM on June 13, 2020 [3 favorites]

Apparently early French torpedo boats (late 19th century) rolled so much the crews were severely hindered and almost unable to eat on board. I wouldn't have been a sailor: I got seasick just reading this post.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:13 AM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm a puker. Cannot read in a car, boat rides in waves, (especially slow trolling,) I know I am going to see the color of bile. Airplane? I have a pilots license but coming back to land from practicing spins I made the terrible mistake of looking over my shoulder in a turn and when I looked forward the world had gone swirly. I had Vertigo and Nystagmus. Fortunately for me I was with another pilot and he could land the plane. Otherwise I think I would have been ok just flying around concentrating on the planes relationship to the horizon and ignoring the way the world would swirl one way and than snap back before swirling again. I don't know, definitely I would have had to avoid panic. On landing....prodigious projectile vomiting but no more swirling.

Reading the sailor forums there is a drug that comes up, (cannot remember it's name,) that people say is super effective but when I looked it up it isn't approved in the USA and one of it's potential side effects is drug induced Parkinson's. So pick your poison.

I do not want to imagine what it is like having chronic Vertigo, can you imagine being seasick ALL THE TIME! God bless those people.
posted by Pembquist at 9:25 AM on June 13, 2020

I can't find it online to show you, but at Mystic Seaport there's a whaling ship with a little bitty cabin dead center on the top deck that is specifically for the captain's wife who suffered from seasickness but had to go with them anyway. I would imagine the whale rendering smell would not help the seasickness.

Personally, I don't get motion sick unless the boat is jogging up and down so much that you have to hold on to something when you're sitting down. I'm very, very lucky.
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:55 AM on June 13, 2020

I believe the drug I was thinking of is Cinnarizine which is not available in the USA.
posted by Pembquist at 9:55 AM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

I don’t get nauseous, and have always been able to read in the car for long periods with no problems.

However I do get very sleepy in cars, and have gotten similarly sleepy on two open-ocean ferries and one fjord-boat. For two of those, Mr. Nat was with me, and he got seasick. From the boat in an Alaskan fjord, he had taken Dramamine before so he was ok but having some side effects— I was just very tired. We have a picture where I look a little ill, but it was because I was too tired to smile properly.

So maybe I *do* get symptoms, but I go straight to the “shouldn’t operate heavy machinery” stage. I guess it’s actually convenient as an overnight ferry passenger.
posted by nat at 10:16 AM on June 13, 2020 [5 favorites]

I’m OK until suddenly I’m not, then I’m down—literally cannot walk—for hours. It’s like a switch flips in my head. Strangely boats are fine but I can’t ride amusement park rides at all. I blame repeated childhood ear infections, but who knows?
posted by sjswitzer at 10:17 AM on June 13, 2020

Your body has three tools that work together to keep track of its position: vision, proprioceptive feedback (muscles, skin, and joints), and the vestibular system in your inner ears. Your eyes and muscles respond to the immediate environment. Your muscles, skin, and joints, meanwhile, keep track of what you’re feeling as you move along. Your inner ears detect circular and linear motion, and they cross-check with each other to tell you where up and down are and how you’re moving, plus they stabilize your vision.

Interestingly, the Gallaudet Eleven were impervious to motion sickness owing to differences in their vestibular systems.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:19 AM on June 13, 2020 [5 favorites]

I am sufficiently susceptible that when I do go out on a boat (like a 40-minute ferry ride in rough seas last summer), I am truly dedicated to managing it. I take the Dramamine, I sit somewhere I can see out, and I keep my eyes locked on something big on the horizon (like a hillside or something). It worked well enough that when I went whale-watching a few years ago I managed not to get sick while all the young people I was with did -- but then I saw very few of the whales. :D

It's all a big shame, because when I was a kid I could read in the back of the car for hours. Now I'm a podcast/audiobook fan because I take the local bus and I can't read anything during my commute.
posted by suelac at 11:00 AM on June 13, 2020

I occasionally get a little woozy and salivate (as if preparing to puke) if I’m in the passenger’s seat of a car and try to read. But once I stop reading, it clears up swiftly.

In contrast, I learned to my chagrin while boating with friends on the Mediterranean that I experience a strange manifestation of seasickness called “sopite syndrome”.

As long as our boat was under way, and the oscillations due to the waves were shorter frequency, I had no problem. But once the engine was cut, and the boat started rolling with the waves, the most intense, irresistible sleepiness overwhelmed me. I literally could not keep my eyes open. It was like I’d been given a sedative. My brain just decided “it’s time for you to be asleep now”.

No nausea or vomiting or anything like that. But I had to lie down in a cabin and close my eyes until the engines were turned on again, after which the symptoms passed quickly. Closest thing to “flipping a sleep switch” I’ve ever encountered outside of medical anesthesia.
posted by darkstar at 12:05 PM on June 13, 2020 [7 favorites]

I don’t get nauseous, and have always been able to read in the car for long periods with no problems.

However I do get very sleepy in cars, and have gotten similarly sleepy on two open-ocean ferries and one fjord-boat.

I think you're really onto something here, nat.

For me there has always been some weird connection between inner ear problems and sleep, but I didn't put it together until I read your comment. I had terrible ear infections as a baby, so bad they were treated with X-rays on my left side, and I've never had trouble with motion sickness or seasickness, but it's very hard for me to stay awake in a car or airplane, or on a boat.

When I was 14, I had sharp and excruciating left ear pain one night up in my bedroom in the early evening, and it was all I could do to make it onto the bed before I fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning I felt fine – good even, but there was a lot of blood on the pillow and sheets, and my ear was full of dried blood and something that felt like sand. It didn't occur to me to tell anyone or worry about it, but in retrospect my balance may never have been quite the same.

I think it must have something to do with the feeling of falling through empty space I often feel when I fall asleep (I wonder how many other languages characterize sleep as a 'fall'), which seems likely to result from the mechanism for blocking sensations from the body to allow for undisturbed sleep, which, when it comes to the ear, is a lot like the sensation of the lack of pressure due to gravity from the tiny gravel in the inner ear resulting from free fall (the beginning of free fall, anyway; I haven't experierienced it, but doesn't reaching terminal velocity restore those sensations?).

So I'm guessing that some people, such as you and me, have learned to avoid motion sickness by invoking the sensation blocking mechanisms which prepare people for sleep — and along those lines, I've noticed that if I deliberately rumble my ears for more than just a few seconds, I'll have to fight off a powerful wave of sleepiness no matter what time of day it is.
posted by jamjam at 12:29 PM on June 13, 2020 [2 favorites]

Interesting, darkstar, I should have looked at your comment before posting!
posted by jamjam at 12:31 PM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

Interesting read, that explained many things I've been thinking about. I don't get seasick, ever. I was born in Denmark, but moved to England as a small child, and back then you didn't fly, you went by boat over the North Sea. It was always family legend that my brother and I were never sick on the notoriously crappy routes between Denmark and England, but the article here says small kids aren't. We probably got our "sea legs" from going back and forth and having a great time while everyone else were barfing. Generally Denmark had tons of ferries and boats, so even when we moved back here, we kept on having to go by boat many places, and the pattern continued. We played while everyone else was sick.

On the other hand, I get carsick. Not so much after I was about 12, when I learnt to sleep when in a car. I sleep so heavily I don't notice anything around me. You can't do that when you are the driver, but now I know why I am incredibly tired after each longer trip in a car. I try to not drive before a workday, if I can, because like darkstar, I can hardly stay awake when I have driven for more than an hour. I prefer cutting a route with a ferry trip, even if it is slower and more expensive, to driving for more than 2 hours in one stretch.
posted by mumimor at 12:32 PM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

BTW, about the opium and ammonia, it's not as crazy as it sounds. There is a cough syrup here based on that combination, naturally with tiny amounts of the poison, and the point of it is that it lets you sleep through.
posted by mumimor at 12:34 PM on June 13, 2020

I don't want to lord it over all of you--it's mainly me marveling at the one thing that works right in my body/mind amidst so much else--but I just don't get motion sick. Car sickness, air sickness, sea sickness...they just don't exist for me. I have no idea how that happened.

Mrs. Example, who gets nauseated trying to read on the bus and threw up on our honeymoon flight just as we were landing, hates me a little bit for this, and fair enough.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 12:42 PM on June 13, 2020

Word of advice for the Scopolamine
patches, I was having a rough go of it, got one , and promptly like an idiot touched my eye. Scopamine is used in very very tiny amounts to dialate eyes. Having one eye dialated for weeks did not help my motion sickness at all. I'm still bitter.
posted by AlexiaSky at 1:04 PM on June 13, 2020 [9 favorites]

if any palliative be given, it should be large doses of ammonia with opium.

just don't combine that with bleach
posted by thelonius at 1:13 PM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

Years ago I worked on a survey ship, almost everyone does acclimatise after a couple of days at sea, but one thing I found out is that, although the company ran a fleet of several ships, they would almost never switch people from one ship to another. Every ship has it's own rhythm, once you have gotten used to one then switching can be worse than the sea sickness of someone who has never sailed.

Once I got off the ship after 4 weeks at sea and felt dizzy standing on solid ground, I was so used to the constant movement.
posted by Lanark at 1:52 PM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

it’s possible someone reading this thread is wondering ‘does the nausea induced by a night of drinking to excess cancel out the nausea induced by seasickness, in a manner akin to the destructive interference of an antiphase sound wave?’

it does not

you’re welcome
posted by inire at 3:05 PM on June 13, 2020 [11 favorites]

I really think the opium is being under-rated here.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:13 PM on June 13, 2020 [6 favorites]

i would also like to acknowledge the nauseating pun in the post title, since everyone else has been too polite
posted by inire at 3:21 PM on June 13, 2020 [7 favorites]

I awoke from hip replacement surgery with full-on, severe seasickness as a reaction to the opioids given prior. I’d been susceptible to motion-sickness my whole life (and call BS on the statement that kids under six can’t get it) so I know the symptoms all too well. It was so awful I forewent opioids for my entire recovery. I only share this to illustrate that the sleep-depriving agony of a fresh skeletal surgery was still preferable to feeling seasick.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:53 PM on June 13, 2020 [2 favorites]

Opioids will definitely induce nausea on their own if you take too much or you are sensitive. You may care less about it, however.
posted by atoxyl at 8:32 PM on June 13, 2020

Sopite syndrome. Huh, it has a name.

I have actually fallen asleep while driving (I was lucky in that the resulting crash was slow speed so everyone was ok). But I just thought I hadn’t slept enough. (This was over thirty years ago now). Never thought it could have been a weirdo form of motion sickness. (Note to any other drivers who experience this: don’t drive alone. If you have to, take frequent breaks and don’t be afraid to pull over and nap if needed. )
posted by nat at 4:38 AM on June 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

This article was great, explained the science behind my puking in my rain boots as a 10 year old on our Sunday drives while my younger siblings were unaffected. I’m still a featherweight when it comes to boats, the high speed catamarans in Thailand were the only time I seriously contemplated suicide.
posted by furtive at 8:40 AM on June 14, 2020

Oddly enough it was my lack of inclination towards motion sickness of any sort (and I've been on 30 foot boat in 5-7 foot seas [scary but not sick from motion], helicopters, large and small planes, and reading in the backseats of vehicles forevermore amen, no camel rides though...) coupled with my wife's moderate-to-high level of susceptibility (even feels it on cruise ships, can't read/smartphone in a car at all without risking it, any vehicle is a potential adventure, etc) that really taught me about empathy and sympathy.

I mean, she's identified (and I don't say that lightly, DrMsEld is a licensed clinical psychologist) me as being on/near the autism spectrum or with tendencies from the same so, grain of salt and all that... but my point is that I had no empathy and, consequentially, my sympathy for folks who were seasick on a trip or fishing or in the car was quite low. I had a strong tendency to assume it was a wrong choice or wrong *thing* the person was doing somehow because, I mean, I was fine and had no idea why reading in a car or being on a boat in 2 foot or less seas could possibly cause anyone any trouble. It made no sense.

I guess I'm taking y'all around the world to describe how, after seeing my wife (a tough cookie) suffer, without fail or relief, it led me to the sympathy in that situation which, and this may be silly or sound like an overstatement took me down a road that now lets me, most times and I'm trying to improve even more, be sympathetic for lots of conditions that I can't empathize with like mental illness, persecution for sexual identity or preference, religious beliefs, or consequences of a different environment / background in general.

Seasickness sucks. I'm sorry for y'all. I'm very grateful for my mild superpower of not being susceptible.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:25 AM on June 15, 2020

I've spent a rather great deal of time on boats (was in the navy, scuba dove, fished, sailed, etc) so I can confidently say I've never been seasick. I read, sleep, etc in cars and I've rode a camel. Three of my brothers were also in the Navy, two are largely the same and the the last is the opposite and hated every minute at sea. My sister, Mom and Dad were more in the middle, sick for a bit but generally fairly quick to adapt.

But I totally get motion sick from video sources, walked out of Blair Witch 10 minutes in, hated early FPS games unless I was in control etc. So whatever it is that saves me from being seasick doesn't translate to video.
posted by cirhosis at 8:47 AM on June 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Reading in car backseat/bus/airplane/train, no problem. Overnight ferries when you had to keep one hand holding your dinner plate so it wouldn't slide off the table, shrug. Cruise ship passing through the tail end of a hurricane in which a vending machine toppled over, why isn't that thing bolted to the wall? Pitching, rolling in a 30' sailboat, whee. Same sailboat in a 10 on the Beaufort Scale mid-ocean, yep, scary. Same sailboat during a small craft advisory near land, yaw and surge combined into a corkscrew motion, head in bucket, heaving up breakfast.

So my theory is there are degrees of tolerance but the right combination will get you sooner or later.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:49 AM on June 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm very grateful for my mild superpower of not being susceptible.
... I could make you barf. Not in a malicious way, but (in the spirit of ridiculous wagers about pointless things) is wager you at least five, maybe even a dozen X‘s That given the right conditions (44 foot Beneteau Oceanis (sailboat) in 2-3 Meter seas with a fairly shallow pitch/long wavelength starting before dawn and lasting, well, until everyone was reduced to tears and we made the collective decision that we would head for the nearest harbor) that you, too, could feel the desire to scrape out your insides and put them in a freezer ...or maybe just run the fucking boat up onto the beach or... anything to stop it from moving.
Kind of expensive to test, but as mentioned upthread, each boat moves differently and somewhere out there is a boat whose motion is pretty much guaranteed to make you cry
posted by From Bklyn at 9:05 AM on June 15, 2020

I don't get motion sickness.

Except for that one time...

Stuffed in the boot of an SUV with fifty packs of dried fish, shrimp and prawn crackers for company, traveling the winding road that goes over Malaysia's central mountain range. That was rough. That fishy smell haunts me to this day.
posted by dazed_one at 11:55 AM on June 15, 2020

I hate to give such a direct demonstration of how out of touch I am, but do very many parents have actual rocking cradles these days?

In light of this thread I'm wondering whether you could give your kid some resistance to seasickness and motion sickness in general by using one.
posted by jamjam at 12:05 PM on June 15, 2020

do very many parents have actual rocking cradles these days?

they fell out of fashion due to their tendency to produce tiny ahabs

what parent has not at 3 a.m. gazed upon their howling progeny and heard sleep? that bed is a coffin, and those are winding sheets. i do not sleep, i die (or wails to that effect)
posted by inire at 12:40 PM on June 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

I could make you barf.

Oh, I don't doubt it but I've never been keen on sailboat outings, just the occasional deep sea trip when buddy had a boat or a family charter every half decade or so or an island ferry or various other modes of transportation. I've heard catamarans, when stationary, are also prone to a particular frequency of movement that can make folks puke. Closest I can compare is a 30 foot Grady White in gentle but still pushing 6 foot seas, we quit fishing as they were building and began the trek home, wasn't fun per se but my stomach butterflies were for safety reasons, not motion. I'm also not heading out into a perfect storm if I can help it nor crossing a major cape/horn/whatever nor going out crabbing in the North Sea or anything so, well, I doubt it'll ever be put to a much more serious test than the above. I'm just happy to be immune in all cases I've run into thus far and I'm less a landlubber than many.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:09 PM on June 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

For all of my fellow motion-sickness sufferers: if you've not tried it, ask your healthcare practitioner about Valoid (Cyclizine). It changed my life.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:07 AM on June 16, 2020

I didn't know I got seasick until about 30 minutes into a 4 hour deep sea fishing trip. One of my biggest fears is throwing up. I will do all I can to avoid it. I would rather be sick all day than throw up once and feel better. So when I get seasick I fight the hell out of it. Luckily I haven't actually puked (and it's not like that makes it better anyways). As long as the boat is moving, I'm fine. As soon as it sits and we start rocking, I'm laying down inside with my eyes closed. I am also a very cold person and one time went on a boat trip that had a break in a small cove with super cold water. I would rather freeze in the water than get back on that fucking boat.

Luckily, my seasickness is not that bad. Big boats are better than smaller, as long as we're moving it's fine. Lakes and river trips are no problem. But those big ocean waves are killer.

I have a friend who is EXTREMELY car sick. Essentially if she's not driving she has to be asleep or she will get sick. It's really disappointing that road trips are such hell for her. :(
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:53 AM on June 16, 2020

I've been lucky enough to be on that exact same beautiful wooden boat motoring up the Eyja Fjord, whale-watching with Enkigirl. We were advised that the seas that day were a bit higher than normal, with the wording used emphasizing that it was perfectly safe and no danger expected, but that we might feel some mild seasickness.

Every living thing on that boat got seasick, even the professional whalespotter.

My seasickness was mild enough that I could gulp a cup of cocoa and try an Icelandic twisted doughnut, but by the end of the hourslong tour I was ready to jump overboard and swim back to the harbor. Enkigirl was legendarily ill and swore off boat-based whale-watching for life, a promise she has kept to this day only by taxonomical exception: whale sharks are sharks and not whales so she could hop on a boat to see them honor intact.
posted by Enkidude at 9:05 AM on June 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

they fell out of fashion due to their tendency to produce tiny ahabs

what parent has not at 3 a.m. gazed upon their howling progeny and heard sleep? that bed is a coffin, and those are winding sheets. i do not sleep, i die (or wails to that effect)

So the great white whale was actually his mother? And he was mad at her for letting him cry it out when he woke up hungry in the middle of the night instead of picking him up and nursing him?

I knew there were things about that book I wasn't getting!!
posted by jamjam at 8:09 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]