Motion Sickness

[Red 3]

Can anyone help me?

I have always wanted to be a commercial pilot but suffer from motion sickness. (when it gets turbulent!) I presume that the various drugs/pills you can take for this are banned by the CAA? (as they have various side effects) I have recently seen an advertisement on some US pilot equipment websites for a Relief Band which is worn on the wrist like a watch and produces no side effects. Has anyone heard/tried this?

I would love to hear from anyone about this -
or who suffers from it!!

Cheers!

[Luftwaffle]

Many people find the relief band effective, but just bring sick bags for your first few lessons. Concentrate on flying the airplane whether you are sick or not, and you'll get over the being sick part.

I threw up several times during my initial training but now the sic-sacs in my flight bag are just there for passengers. And as a bonus, I can now read in the back seat of the car, too.

[Bird Strike]

I am not sure if you have felt motion sickness whilst piloting, but if you have only been a passenger, you may find that you're OK as long as you're the pilot.

I think there's something called Sea-band or whatever it's called, that is like a bracelet that you can buy in Boots. It's supposedly quite effective.

[Hew Jampton]

A friend was advised by the medical department of a major airline to drink some fizzy lemonade before flight. It worked. Why don't you ask the CAA Medical Department (assuming you are UK)? They are very helpful.

[This message has been edited by Hew Jampton (edited 09 February 2001).]

[OnTheBug]

Hi Red,

I'm currently half way through my PPL and for the first few lessons I would always be reaching for the bags after about 20 mins.

My instructor said the best option is just to try and stick it out and the feeling will eventually disappear. I've got about 22 hours now and I haven't felt ill in ages. I've also tried the relief band and it seemed to work 50% of the time.

Personally I would recommend the following ..
1) Get plenty of fresh air before you fly and open any air vents in the aircraft to get some cool air flowing.

2) Like Luftwaffle said, concentrate on flying the aircraft. If its a bit bumpy on the day then try and anticipate the odd burst of turbulence, a bit similar to being on a rollercoaster. Look straight ahead and try and not pay too much attention to the instruments and avoid sharp head movements. Try and relax as much as possible and if you do need to power yawn then just do it, forget about it and carry on with the flying.

3) Don't drink for a day or two before your lesson. Even smallest drop of alcohol in your system can make things ten times as worse.

4) As well as the relief band try taking a couple of ginger capsules about an hour before you fly and avoid any greasy food. Try eating a few slices of bread or toast or a bagel as I often find this works very well.

5) When you have your first few lessons, if you feel ill then try and figure out which manoeuvres induce it and avoid them if possible. I was fine with everything apart from steep turns so we didnt do many of them to start off with and gradually introduced them as the lessons went on. Now I actually enjoy doing them which I never thought I would do.

Hope this helps,
OTB

[This message has been edited by OnTheBug (edited 09 February 2001).]

[This message has been edited by OnTheBug (edited 09 February 2001).]

[Frying Dutchman]

Hi all,

I used to feel the same way during my initial training but it sort of went away after a few hours. I find that drinking fizzy drinks does help but tends to make me want to pee at the most inapproriate moment. Maybe my bladder is weak ;)
I also find that drinking coffee tends to increase the severity of motion sickness. Anybody feels the same way?

[Constable Clipcock]

This may sound daft, Red 3, but you may want to invest in a free-spinning barstool-type chair. With one of these conveniently located in your place of residence, you can spend a few minutes every day rotating yourself in it. Once you've given your semi-circular canals a good beating in the yaw-axis, you can repeat the same regimen while tilting your head up and down and side-to-side to induce multi-axis coupling.

I used to get a lot of mileage out of this as a parlor trick, due to the fact that several attacks of labyrinthitis I'd had as a pre-schooler had almost completely burned out the nerves in my semi-circular canals. As a result, it's left me entirely immune to motion sickness, even under the most trying of conditions — the only "down" side of this condition is that my balance lacks any vestige of fine-tuning. I could literally do aerobatics, spins and UA's until the fuel ran out, even when "non-current".

You can similarly "deaden" your inner ears by using the spinning chair technique described previously, or achieve the same result by having an otolaryngologist (ear/nose/throat specialist) introduce a small amount of streptomycin into your labyrinths.

[This message has been edited by Constable Clipcock (edited 10 February 2001).]

[chipped prop]

This is not an unusual problem and advice will come from many individuals who have experienced this problem and have found a remedy.Many years ago a remedy was to chew on mint leaves from the mint plant commonly found even in your own back garden.The main advantage is that when you heave up all over the place it will be bright green and you will be thinking of lamb chops.

[VFE]

I have never felt ill onboard an aircraft but I have on a ship at sea (had a few nightmare storms that took their toll, I can tell you!). I think the best thing is to try and get your body used to it with the above mentioned methods. As motion sickness is mainly a mental state then you should be able to overcome it in time.
The spinning seat sounds fun! http://www.geocities.com/thehugmonster/animations/iconpuke.gif

[OnTheBug]

Here is a link I came across which kind of illustrates the Constable's method for relieving air sickness. It even has a schedule which you can follow.

http://www.nomi.navy.mil/24page.htm

Scroll down until you find 'Self-Paced Airsickness Desensitization (SPAD)' and download 'SPAD PowerPoint97 Presentation (19 slides, 3MB)'.

OTB