motion sickness issue

korben88

korben88

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Just wondering if there is anything to combat motion sickness when flying.
 
For non-pilots, I give them dramamine. I've never had someone get sick if I give them that about 45 minutes before takeoff. That said I've never had someone I've given dramamine not fall asleep during the flight. Not something you can or would want to take as a pilot.

For pilots, the best thing is to fly a lot. I struggled with motion sickness a LOT when I first started flying...lost my lunch after more than one lesson and once during a lesson.

It was really an ongoing issue for me from time to time until I started flight instructing. I haven't had it happen in years now.

My girlfriend enjoys flying but gets nervous and sick very easily if there is any turbulence. Dramamine really does the trick..knocks her out completely though..she won't even wake up during the landing.
 
I have never been airsick, but I have gotten seasick before.

If I think I am going to have a passenger get sick, then I hand out the LARGE barf bags...the big blue ones that are marked in ounces on the side. Keep them involved somehow, like looking for a specific landmark or just holding the map so I can see it. (pay no attention to that big GPS in front of me) I also open the air vents no matter how cold it is outside. Talk, yell, anything to distract them from thinking BARF.

Try putting a rubber band on their wrist. Have them snap it occasionally and tell them that it will keep them from getting air sick. (mind over matter)

And keep the big blue barf bags handy, cause if one goes, others may follow.

And after all that, I have never had anyone toss the cookies on one of my flights. Pizza, beer, tacos, milkshakes and seafood, but never cookies.
 
Never actually vomited but I have been queasy when it's just gross hot and rought like driving in a cornfield across the rows.
 
The cure is simple.
A LOT more flight time.
Same for boats.
You acclimate.
The time can be shortened by taking akro instruction.
 
It is my experience and understanding that people have different sensitivity to motion sickness. Similarly, all the "cures" you'll hear about will have different effectiveness. For example, for me, taking acro lessons would be a great way to completely kill any flying enjoyment.

Things that helped me (and I'm still subject to motion sickness):

1) Be rested

2) figure out how not to be stressed/nervous about flying or life in general before flying

3) good ventilation in the cabin - a hot stuffy cabin is a bad idea.

4) Acclimation - the more you fly, the more you'll understand you'll survive (you'll also understand how tired you can get when being bounced around and plan accordingly)

5) those wrist band things help some people - didn't help me at all

6) learn to avoid the worst of it

btw - one way to experience light to mod turbulence in a relatively stress-free way is to fly with a CFI. That can be used as your backup and still give you experience doing the flying chores


and good luck - hope you get to avoid the two worst stages of motion sickness.
 
Try this... it really works... Based on a mythbusters episode involving Ginger as a solution... Eat 5 ginger snap cookies... I've had great success with that... no kidding!
 
Also, looking at fixed objects in space, which is what you should be doing anyway mostly when you're flying VFR can help a lot. Same reason why some people get carsick as a passenger but not as the driver - they either have their head in a book or they are fixated on something inside the car, which is moving.
 
This is a question I have been trying to resolve since I started flying a few years ago.
I still get sick in some situations, stalls, turbulence etc. I have had several CFI and others try to help, but nothing works.

My wife uses the bands called Sea Bands and never gets sick, me I tried and still do.

So finding something that works has been elusive this far.
 
DaytonaLynn said:
This is a question I have been trying to resolve since I started flying a few years ago.
I still get sick in some situations, stalls, turbulence etc. I have had several CFI and others try to help, but nothing works.

My wife uses the bands called Sea Bands and never gets sick, me I tried and still do.

So finding something that works has been elusive this far.
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How often do you fly? Unless I'm flying a couple hundred hours a year the motion sickness will start to come back.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Also, looking at fixed objects in space, which is what you should be doing anyway mostly when you're flying VFR can help a lot. Same reason why some people get carsick as a passenger but not as the driver - they either have their head in a book or they are fixated on something inside the car, which is moving.
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It's important to look at fixed objects in the direction you're going with as much field of view as possible.

Looking at objects on the ground out the side window through a camera viewfinder or binoculars is just about the worst thing you can do.

A few weeks ago, I was at an airborne photography training event at SAC. It was hot and windy in the afternoon. Every last one of the afternoon photographers came back with a tub full of puke.
 
Almost puked on a hot flight ... summer west Texas. Taking off to meet family in Carlsbad NM (1 hour away) with dog. Dog in back farts during climbout, and the smell it SO bad I'm looking for solids and trying to ventilate the smell out.

If air temp in cockpit it semi-cool, I've never had a problem.
 
for pilots: fly more - seriously. Being at the controls makes a huge difference.

for non-pilots: scopolamine patches if they have 6 or 12 hours notice before the flight and are willing to go get a prescription (this stuff works very well and is highly worth getting a scrip if they're going to be flying multiple times). Bonine (meclizine) as needed if not.

Scientific data on magnets and acupressure and other witch doctor home remedies show that they are no better than placebo effect. Data is not the plural of anecdote as they say.
 
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Ginger pills and wrist bands. :thumbsup:
 
danhagan said:
Almost puked on a hot flight ... summer west Texas. Taking off to meet family in Carlsbad NM (1 hour away) with dog. Dog in back farts during climbout, and the smell it SO bad I'm looking for solids and trying to ventilate the smell out.

If air temp in cockpit it semi-cool, I've never had a problem.
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That is just too funny..!!! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Also eat bananas about 30 minutes before flight.

They won't stop air sickness but bananas taste the same coming out as they did going in....
 
Flying in Albuquerque, I dealt with motion sickness quite a bit. My secret was SeaBand. Its a gimmick, and I'm 99% sure it was psychosomatic, but it worked.

Eventually, I didn't need it anymore.
 
Seabands are easy and simply work. $10 at CVS. That's all you'll need.
 
Placebo or not, as someone with horrible motion sickness since childhood, I have to say that taking ginger prior to flying has worked wonders for me. And that's as a passenger, where I have no control over the plane, which makes a huge difference in itself.
 
petrolero said:
for non-pilots: scopolamine patches if they have 6 or 12 hours notice before the flight and are willing to go get a prescription (this stuff works very well and is highly worth getting a scrip if they're going to be flying multiple times). Bonine (meclizine) as needed if not.
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My recommendation is to avoid Scopolamine for first time users of this drug. My wife had serious halutionations, a noted side effect, that last for several days. In the ER she thought she was in our living room. It took a couple of days to get out of her system. She was using it to counter nausea for medications she was taking at the time.
Denis
 
Guess I am lucky, never had motion sickness never been sea sick. Don't carry barf bags in the plane, 20 years taking folks up to sight see, never had a passenger get sick.

Hope my lucky streak keeps going.
 
All excellent advice. thanks guys.
I'll try the seaband and the ginger snaps because ginger snaps are yummy.

I did notice I get sick when doing ground reference maneuvers so the act of looking out the side and back at guages probably has a lot to do with it.

My plan is to keep flying and take a bucket. I really don't feel like shampooing the carpet a second time
 
Take dramamine the night before a flight it will still be in your system the next day without any sleep effects.
 
Airsickness stopped me in my tracks at UPT. Just about everybody had it at first and the Air Force actually issued drugs for it for the first few flights. Most got over it but it was a continuing battle for me. I had my PPL and about 100 hours going in without much of a problem other then some queasiness for the first flight or two but my GA experience just didn't help when it came to the extreme maneuvers in an aerobatic jet, especially with a mask on. That just killed me, made it claustrophobic. I eventually self medicated with Dramamine for a while and it did help but eventually I realized I couldn't rely on that stuff forever and furthermore, it was unauthorized and I could get in trouble as they did do random drug tests. That led to an "airsickness episode" right before solo out. After my last flight, I still remember a Lt. Colonel explaining to me that although I was very close to where I needed to be, if they let me keep going and I made it through the T-37 training, I would run into the same problems again, except worse, with the T-38.
 
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I once rented a 172 right after a "discovery flight" in which the male (in the back seat for the outbound leg) was going to propose to the female who was sitting in the front right seat. The plan was to stop at an airport, propose, and then switch seats for the ride home.

The flight was around 1300 on a warm July afternoon. Big mistake. On the outbound flight (actually they never made it to the other airport) in typical Midwestern light afternoon turbulence, the bride-to-be blew chow (basically her entire lunch) at the panel, including the radio stack.

The proposal was cancelled.

The CFI did his best to try to clean it up, but I could smell it before I even popped my head in the door for the preflight.

I walked away, and didn't fly that plane for a month until I felt comfortable it was cleaned.
 
I'll add to the ginger pills, no side effects usually helps most people. I used to deckhand offshore on charter boats and ginger for sure helps most people. After a while of taking it every time you get to where you don't even think about motion sickness anymore. Worrying about it makes it worse.
 
Ginger and peppermint oil candies. It works for me. When doing ground maneuvers I pop a peppermint in. It does need to actually have the oil in it as I don't get any soothing from just the flavor.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
korben88 said:
Just wondering if there is anything to combat motion sickness when flying.
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There's a saying at sea, "Nobody gets seasick for more than three days. You get over it, or you die.":lol: There's a lot of new directions you bounce around in when in a 3D fluid environment. It takes some getting used to, and being nervous in the beginning doesn't help anything either. The best protection is bananas. Bananas taste the same both directions, are smooth, and don't burn when they go through your sinuses. Avoid coffee unless it has a bunch of milk and sugar in it. Keeping your sugar up is a good thing in dealing with it, so is keeping air flowing in your face. With time it pretty much goes away. The thing is, as PIC, you have to be able to puke and control the plane at the same time. This is possible BTW, trim is a wonderful thing. When I was early in training aerobatics, I made myself puke a lot.:lol:
 
While I have thankfully never suffered form airsickness, some guy named Bob Hoover did. I think he got over it. I guess flying upside down helps.
 
Motion sickness is derived from fear...

Some even prone to it....that have no fear easily manage.

Experience lessens the fear....not so much "getting used to it" as much as your fears get lessened with each experience in a boat or a plane and you gain more confidence.

Anti motion sickness remedies sure help in the early stages.
 
TEFLONSEAN said:
Motion sickness is derived from fear...

Some even prone to it....that have no fear easily manage.

Experience lessens the fear....not so much "getting used to it" as much as your fears get lessened with each experience in a boat or a plane and you gain more confidence.

Anti motion sickness remedies sure help in the early stages.
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There's way more to motion sickness than fear. There is also a disconnect between what the inner ear feels and the eyes see. Tha ability to have positive G load at any orientation to the visual horizon, especially when one is stable and the other dynamic, is the basis of most motion sickness.
 
I grew up in Florida and always got sick on boats - as soon as we lost sight of land. Years later, someone turned me on to the behind-the-ear patch. All I can say is that, for the first time in my life, I could sit on the bow of a bobbing boat and eat a sandwich with no problem. I'm a huge believer in the patch. Don't know about long-term/repeated use though.
 
I am prone to motion sickness and I also overheat quickly. My first flight ended with me barfing into a baggie. Sea bands and a fully open vent help now.
 
The other old saying about sea sickness I've always heard was, "first you're afraid you'll die... then, you're afraid you WON'T!" :D <-- notice I'm turning green as I watch the horizon and grin nervously.

To the OP, others have hit the high points but I think seat time in the plane is the best cure. Keep plenty of cool air blowing on your face and keep flying. Only time I was airsick was my very first lesson. I seem to recall doing stalls over and over. :rolleyes2: Someone said "fear", I don't think it's so much fear as the surprise of unexpected motion. That's why everything is better if you're the one steering. That holds true in boats, planes, and cars.

Henning said:
There's a saying at sea, "Nobody gets seasick for more than three days. You get over it, or you die.":lol:
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noobJohn said:
Someone said "fear", I don't think it's so much fear as the surprise of unexpected motion.
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This calls up a very clear memory of mine the last time I was up:

* It was in the early afternoon in September and I was well within altitudes where thermal activity was a given.
* I was transitioning from flying over a lake to flying over plowed / semi-plowed cornfields.
* I was in an aircraft I was just getting used to.

The first couple of times I felt the floor of the aircraft drop out from under me (dropped a couple of feet doing ~110 KIAS) was a bit jarring. Then after about five or six of them in a row I was done.

I'm looking at going up this week (during the morning) -- looking forward to a better experience this time.
 
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