Many of the options for seasickness are simply desperate attempts to try SOMETHING that will work. They say when you get seasick, first you fear that you might die, then you fear that you won’t. As others have said, seasickness is a serious condition and the risk for dehydration is high – you must stay hydrated. The fact that you stay sick once you return to land makes me think you may have a sinus or ear infection, as someone else has noted. You should get it checked out. Motion sickness usually stops as soon as the motion stops.
What’s the first thing we are told to do upon entering a life raft? Take seasick tablets so we don’t get dehydrated and so we are able to do our part in the rescue. Being incapacitated doesn’t help anybody.
After running passenger vessels for many years I have seen all sorts of seasickness remedies and here’s what I have learned:
(1) Dramamine – buy it over the counter, active ingredient is dimenhydramine which can make you drowsy and for some people it doesn’t do the trick.
(2) Bonine – OTC as well, active ingredient is meclizine which works better for some people. Can get non-drowsy formula but all of these will make you tired. Counteract with caffeine, if possible. Also important to take before you start feeling sick, maybe 1/2 hour before departure. They make a 24-hour chewable kind that seems to work even after feeling sick. Just chew 1/2 a tablet every 12 hours to reduce drowsiness.
(3) Phenergan – active ingredient is promethazine. Similar to others.
(4) Marezine – active ingredient is cyclizine, similar to scopolamine (AKA, the patch – see below).
(5) Ginger root – As others have pointed out, it’s the one natural remedy that seems to work.
(6) The patch – this was developed for astronauts and is available by prescription. The active ingredient is Scopolamine (Transderm Scop) and back in the early days when they were still working out the correct dosage we saw some crazy side effects, like a 70+ year-old woman flipping out and tearing a cabin apart with her bare hands. This doesn’t seem to happen anymore. It disappeared from view for a while until they got this sorted out. You wear it behind your ear and the drug is absorbed through your skin in a controlled dose. Effects last for 3 days and it must be started 6-8 hours before departure.
(7) Soda crackers and ginger ale – both soothe your stomach and the soda absorbs stomach bile. Besides – this is what Mom gave you as a kid, remember? There’s that ginger again, but the amount of ginger present is ginger ale is extremely tiny. If you have access to real ginger beer from Jamaica you will see the difference!
(8) Lying down, staring at the horizon, avoiding alcohol and greasy foods, getting good ventilation – all of these are useful in minor cases but will do nothing for severe seasickness like this guy is talking about.
(9) Bands – these are flexible bands you wear around the wrist. They have little beads embedded in the fabric that operate on pressure points on your wrist. You can do the same thing by pressing lightly on the spot between the two major tendons in the inside of your wrist, about 1 1/2" up from the heel of your hand. It works for some, not for others, maybe determined by how much you BELIEVE. Also it’s difficult on your own to keep this pressure up for long. Acupressure enthusiasts insist it works.
(10) Peppermint – Soothes the stomach, sucking peppermint candies can help but the real dosage you need comes from taking an extract 2-3 times per day. It comes in an enteric-coated tablet so you don’t taste it.
I first went to sea at age 11 and the cook from Anguilla told me to splash my face with rum and hold a lime under my left armpit. It didn’t work.
Getting seasick has nothing to do with your sailing ability or the size of your cojones. One of the greatest seamen ever, Lord Horatio Nelson, hero of the Napoleanic Wars, reportedly suffered from seasickness his entire career. I don’t know if that’s encouraging or just the opposite.
