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Motion Sickness Relief

I have always had motion sickness issues. I can't go on any of the "spinny" rides at the amusement park. On my first soaring hang gliding flight (first flight over 15 minutes) I started to feel really bad and eventually vomited. I eventually gave up hang gliding partly due to the rotten feeling I would get on any non-trivial flight.

Head Motion

Nausea can easily be made worse by too much head movement or looking in the wrong place during a turn. You help delay the onset or severity of nausea by using minimal or slow head movements, looking to the inside of a turn, and never looking down during a turn.

Ginger

Several people have had success eating various forms of ginger such as ginger root pills. Even ginger snaps (commercial cookies or biscuits) have been helpful, to some.

ReliefBand®

There are all kinds of ideas such as ginger that people recommend to help with motion sickness but none worked for me. As a private pilot I came across an article about a device that you wear on your wrist like a watch but just the other side. It has a battery in it and gives you a mild electric "shock" to the nerves in the wrist. It REALLY works, at least it does for me. Here's an article published in a respected aviation news site:

AvWeb News Article

They are not cheap - $129 as of this writing (May 2008) but to me it's worth every penny. I can now fly for hours not having to worry about keeping my head still and only looking certain places just to delay the inevitable. With the ReliefBand® I've been able to just fly - and enjoy it. I know sounds like a commercial but it's not. I've gotten nauseous on many flights and vomited on three - all when I wasn't wearing the ReliefBand®. So far I have had no problem at all (yeah) on flights that I was wearing the ReliefBand® (with working batteries).

The only downside to the ReliefBand® is the need for batteries. If the batteries go dead before or during a flight you are stuck.

Update: ReliefBand has been bought out and only a similar product is available. They are now much more expensive and you can't replace the battery. Once the battery dies you need to buy another one. What a shame.

Sea Bands

As of the 2011 flying season I have switched to using Sea Bands. So far so good. Others have reported no success. But they are very inexpensive and do not require batteries so I strongly suggest trying them first. Especially now that the ReliefBand is so much more expensive.

Personal Note

At the end of the 2010 flying season I was flying in some pretty rough air for two hours. I noticed my ReliefBand didn't appear to be working later in the flight. But I wasn't feeling any nausea. So far at the start of the 2011 flying season I have not used my ReliefBand at all. But after a few flights I started wearing Sea Bands. I have had no trouble with motion sickness so far this year. I believe I am actually getting over my motion sickness issues - at least while flying hang gliders. I suspect my use of the ReliefBand over the last few years has sufficiently conditioned my brain to get over the problem. Though I need to experiment a bit by not using anything and see what happens.