A sailor
friend of mine swears that Karo clear syrup taken before the trip will prevent motion sickness. The best advice I got was from Pat Healey, the sailing coach for the US Naval Academy. His solution was bananas and ice cream, beacuse it tasted the same coming up as it did going down.
Full belly and empty bowels
…Sorry to be indelicate. I’m extremely prone to motion sickness, and find that I have to do many things together to avoid it. A Gravol before heading out is a must, as is a full belly. I snack on Rice Krispie squares and water as I travel, and eat a huge lunch like a roast beef sub. Keeping my eyes on the horizon definitely helps. I carry candied ginger and very strong mint gum, the gum seems to work best for settling a roiling stomach. It’s a curse, for sure, but you can overcome it if you keep trying.
Same taste coming up as going down
Well, there is that flavor issue, plus sharks aren’t atracted to bananas and ice cream - while other vomit can make pretty effective chum…
sea sickness
I was a seaman for about 8 years and never had a problem with sea sickness, I actually used to laugh about people with that problem until …………
We were cruising the fjords of Norway and had to come out from one before entering the next, it was rough that day.
I just arrived on the bridge and started working on the perfect combo - espresso/cigarette on an empty stomach. The next 10 minutes have been the worst of my life. I started to feel something strange going on with my stomach, cold sweat started to appear, legs didn’t feel very solid either.
I ran out to get some fresh air, sat down for a moment and it went away as fast as it came.
Sorry I can’t give you any good advise, I have seen people trying ginger, pills, bands, chewing gums, anchovies, etc. and nothing really worked. If you can, just stay away from coffee and put something dry in your stomach before paddling.
Looking at the horizon and not at something close to you is a good advise.
Compass Location
Nothing original here given some of the recommendations in prior posts, but do you have a compass mounted fairly close to you on the deck? If yes try moving it further forward, looking up and down a lot will aggravate things.
Given the right conditions, almost anyone could get queasy bobbing around long enough in 3’ plus swells or waves. I have a rock solid stomach, have never experienced full motion sickness, but once in a while a very long paddle and a tight neck gasket seems to cause a slight discomfort even for me.
when I say
seasickness I guess what I meant was a nauseous rolling feeling. Nothing really extreme but it was certainly the onset. I was able to distract myself from it (one of the reasons I rolled) and it pretty much came and went.
I don’t think I was at the hurling stage and all there would have been was coffee bile and water anyway.
Karo syrup
You might be onto something there. I remember when Coca Cola syrup was prescribed for nausea, back before the days of pre-mix soda fountains.
I’m no doctor, but I wonder if having a heavy carbohydrate slug in your stomach has a calming effect?
Jim
Transdermal patch
Does that have same side effects as dramamine pills?
I’ve never had seasickness so I wish I could say.
You obviously don’t get sea sick
it’s not necessarily the height, but the frequency.
I feel your concern
I get sea sick (motion sick). Dramamine works well, but you tend to feel veerry slepy at the most inopportune moments: forcing yourself to stay awake (i.e. actively kayaking) can cause you to become sea-sick.
I’m currently trying ginger tablets - 2x550mg 2-3 hours before paddling, then another 2 about 3 hours or so later. Plus, cut down on the coffee on the morning of the paddle (try to have 1 cup max), and eat something - not a lot. Caffine is an appetite suppressant. You will have to find the right food that works for you, but If it’s going to be a couple of ours before I see water I’ll have a macdonalds egg mcmuffin and orange juice (this is when I’m preparing for an instructor-led trip), plus the ginger tablets. Apparently they are also pretty good at combatting the queaziness once it starts, but I havent been there yet.
I’m going to try that patch: but the side effects that it lists don’t really lend themselves to kayaking (dizziness, disorientation, hallucinations!!).
I know some people do come down on those that get sick; they haven’t been there. Luckily, it can be short lived: sit’ll take me about 1-2 hours to fully recover (the strength), once on the sand (usually less).
If possible…
fix your eyes on something that is NOT moving (land, an anchored tower, the horizon if nothing else). There is one particular spot in Newport, R.I., where often waves are coming in from 3 different directions, causing confusing conditions. A few times, while spearfishing here, I started to feel the nasea come on. I would fix my gaze upon a large, nearby stone mansion. Soon, the feeling would pass.
Tony
Trim that sasket good sister
no reason to be uncomforatble
Join the Navy
Some people are more effected by motion sickness or sea sickness than others. When I was in the Navy it took 17 foot swells off the coast of Florida to make me sea sick. My wife felt sick in a kayak from 1 foot boat wake. I never got sea sick after the first 17 footers and I went through much rougher seas off the coast of Norway. Whatever you do don’t close your eyes, I usually had no problems if I were outside, but inside it was much worse.
Ocean /bay paddling
I can’t take the ocean swells.I can handle almost
anything in the bay’s…Growing up, my father would
take me fishing off Cape May every summer.Always
sick, he would say its in your mind, watch the
horizon, yea that worked…I’ve been so sick that
I now avoid the ocean, which kills me since I
would love to kayak offshore, as well as fish…
Oh yeah…
…growing up in Oregon - I learned early on what being seasick could be! Ask the Coast Guard folks, who test their craft off the Oregon coast due to the severe conditions there! I used to “feed the salmon” every time I went out deep sea fishing.
Now, retired from the Navy after experiencing 30’ seas during hurricanes and really enjoy the ocean movement. But, I don’t get foolish by filling my stomach with lots of liquids (except water) or coffee or chocolate. Feeling that stuff washing around inside of you during a paddle guarantees you to join the ranks of us “fish feeders”.
Last word: If you think it looks yummy on the way down - just wait till it comes up to see how ugly it really gets!
;^)
Tight Neck Gasket
Unfortunately the darned thing is trimmed, at least some. It’s on the Stohlquist top, which has a heavier gasket than the Kokatat suit. I maybe could loosen it up one ring more, and would if it was a constant problem. But the last time I wore the top days in succession, the summer before last on our 3 weeks in Maine, it was only maybe every fourth day that I even noticed anything. So I am not sure how much of it is the gasket and how much is what I ate for breakfast, conditions, that kind of thing.
My personal and unproven theory is that there is some spot or level on my neck that, if everything else is just right, is more likely to cause an issue. But I’d like to have figured out what is going on before I take away more latex. Though, if I was a long trip and had a serious bout of sea sickness, the scissors (I usually have a pr of manicure scissors in the bulkhead stuff on big water) would be out the first time we hit a beach.
Sea Sick
I will admit that most of the problem is in the stomach but some is in the head. I was in the Navy and I saw fellow sailors with 10+ years in the Navy get seasick when the boat had moved only one foot from the pier. I admit I have never gotten seasick but I do feel sorry for those who do.
Tom
OT - whitewater rafting and sickness
On the second day of my vacation in New Mexico this summer, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling horrible, like I was hung over, even thought I hadn’t had that much to drink the night before. I’m pretty sure I had the combination of altitude sickness (I was staying at 10,000 feet) and dehydration. I was supposed to go white water rafting. I could barely get out of bed, but I didn’t want to disappoint my wife. When we got down out of the mountains and into the Rio Grande gorge, I felt better almost immediately. It was the most abrupt recuperation I ever had. That’s why I’m pretty sure it was mostly altitude sickness.
Mental vs. Physical
In my first couple of summers of paddling I would sometimes get a queasy / nauseous feeling in my stomach – especially in fog, swells, or rough sea conditions. I was also aware that my legs and my whole body would be really tight as I struggled to maintain equilibrium.
I haven’t had that feeling in years – though I now go out in considerably more challenging conditions. I can only surmise that much of it was mental or mental/ physical. I’ve learned to keep my body, especially hips and legs relaxed, to let my hips roll with the swells, and to keep my eyes on the horizon or some distant reference point when possible. Not to say that all sea-sickness is “mental” but perhaps it’s effects can be modified/reduced if a person modifies their mental state and controls any sense of anxiety. Has anyone else found this to be true?
A side note, I had never really thought about the word “nausea” and its rootedness in all things nautical:
nausea
[Middle English, from Latin, from Greek nautiā, nausiē, seasickness, from nautēs, sailor, from naus, ship.]
I think it is actually
not a mental think as much as a neurological thing, that your inner ear and your brain become desensitized to the feeling.