monitom

Consider taking your daily dose at bed time rather than in the morning. If it makes you drowsy, great.

Great idea, thanks so much! :)

Alright, we did the test yesterday.... Took generic Meclizine (25mg) in the morning (swallowed, not chewed), and tried the merry-go-round, swings, and winding mountain road in the afternoon - all things that would make him throw up within a minute, and make me uncomfortably queasy.

Side effects were a bit of tiredness for him, a bit of drowsiness and dry mouth/ numb lips for me after about 3 hours, nothing that couldn't be helped with a bit of a caffeinated beverage. The numb lips went away as soon as I ate something.

Amazing - hubby said he could feel the stomach-lifting sensation, but it didn't make him want to throw up. He actually didn't feel nauseous until he tried reading while I was driving the curvy road... He used to have to throw up after just looking at a map on the freeway.

So that was really much better - the reason he did this (I don't really know anybody who would want to read on a road like that...) was to see if he would keep feeling sick until he could step out of the car; many of you probably have experienced that sensation of mal de mer not stopping until you get off the boat on solid ground once it starts - that was one of his biggest concerns if we don't dock for a few days.

Miraculously, he felt better as soon as he stopped reading; still queasy, but definitely not anywhere close to throwing up. A bit of candied ginger once we got home took care of the rest in minutes.

He's about 180-ish pounds, I'm about 170, and he wants to try the whole thing again with two tablets to see if it makes a difference. I was very happy with just the one. But we are definitely sold on the Meclizine, and will use it for him for long drives and for flying as well as boating and cruising in the future. And use the pool on the ship on choppy days.

I hope this inspires someone else to try things out before boarding... After ruining one vacation, we've definitely learned our lesson! :-)

What works for one person won't necessarily work for the next. And some types of remedies may cause side effects in some people.

 

It's best if you try different types of remedies ahead of your cruise. See what doesn't affect you negatively. Then take a few that are fine with you on the cruise. Hopefully at least one will work for you in actual practice.

 

Another thing: if you are taking any prescription medicine' date=' talk to your doctor as any OTC could be countraindicated.[/quote']

 

My husband is very prone to any kind of motion sickness, and we stupidly believed when we were told by a family member that the modern cruise ships were stabilized and you don't feel a thing. So we only packed a bit of ginger ale and the accupressure bands for our first cruise. And promptly ended up on one of those sailings out of San Diego that was so choppy even some of the crew got sick. Needless to say, hubby was completely miserable, hives included... At that point, not even Dramamine helped. Ruined his first few days until he could get on land at the first port of call.

 

Needless to say, it took me years to persuade him to try another cruise this fall, and this time we are doing our homework - like Cruisin' Chick says, there are so many different opinions on what works for any given person... we are trying things out beforehand this time.

First up is Bonin and the swings and carousels on the neighborhood playground... if he can handle that, we'll go on a nice twisty ride in the mountains, and if that still works, we'll try a small boat up on Lake Tahoe the next time it's windy. :-)

I'll post again with the results!