Physical Therapy for Motion Sickness?

Greetings all,

Was hoping for some first hand knowledge regarding physical therapy used in the treatment of motion sickness. Any medical types out there with studies, references, or recommended flight surgeons with knowledge I may consult?

Thanks,

Chuck (in Aaaala Baaama)

Relief band worked for our son...

Whether it was clinical or placebo effect we don't know, but he stopped getting sick...

http://www.relief-band-watch.com/

As a physical therapist with a wife who gets motion sick, I wish I had answers for you! The RCAF (and USAF I'm sure) has a motion sickness treatment program which combines medication with desensitization for flight students. It works, but is a fairly involved process and I don't know where an equivalent program in the civilian world could be accessed. As for physical therapy, your best bet would be to find a PT with expertise in vestibular therapy. If the problem is vestibular in nature like BPPV (benign positional paroxysmal vertigo) they will have programs to treat it effectively through desensitization exercises. Good luck!

When I started out in acro, I had big time trouble with motion sickness. But I was encouraged by reading that Bob Hoover had a terrible time with it when he started. He kept flying - doing spins I believe - until he got over it.

I found that I could build up a tolerance for acro provided I tooks it slowly. This meant flying a couple times a week and limiting myself to just one acro maneuver per flight. The next flight one....*maybe* two.

I found I could identify when I was getting close to but not beyond, the point of no return. Whenever I get close to that point...I stopped. Flew back to the airport and shot some landings.

Next flight, if the point of no return had moved such that I could do an additional maneuver - I did so.

In time I could fly the entire hour and do as many maneuvers as I wanted without feeling badly at all. It helped me to stay cool - get air blowing on my face.

If I stopped flying acro for a substantial period of time, then I had to re-build the tolerance all over again.

Later on I found I could generate the same queasiness by doing somersaults on tthe living room floor. Again, I could do only one or two at the start. But each day I added a somersault. I also did 2-3 sets a day widely spaced. In 10 days I could do 10 somersaults.

Looks silly. Sounds silly. But I like flying acro. One reason I want my own plane is so that the tolerance can be kept up.

I use the shock band that Sporty's sells and it works great for me, for my instrument training and on fishing boats it's a must for me. That combined with a lot of flying and you should get over it.
When I started flying lessons, I would get a lesson for an hour then have to sit on the ground for a hour before I could drive home. The more I did it, the better I got. Now I only get that feeling if I don't go up for a few months, and a flight or two and it's gone again.
If you want to fly bad enough you will get over it!

I have been cursed my whole life with motion sickness. As a kid I always had to take dramamine for long car trips. Boats...forget it. Flying, for some reason I have always been pretty much ok with it on large aircraft but in small planes bouncing around in turbulence, pulling g's, or doing acro it comes on pretty strong. Like Saville, I was able to build up a tolerance to it by taking my time and building it up. I do exactly like he does and just take it one menuever at a time and see how I feel. After building up the tolerance I'm good to go but always concious it could hit. The worst is long periods where I don't do any meneuvering flight and that tolerance disapates then I need to build it up again.

The Relief Band works pretty well for your stomach and nausea but does nothing for your head. I used it when I was training as a Mission Observer in CAP where there was a lot of heads down time in flight which would get to me and my dad, who's like me with motion sickness, uses it all the time on cruises and swears by it.

I too am the first to loose my lunch. Tanya knows if we've been in heavy bumps for more than 15min on a hot day, I'll be asking for the airplane shortly if I'm not flying. Once I have control, we can yank and bank and bounce around all afternoon with no problem. All I can say is that you have a lot of company on that front.

Thanks for all your insight. This is encouraging. I have located some references to specialized exercises that "habituate" the unusual motions involved in flight, sailing, etc, and will take all into account. Would like to have some tolerance above where I am before I start flying/training in earnest.

Will comment again as I head down this path and report results.

Thanks again!

Chuck (in Aaaala Baaama)

Try this

I had problems with notion sickness during USAF Pilot Training. I did the Scopalomine and Dexadrine medication routine, it helped a bit. A question for the sufferers out there: how do you feel AFTER you've lost your lunch? It almost became routine for me to fill a bag early in a flight, then tie it up and go on to to do every maneuver required. After I'd lost it I was FINE, no problems, no worries. Finally a senior USAF Flight Surgeon told me it was anxiety and stress rather than motion. He said that a common reaction to stress is to take REALLY BIG breaths in an effort to calm down. He told me that doing that could actually add air to your stomach in addition to your lungs. Air in your stomach will try to come out through burping, but until it comes out, a stretched stomach adds to the motion sensitivity and nausea. So there you are; feeling more nauseous and air (and lunch?) is trying to get out of your stomach.

I concentrated on NOT taking those big stress relieving breaths, I didn't let myself detach from flying when the first feelings began, I stsyed involved. Just because you get those first feelings nausea doesn't mean you're going to throw up. You can pull it back. It's not a given. Don't surrender to it. Don't detach from flying, don't try to calm yourself by breathing deeply. I beat it.

Saville said:

Later on I found I could generate the same queasiness by doing somersaults on tthe living room floor. Again, I could do only one or two at the start. But each day I added a somersault. I also did 2-3 sets a day widely spaced. In 10 days I could do 10 somersaults.

Looks silly. Sounds silly. But I like flying acro. One reason I want my own plane is so that the tolerance can be kept up.

Click to expand...

and as crazy as it sounds, a large playground swing for generating cyclic g loads. "Mommy, that old man won't get off the swing so I can play!"

Clay,

Sometimes, after filling a bag I was fine...other times not.

I am absolutely convinced that anxiety and stress about the whole thing is a substantial contribution to the problem though, for me, not the whole deal:

Once I was crewing on the HMS Bounty. We were coming out of some rough seas over the night and I wasn't feeling all that well. My mind was fixated on it which, of course, made things worse.

Then the mate comes up to me and hands me a gasket and tells me to go aloft and replace the broken one.

My motion sickness was immediately gone.

I can only attribute that to getting my mind off of it and onto the task at hand.

Burping is the first warning. So your comments about avoiding deep breaths seems like a good idea.

good tips all

Pretty good collection of advice here. I suspect you won't find the answer with a physical therapist though... we have one in the family.
The tolerance buildup concept seems very very common. The more you experience the various forces, the less you will feel it. Keep YOUR hands on the controls. The kinesthetic connection between your inputs and what happens in your inner ear is crucial. Let the CFI do the talking not the flying.
Meclezine is OTC and non drowsy until you build up tolerance.
I did see something dramatic once, on a side note. An experienced FBI pilot became quite sick in minutes... in a full wrap around visual helo simulator. The disconnect between the ear not sensing motion... and the eyes delivering motion to the brain was overwhelming to him.
Good luck up there.

My Granddad...

Used to smoke these smelly old stogie cigars after supper as we sat on his front porch swing, As I recall I was 5 or 6 at the time and after those sessions on the swing I never got close to being seasick or airsick

flightlogic said:

I did see something dramatic once, on a side note. An experienced FBI pilot became quite sick in minutes... in a full wrap around visual helo simulator. The disconnect between the ear not sensing motion... and the eyes delivering motion to the brain was overwhelming to him.
Good luck up there.

Click to expand...

Same here. "Star Tours" at Disneyland (essentially a full motion simulator) makes me sick if I watch. But if I keep my eyes closed, I'm okay. Apparently the visuals and the motion are not perfectly sync'd, and it drives my brain crazy.