Wrist Bands for car sickness

[Alkatran]

I'm sure you've all seen, heard of, or used the wrist bands you wear to avoid getting car sick. Their made up of a band (duh) with a sort of button to apply pressure to the bottom of the wrist.

Anyways, I was wondering how they work. I've only ever used them when I was young (and only once or twice). I didn't get sick, although I was never much for car sickness. I remember them being uncomfortable...

[CplFerro]

I've never used one, but someone I know has. I just put pressure on my wrist with my fingers, and it works.

As to why it works, why, it's Chinese acupressure magic, man. Who knows how any of that stuff works?

What I'd like to know is, how did any of this stuff get discovered, much less refined? "Here, Chang, I have an idea. Let me stick these pins in your ass and maybe your eyes will feel better."

Or this nausea-wrist connection - did the ancient Chinese doctor test every square inch of a nauseous person's body? "Do anything?" "Nope." "Do anything?" "Nope" for all 3,000-odd square inches of his body?

Those crafty Chinese!

[Asolepius]

Originally posted by Alkatran
I'm sure you've all seen, heard of, or used the wrist bands you wear to avoid getting car sick. Their made up of a band (duh) with a sort of button to apply pressure to the bottom of the wrist.

Anyways, I was wondering how they work. I've only ever used them when I was young (and only once or twice). I didn't get sick, although I was never much for car sickness. I remember them being uncomfortable...
The wrist stimulation effect is very well known. The key point (!) though is that it has nothing whatever to do with `meridians' or `chi'. My guess is that it's a neurological effect, judging by how quickly it works. It's often cited as evidence for acupuncture but I think it's something quite different.

[geni]

Originally posted by Alkatran
I'm sure you've all seen, heard of, or used the wrist bands you wear to avoid getting car sick. Their made up of a band (duh) with a sort of button to apply pressure to the bottom of the wrist.

Anyways, I was wondering how they work. I've only ever used them when I was young (and only once or twice). I didn't get sick, although I was never much for car sickness. I remember them being uncomfortable...

What makes you think they work beyond the placebo effect

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15018290&query_hl=2

[Dogdoctor]

Like others say it is an acupressure point. Acupressure like acupuncture is an unproven therapy and my guess is that effect is entirely placebo. Motion sickness is 90 percent in your mind. So a placebo may easily help with it.

[Ziggurat]

Placebo is certainly a possible explanation, but it's not the only one.

One thing to keep in mind that motion sickness isn't really sickness. It's your nervous system getting confused, motion signals triggering nausea responses. It's a neurological phenomenon to begin with, where your sensations are being interpreted incorrectly by your brain. It's not that hard to believe that if you start feeding your brain other nervous system input, you might override or drown out the signals that are triggering the nausea response. Why pressure on the wrist in particular might do that I have no idea, but it's also possible that applying pressure to other parts of the body could work just as well and that the wrist isn't actually special in this regard.

[Dogdoctor]

Originally posted by Ziggurat
Why pressure on the wrist in particular might do that I have no idea, but it's also possible that applying pressure to other parts of the body could work just as well and that the wrist isn't actually special in this regard.

Many things are possible but nothing has been proven. As far as I know it is all speculation including the idea that wrist pressure does help.

[Roboramma]

I remember those things! I hated them, they didn't seem to do any good, and now not only was I feeling motion sickness, I also had this uncomfortable thing pressing on my wrist.
Ugh.

[dissonance]

When I was desperately seeking morning sickness remedies, I ran across a lot of websites that said those bands were effective on morning sickness for 60% of women. Don't know where that number came from, but at that point I was willing to try anything. They didn't do squat for me. What did work was drugs - whoever invented Diclectin is my personal hero.

[Alkatran]

So these bands were just acupressure?

I feel so disappointed in my mother... :(

[Orangutan]

Well...

I did a little digging and there's one product that claims to stimulate the median nerve.
http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/images/factsheets/carpal2.gif

They claim that this some how gets the brain to calm the signals going to the stomach.

here's a link to the site.
LINK (http://www.reliefband.com/whatisit.html)

They have disclaimers on thier site but not the usual one about not being a medical device. Also there are no testimonials, the usual staple of a phoney device. So there may be some research behind this one.

Google (scholar) throws up a few links about the median nerve being connected to the stomach indirectly so I'm not 100% convinced this is placebo effect yet.

I think it might be worth a little more looking into.

O.
:)

[Bronze Dog]

Originally posted by Orangutan
They have disclaimers on thier site but not the usual one about not being a medical device. Also there are no testimonials, the usual staple of a phoney device. So there may be some research behind this one.
If it's woo, it's atypical woo.

[Dogdoctor]

The median nerve is not connected to the stomach. A breif look through pub med makes me think that they have not done enough studies to show it works much less anything about how it works.

[athon]

I remain dubious, but could be swayed by a good DB test. How you could do this... I have no idea.

My ex was a big advocate of them. She admitted that they might be placebo, but figured even if they were, she felt better wearing them than when not. I couldn't argue with that logic.

We went out on a boat when we went to Italy recently and she forget to bring them. She wasn't all that worried, and didn't experience any sea sickness anyway. She agreed when I suggested that if she had have worn them, the lack of sea-sickness would have been attributed to the wrist-bands.

She's far from gullible, and does understand how science works. I'm still open minded about them, but side with 'placebo' so far.

Athon

[phildonnia]

In any case, don't confuse "placebo effect" with "doesn't work".

I seriously doubt that these things work through acupressure meridians and stuff, calling "placebo effect" doesn't mean they're totally worthless.

[Sanamas]

These could also work by providing a stimulus that distracts from the motion sickness. That and the placebo effect could be enough to lessen some discomfort.

I remember buying a headband version of this a while back when I was really sick; I don't remember it making any difference.

I think that in trying to figure this one out, it's safe to ignore all the acupuncture/chi/meridians stuff and just focus on the question of whether pressure on the wrists has any real effect on motion sickness.

[prewitt81]

Motion sickness is 90 percent in your mind.

I'd like to see the source of this statistic. A similar one was often quoted to me in anger when I would get carsick as a child. I'm not upset or anything, but I don't seem to remember thinking myself into being sick at the age of two.

[Dogdoctor]

Originally posted by prewitt81
Motion sickness is 90 percent in your mind.

I'd like to see the source of this statistic. A similar one was often quoted to me in anger when I would get carsick as a child. I'm not upset or anything, but I don't seem to remember thinking myself into being sick at the age of two.

AHA you've caught me. I have no source for that. It's just an oft repeated statement. There may or may not be a scientific basis for them but there is an empirical basis for it I have been on a lot of boats (former Sea Explorer) and studied physiology a bit and know that motion sickness comes from the difference between what your motion sensors feel and what you see. So actually if you are able to look out of the boat that you are riding in so that you have a visual reference point which does not move along with the boat (such as the horizon or land which is relatively far away) then you will not be seasick unless you think you will. Likewise you can close your eyes. However once you have become seasick it is difficult to completely rid yourself of those feelings, and that is where the mind comes in. If you allow yourself to dwell on being seasick you will be more sick even after removing the discordant inputs by the two techniques I mentioned and if you avoid thinking about being seasick you will be fine.

[CaveDave]

Originally posted by prewitt81
Motion sickness is 90 percent in your mind.

I'd like to see the source of this statistic. A similar one was often quoted to me in anger when I would get carsick as a child. I'm not upset or anything, but I don't seem to remember thinking myself into being sick at the age of two.
I distinctly remember the 400 mile trips in our '57 Chevy station wagon across the Texas plains every summer. My love and pastime was reading, which would almost immediately result in "that queasy feeling" if the car was moving. Had I known of these methods, I would have eagerly tried them. As it was, the only relief (after I was a little older, as my dad [an MD] didn't think really young kids should get to like the delicious raspberry tablets, I was given Bonine [Truely a gift from Ed] http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/uspdi/202343.html
and suffered little after that).

I can't in any way accept that anyone would self-induce such misery! NoJoy.

I would have joyously pinched my wrist, if it would have been suggested/worked.

Dave

[Dogdoctor]

For a car you need to either look forward at objects that are in the distance and so are a stable reference point or you can look out the side of the car if there are no telephone posts along the road and you focus on a point far off so that again it seems stable and not flashing past your face at whatever speed the car is traveling. Closing your eyes also works. If you are already car sick many people tend to focus on being sick with their eyes closed which makes them sicker. Whatever you do don't read in the car or play video games too I imagine or look at others in the car or a map. I however have little problems in cars. I have problems on a boat. If I am out on a boat in rough water and have to do something which required me to spend more than a minute looking at something on the boat such as cutting bait or rigging a fishing line I start to get seasick and can stop it by doing as I said.

[Rolfe]

What Dogdoctor said.

I vividly remember setting off on a cross-channel trip late one evening as the first of the autumn gales set in. My cabin in the ferry was very basic, and very "inside". I started to feel very queasy very quickly. Even a momentary squint to see where I was threatened to set off the nausea. How I managed to get to the bathroom (along the corridor), perform my ablutions, get back to the cabin, get undressed and into bed, all with my eyes clamped shut, I'll never know, but I did it.

I'm fine in trains, but in buses I have to stare out of the window or I'm a goner. So frustrating if I've got something I want to read, but bitter experience tells me that if I try to read it I'll be a basket case inside half an hour. (Just ask my choir buddy, as we trundled through Italy and I kept exclaiming at the wonderful scenery until she told me to shut up and stay shut up - she was trying to read The Female Eunuch. I wanted to read The Name of the Rose, but knew better than to try. Fortunately the friendship survived....)

Rolfe.

PS. Dogdoctor, are you another vet? Where?

[Soapy Sam]

Cabin? Bed? On a cross-channel ferry?. It's only a two hour sail for Noah's sake!

Mind you- the sickest I have ever been was on a cross channel hovercraft. Airsick and seasick at the same time.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Cabin? Bed? On a cross-channel ferry?. It's only a two hour sail for Noah's sake!

Mind you- the sickest I have ever been was on a cross channel hovercraft. Airsick and seasick at the same time. OK, maybe my terminology was a bit out. Hook of Holland to Harwich. It's cross-channel to me, see?

Rolfe.

[Soapy Sam]

Remind me never to ask you for directions!:D

[Dogdoctor]

Originally posted by Rolfe


PS. Dogdoctor, are you another vet? Where?

Yeah I am a vet in Hawaii. I surf so maybe that is why I have a certain tolerance to motion sickness since you are moving a lot when sitting on a surfboard waiting for waves. I used to make others puke as a kid by noticing who was sea or car sick and then talk about being sick and puking and make noises like I was puking. (I don't do that anymore:p) There is definitely a big psychological component to motion sickness.

[Soapy Sam]

Hawaii! (Thinks...)

If you need a Pathological Vet- Rolfe's the one for you.

However, she gets lost easily and would need a helper if she was ever to find Hawaii. I can also butle, wax surf boards and catch a frisbee in my teeth, which saves buying a dog.

Did I mention I have this fascination with volcanoes too...:D

[Dogdoctor]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Hawaii! (Thinks...)

If you need a Pathological Vet- Rolfe's the one for you.

However, she gets lost easily and would need a helper if she was ever to find Hawaii. I can also butle, wax surf boards and catch a frisbee in my teeth, which saves buying a dog.

Did I mention I have this fascination with volcanoes too...:D
You wouldn't be catching much frisbees in your teeth if my dog was around:) Butle? Is that like being a butler or ....?

[Rolfe]

Yeah, well, maybe I don't know the exact eastern boundaries of the English Channel, but at least I can spell (usually). Oh, and Soapy Sam is the president of the depressed pedant's society, but he still can't spell.

Welcome Dogdoctor. I do laboratory medicine in Sussex in England, we also have Badly Shaved Monkey who is in general practice somewhere in the east of England, and John Bentley, who is some sort of Merikan and an orthopod if I remember correctly.

Anyone else for the veterinary roll call, step forward.

Rolfe.

[Soapy Sam]

I kan too spel! (Though not in Hawaian). I just cant type.
Were you aware that "Aa" is a word in Hawaian?
Type of lava.
Hawaian has no word for "Eskimo" I understand.

Butle, vb.; to provide the services of a butler.

Isn't " orthopod" a wonderful word, by the way? Best foot forward and all that. One imagines an orthopod standing very straight, perhaps at ninety degrees to the floor.

R- perhaps a spin-off thread for professions in general? There seems to be a revival of interest on the forum in knowing what other posters do for a living.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Butle, vb.; to provide the services of a butler.Where did you get that? Because to the best of my recollection P. G. Wodehouse spelled it with a double "t".

Rolfe

[Mojo]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Where did you get that? Because to the best of my recollection P. G. Wodehouse spelled it with a double "t".Isn't "Butle" somewhere near Liverpool? ;)

[Deetee]

Originally posted by Rolfe

I vividly remember setting off on a cross-channel trip late one evening as the first of the autumn gales set in. My cabin in the ferry was very basic, and very "inside". I started to feel very queasy very quickly. Even a momentary squint to see where I was threatened to set off the nausea. How I managed to get to the bathroom (along the corridor), perform my ablutions, get back to the cabin, get undressed and into bed, all with my eyes clamped shut, I'll never know, but I did it.

I remember feeling a bit nauseous on a blustery crossing from the Hook of Holland. Went to bed early to try and sleep it off. Suddenly the cabin door bursts open and this naked female climbs into my bunk.
Next day my mates ascribed this "event" to the demented ravings of a delerious mind suffering from alcohol to ward off sea-sickness.
Now I know the truth, as do you all.;)

[Soapy Sam]

Rolfe- A "Buttler" is (I am informed) a sexual pervert of some kind. I am shocked a lady would even have heard of such, far less imply that I might stoop to such behaviour.
(Besides, with my back, stooping gets harder every year).

I've just spoken with a moderately sceptical friend who is convinced wrist bands do help. Hmm. I find in small boats , closing eyes and sticking fingers in my ears is useful, possibly because of some stabilising effect in the old semicirculars- or just because I shut down the feedback loop?

Control, or having something to do is best. I never heard of a carsick driver.

Undoubtedly the worst factor in motion sickness is the smell of someone else being sick. That usually sets me off.

On which note- Pepperoni Pizza for lunch.

[NeilC]

I tried them a few times. I thought they were working until I started to feel a bit odd and then thought "No, this is definately not working!"...and was promptly and violently sick.

Ginger tea however works well.

Anti seasick pills work but I suspect they work on the basis that they knock you out for about 3 hours by which time you are there.

[Mojo]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Undoubtedly the worst factor in motion sickness is the smell of someone else being sick. That usually sets me off.

On which note- Pepperoni Pizza for lunch. See if you can get some extra parmesan on it. ;)

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I've never used the actual wristbands myself but ever since I was a child, my Dad got me to massage my pulse point if I began to feel nauseous and it definitely helped. I am very prone to psychosomatically induced nausea and if I do that massage trick I can feel my pulse lowering and the creeping cold sweatiness begining to pass. But it isn't a very strong effect and if I am going to be badly affected then it doesn't help.

Whether it is simply a placebo effect or or an properly specific physiological response to stimulation of that point I don't know. Is that pulse point special and/or is it the effect of having something to focus on other than your sense of nausea? This is a classic example of something that would be difficult to trial blindly, but it could be done.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
I find in small boats , closing eyes and sticking fingers in my ears is useful, possibly because of some stabilising effect in the old semicirculars- or just because I shut down the feedback loop?

Control, or having something to do is best. I never heard of a carsick driver.Closing the eyes will always cut off the feedback loop, whatever else you do. I can't see any reason why sticking your fingers in your ears should affect your semicircular canals at all.

Drivers aren't sick because they watch the road. Or I hope they watch the road. Just "having something to do" doesn't cut it - if I try to "do" anything that involves concentrating on something inside the car - from reading to playing solitaire - I'll be sick within fifteen minutes. On the other hand, if I studiously stare out of the window, I may be bored senseless, but I won't be sick.

Rolfe.

[Soapy Sam]

I was thinking specifically of something to do with driving the car, such as watching for speed cameras, or navigating. I have wondered how Motor Rally navigators manage to read their detailed maps and charts without becoming ill.
I asked a friend, normally a carsickness sufferer, who had been forced to mapread in a vehicle on a TA exercise. He commented that he had "Just had too much to do to even think of being sick." It does seem that concentrating hard enough on a task can suppress the onset of symptoms, but I suspect for most of us that would be hard to achieve unless an outside force very strongly required us to do so.

On the semicircular canal thing. "Sticking fingers in my ears" is an inadequate description - I'll try to be clearer; what actually has worked on several occasions is-
1.Lie down, parallel to the axis of the vessel.
2. Close eyes.
3. Cradle head in arms, elbows on chest, thumbs pressing the ear flaps (not the lobes, the bits about an inch above the lobes) into the cavity of the ear with considerable force to cut off nearly all sound.

The result is to provide a rather stable platform for the head. It's the cradling action that is the stabiliser, not the pressing on the ear drums. (Which I did not make clear.) The rolling action of the boat can be further dampened by very slight negative feedback movements of the head. The net effect is that actual movement of the head relative to a true horizontal, is very much reduced.

A final addition is to hum , quietly but deeply. I find this creates an environment of near total sensory deprivation.

You could easily walk off with my wallet when I'm in this state. I'm sure it looks pretty stupid too. I've never known it to fail in a boat though.

It didn't work in the hovercraft though. First, I could not lie down, being strapped in a seat. Second, I was constantly being grabbed and teased by two "friends" on either side of me. Third, the motion of a hovercraft in heavy seas is very different from a boat.- faster, higher frequency, more like an aircraft in turbulence.

Oddly, though a terrible coward on aircraft, I've only been sick once- as a kid on a school geography trip, when the smell of several others being sick got to me.

[Nobody]

I get sick on every vehicle imaginable apart from the train.

I've tried the wristbands before and I thought they were useless.

To be honest nothing really worked for me except sticking Kwells under my tongue.

[boeingJr]

First, see this article in at 'www.forskning.no',
http://www.forskning.no/Artikler/2005/januar/1105707329.28
you will find a picture of how the double blind test is performed (or rather, the two wristbands).


I en undersøkelse ble 97 gravide i Tromsø utstyrt med et armbånd. Halvparten fikk et som ga et lett, kontinuerlig trykk på et bestemt punkt på underarmen. Resten fikk et "narre-armbånd" (placebo).

Resultatet viste at i gruppa med akupressurarmbåndet rapporterte 71 prosent om mindre intense plager og kortere varighet av kvalmen. Også de som gikk med placeboarmbåndet rapporterte om mindre plager, men ikke i like stor grad som de med akupressurarmbåndet.

Mens placebogruppen fikk redusert varigheten på kvalmen med 0,85 timer i døgnet, fikk akupunkturgruppen redusert varigheten med 2,74 timer per døgn.


[my word by word translation]
In a test were 97 pregnants in Tromsø equipped with a wristband. Half received one which gave a light, continous pressure on a certain point on the lower arm. The rest received a "fool-wristband" (placebo).

The result showed that in the group with the akupressure wristband reported 71 percent of less intense discomfort and shorter duracy of the nausea. Also those who walked with the placebo wristband reported on less discomfort, but not as much as those with the akupressur wristband.

While the placebogroup was given redused length of nausea with 0.85 hours a day, got the acupressure group redused the length with 2.74 hours per day
[/my word by word translation, I know it sounds silly]

The article goes on to praise acupressure and Norheim (see below) suggests the unlucky ones (that woul be 29%) should try acupuncture. He also suggests two positions for understanding the effect for people: 1) it seems irrational 2) if we westerners swallow a camel, we will see that the energy flows of the body do it, and they are a useful tool to understand 'everything'. Even though he doesn't find it important whether one should believe the idea of energy flows or not.

hm?

this research was produced by NAFKAM,
see http://uit.no/nafkam/ for what NAFKAM is (complimentary and alternative medicine)
for references to the original papers:

choose english, go to 'research' | 'publication' and you will be offered two publication lists (in norwegian), one sorted alphabetically, the other on year, you should be able to understand it. look for the author 'Norheim'.

in Jan 2001 (although they state on the list sorted on year that is was in 2005) Norheim et al published a paper "Akupressur mot svangerskapskvalme" ("Acupressur for morning sickness in pregnancy" [1] in "Tidsskrift for den norske lægeforening" (Journal for the norwegian doctor union), http://www.tidsskriftet.no/pls/lts/pa_lts.vis_seksjon?vp_seks_id=398652see
Now, AFAIK this publication journal has merit, at least in Norway. I haven't looked up any comments to the article, if anyone are interested, I'll have a look around. This article has an english abstract available. If anyone else understands norwegian, feel free to further translate, but:

A similar article, I guess, was also published by the same authors[2], in english i presume, but I don't have access to this journal. This would be more convenient than translation, if anyone have access.

Pardon my typos and spelling mistakes.

[1] Norheim AJ, Pedersen EJ, Fønnebø V og Berge L. Akupressur mot svangerskapskvalme. Tidsskrift for Den norske lægeforening, 121(23):2712-2715

[2] Norheim AJ, Pedersen EJ, Fønnebø V og Berge L. Acupressure treatment of morning sickness in pregnancy. A randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study. Scand J prim Health Care 2001;19:43-7.

[Nucular]

Never been travelsick in my life, I love choppy ferry crossings :p

But whenever I'm actually sick, which isn't unknown, I find personally (n=1) that there's a huge psychological element.

Distraction works very well to relieve nausea, as does reminding myself of the psychological element to it all. I'm sure if I believed in magic little wrist-buttons, they'd work pretty well too.



Re: the Norwegian study - those "placebo" wristbands look pretty obvious. You can't see them very well, but it looks like one peek and the game's up.

http://www.forskning.no/Bilder/1105707650.04/1105707650.04_content.jpg