Medications for travel sickness

Travelling today is very common and people suffering from conditions such as travel sickness, more popularly known as motion sickness, find it extremely difficult to travel. Usually, people experience such sickness when travelling by car, but some may experience it while travelling by air or sea too. Travel sickness basically refers to the symptoms that you experience because of the motion caused by the form of travelling you are undertaking. Most people who experience motion sickness usually get used to the motion and the symptoms pass away. However, for some people, the sickness continues and travelling becomes uncomfortable.

Travel sickness can be experienced by both adults and children, but is comparatively more common amongst children. You usually experience such sickness because your eyes can detect motion, while your body, rather the vestibular system that maintains balance, does not. This confuses your brain and hence you experience symptoms of sickness while travelling. The symptoms that you usually experience include nausea, dizziness, headache, sweating, vomiting and drowsiness. You usually stop experiencing these symptoms once you have stopped travelling. However, those who are travelling frequently and experience such sickness can take medications that are available on the market.

The anti-histamine Avomine tablet is a common prescription medication used by people for treating motion sickness. It is available in the form of a tablet and consists of promethazine teoclate as its chief ingredients. The substance histamine that is present in your body plays a major role in eliciting the immune responses. Being an anti-histamine, Avomine prevents you from experiencing these symptoms by inhibiting histamine from acting on the receptors in your brain that lead you to vomit or feel nauseous. For a lengthy travelling time, you should take the pill on the night previous to your travelling day. For a shorter journey, you can take the tablet an hour or two prior to travelling.

Scopoderm is also a popular treatment for motion sickness. It consists of hyoscine hydrobromide as its chief ingredient. This medication belongs to the group of medications that are known as anti-muscarinics. It works by interfering with the nerve message that is sent to your brain, usually triggering the response that makes you vomit or feel nauseous. Scopoderm is available in the form of a patch, which you are to apply on hairless skin, such as behind your ear. The application of the patch is to be carried out approximately five to six hours before you start travelling.

The Scopoderm patch is effective for up to 72 hours, and if your journey does not last for that long, you should remove the patch. However, if the journey is for longer than three days, you should remove the patch and apply a new one. Kwells is also a popular prescription treatment, available for you to use in the form of tablets. This tablet consists of hyoscine hydrobromide as its chief ingredient, which prevents the triggering of the 'vomiting centre'. This does not allow you to feel nauseous or vomit while you are travelling. If an adult uses this tablet, one Kwells tablet should be taken every six hours, but not more than three should be taken withi 24 hours.