Diving and Pseudoscience

[corplinx]

Diving is an activity based on hard science. The difference of of 5 feet can kill you. It is also a great pleasure of mine.

If you sign up for DAN insurance, you get a monthly magazine about diving accidents and treatment. DAN is popular insurance for divers that covers the costs of treatment related to diving injury.

This months DAN magazine has an article on common motion sickness. Unfortunately, it ruffled my feathers a little. Not only did it talk about taking an anti-histamine and easting a few saltine crackers to quell seasickness, it also suggested taking an herbal supplement and using an acupressure device.

Whereas the science of using antihistamines like dramamine and reducing the sloshing in your stomach by ingesting crackers is tried and true, it backed up the herbal recommendation with one single study and provided no backing for the acupressure device.

I am sad that in a sport that has learned the hard way the values of precise measurement and repeated testing that this sort of thing would even be in the minds of the people who treat diving related injury.

 

[LucyR]

Diving is an activity based on hard science. The difference of of 5 feet can kill you. It is also a great pleasure of mine.

If you sign up for DAN insurance, you get a monthly magazine about diving accidents and treatment. DAN is popular insurance for divers that covers the costs of treatment related to diving injury.

This months DAN magazine has an article on common motion sickness. Unfortunately, it ruffled my feathers a little. Not only did it talk about taking an anti-histamine and easting a few saltine crackers to quell seasickness, it also suggested taking an herbal supplement and using an acupressure device.

Whereas the science of using antihistamines like dramamine and reducing the sloshing in your stomach by ingesting crackers is tried and true, it backed up the herbal recommendation with one single study and provided no backing for the acupressure device.

I am sad that in a sport that has learned the hard way the values of precise measurement and repeated testing that this sort of thing would even be in the minds of the people who treat diving related injury.

I try to ignore this sort of thing, but it's hard. Sometimes I think it's indicative that our society is cynically growing less respectful of science. Sort of like 'yes science is probably right but I'm going to ignore it anyway'. I suppose human beings are just a perverse, irrational lot. Maybe that's actually a survival advantage. I dunno. Perhaps I should just shut up.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Here's how it works:

science is hard -> science is inscrutable

woo-woo stuff is inscrutable

science = woo-woo stuff


~~ Paul

 

[JSFolk]

OKay, I know that accupuncture and related topics are all woo-woo BS, but I know that one of the things that you can do to cure seasickness is to take you mind off of it by focusing on something else, like taking the helm of a boat, or tending to some sails, or whatnot. Could you get positive results from wearing one of those accupressure thingies just because you focus on it, thus taking your mind of the queasy feelings in your stomach?

 

[corplinx]

For the record, the article mentioned:
1. reliefband (an fda impoved wrist strap that shocks you and supposedly interferes with the nerve signals that cause nausea)
2. a wrist strap that puts pressue on that same spot but uses no shock, instead it uses acupressure and..... magnets!!!
3. orally ingested herb (ginger)
4.some oil you put on the skin bheind your ear, i find this oil on several "alternative medicine" sites

Now, reliefband may actually work. The reason why it works may be something totally unrelated to the acupressure principles it was built around. However, reliefband actually has been approved by the FDA. (google for reliefband)

Orally ingested ginger has one study backing it up that I could find.

The other two have zilch backing them up.

 

[muckraker]

Ginger has been used by sailors as a sea-sickness remedy for centuries, so there's plenty of anecdotal evidence for ginger. Of course, that doesn't mean it actually works!

 

[Pyrian]

Ginger has been used by sailors as a sea-sickness remedy for centuries, so there's plenty of anecdotal evidence for ginger. Of course, that doesn't mean it actually works!

The fact that it is not FDA approved doesn't mean that it doesn't work, either. Obtaining FDA approval costs a lot of money, and nobody would be able to patent using ginger for sea-sickness. Therefore, there is no incentive for anyone to spend the money to make it FDA approved.

Sad but true - the simplest solutions get overlooked in our current system.

Perhaps someone will make a ginger extract that accomplishes the same thing but is patentable.

 

[Rolfe]

Motion sickness. Cause. Pretty convincingly believed to be as follows.

We have two different ways to tell whether we're moving, and in what direction - our eyes and our ears. The eyes bit is obvious, we observe our surroundings are in motion. The ears bit is done by the semi-circular canals, which contain a liquid which sloshes around if we're moving. Nerve endings relay that information to the brain.

Normally, the two sets of messages agree, and if so no problem. However, if they disagree, there is conflict. The brain tries to solve the conflict by seeking more and better data, and on the whole racking up the activity. End result of this can be that the increased electrical activity influences the vagal centre, which is very close to the balance centre. Guess what the vagus nerve does? It supplies the stomach and intestine, and inordinate disturbance will make you feel sick.

This is why you get motion sick - you're usually looking at something which appears static (inside of a car, or the cabin of a ship or whatever - note that the driver, who watches the road all the time, never gets sick), while you're really moving. The opposite also works though - sitting still in an Omnimax cinema is a killer!

You can't switch off your semi-circular canals, but you can close your eyes. Works a treat. Alternatively, fix your eyes on something which will agree with what your ears are feeling - the passing scenery, or the rolling waves.

Tranquillisers try to work by calming down the brain's electrical activity, but they're not always successful. The rest of it sounds like pure hokum. But if you want to make a fortune from something like this, think of a reason why, in addition to taking your quite expensive snake oil, the sufferer must either close his eyes or watch the horizon. The world will beat a path to your door.

Rolfe.

 

[tracer]

By "diving", does the OP mean:

(A) Putting on SCUBA gear and swimming around under water, or

(B) Jumping off a high platform into a swimming pool while attempting to do impressive-looking somersaults in the air, perhaps in front of a panel of judges

?

 

[SquishyDave]

Before I was a skeptic, but still dubious about most quack stuff, I would take ginger pills to control my travel sickness, worked like a treat too. Stopped the nausea dead in its tracks (around 30 minutes or more after taking the pill that is, sometimes that half an hour was an interesting one)

Of course my travel sickness was largely in my head, so a placebo should be able to kill it quite effectively. Sometimes I would feel sick just getting up early in the morning, knowing I would have a long drive ahead of me, so it was really in the mind for me.

So here we have compelling anecdotal evidence that ginger works, for my mother and other family members, but if you are skeptic, you have evidence of it being a great placebo. I hope they do studies on it, I would like to know if ginger does help with the sickness.

 

[Professor Frink]

seasick frink

I have suffered from motion sickness as long as I can remember and I would never leave home without my American Express card and a couple of Dramamine II pills. Work like a charm. Especially on those really big planes that drift up and down the whole flight.

I have heard that there are shots you can get that last a few days, that people get them before going on cruises and such. Can anyone verify that? I'm a professor, but I'm no doctor.

Frink

 

[Pyrian]

SquishyDave:
So here we have compelling anecdotal evidence that ginger works, for my mother and other family members, but if you are skeptic, you have evidence of it being a great placebo. I hope they do studies on it, I would like to know if ginger does help with the sickness.

Well, there's no money in it, so perhaps you should do the study yourself?

Actually, a brief google search found the following:

The Lancet, a highly respected British medical journal, reported excellent results in scientific tests using ginger to treat nausea:
"The powdered rhizome of Zingiber officinale has been found to be more effective than dimenhydrinate (Dramamine) in reducing motion sickness in individuals highly susceptible to this malady (Mowrey and Clayson, The Lancet, 1982)."

While The Lancet certainly exists, I am unable to verify the accuracy of the quote as the on-line archives only go back to 1996.

 

[SquishyDave]

Pyrian

Thanks, I may go into research mode soon and see what I can dig up.

 

[corplinx]

Of course my travel sickness was largely in my head, so a placebo should be able to kill it quite effectively.

I talked with the guy who runs a local scuba shop and has been on quite a few liveaboard yacht-size dive charters. He said all the quackery works because motion sickness is all voodoo anyway. He said that noone on a boat will have it, then all of a sudden everyone on the boat will have it. He talked about the how it seems to "spread" and such.

He claimed to have worn a bead bracelet that puts pressure on a certain accupressure point that worked for him.

At this point, I told him that from how he described seasickness I could give him a pill that would cure it. The pill is called Pla-cebo and it seems it will cure seasickness because from what he described it was 99 percent in your head. The other 1 percent should take dramamine.

 

[pgwenthold]

I talked with the guy who runs a local scuba shop and has been on quite a few liveaboard yacht-size dive charters. He said all the quackery works because motion sickness is all voodoo anyway. He said that noone on a boat will have it, then all of a sudden everyone on the boat will have it. He talked about the how it seems to "spread" and such.

There's a good reason for that. It's the same reason why the captain asks you to hang out at the downwind side of the boat if you are sick.

The smell of others getting sick often will make more people sick, especially if they are on the edge in the first place.

 

[EdipisReks]

i haven't gotten motion sickness in a car since i was a kid. in fact, i've read thousands of pages of books in cars, something that sets most of my friends to vomiting just at the thought.

 

[JSFolk]

Same here, I can read in a car all day long with zero problems. On a sailboat in certain seas with certain points of sail, though, I can start feeling a bit woozy.

 

[American]

This is why you get motion sick - you're usually looking at something which appears static (inside of a car, or the cabin of a ship or whatever - note that the driver, who watches the road all the time, never gets sick), while you're really moving. The opposite also works though - sitting still in an Omnimax cinema is a killer!

You can't switch off your semi-circular canals, but you can close your eyes. Works a treat. Alternatively, fix your eyes on something which will agree with what your ears are feeling - the passing scenery, or the rolling waves.

Tranquillisers try to work by calming down the brain's electrical activity, but they're not always successful. The rest of it sounds like pure hokum. But if you want to make a fortune from something like this, think of a reason why, in addition to taking your quite expensive snake oil, the sufferer must either close his eyes or watch the horizon. The world will beat a path to your door.

Rolfe.

No, you got it all wrong. You get sick cause the wavy motion makes your gut go woomp-a-woomp-a-woomp, like that. It makes you sick. But if you take a natural doctor-recommended organic supplement (carefully engineered by scientists in the laboratory), your stomach and your head can communicate better and you know what's going on so you won't get sick.

-Dr. Nick