What are the symptoms of motion sickness?
Motion sickness symptoms can develop slowly or appear all at once. Common symptoms include:
- Dizziness.
- Fatigue.
- Headache.
- Feeling irritable.
- Nausea and vomiting.
- Rapid breathing or feeling like you need to take gulps of air.
- Salivating more than usual.
- Sweating, particularly a cold sweat.
What causes motion sickness?
Motion sickness happens when your brain gets conflicting messages from the parts of your body that sense motion: your eyes, inner ear, muscles and joints. Here’s an example of how that happens when you’re riding in a vehicle:
- Your eyes register movement because you see signs, trees and other stationary objects come into your line of sight and then drop out of sight. They send your brain a message that you’re moving.
- Your inner ear and the nerve endings in your muscles and joints, which sense that you’re sitting still, send your brain a message that you’re not moving.
- Your brain can’t process the conflicting messages, so you start to feel nauseated or sweaty.
What things trigger motion sickness?
You can have motion sickness anytime there’s confusion between your senses and your brain:
- Amusem*nt park rides.
- Playing video games or immersive virtual reality games.
- Riding in a vehicle, airplane or boat.
What are the risk factors for motion sickness?
The condition is more likely to affect children ages 2 to 12 than adults. Other risk factors are:
- Having a family history of motion sickness.
- Inner ear disorders like benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV).
- Menstrual periods.
- Migraine headaches.
- Parkinson’s disease.
- Pregnancy.
Advertisem*nt
What are the complications of motion sickness?
In general, motion sickness doesn’t cause serious health issues. In some cases, however, people continue to feel nauseous and vomit even though they’re not doing things like riding in vehicles. Excessive vomiting can cause dehydration and low blood pressure (hypotension).
