What should you know about severe motion sickness?

Motion sickness happens when signals from the inner ear, eyes and body do not agree about movement. Waves, turns, acceleration and visual motion can trigger nausea, sweating, dizziness, headache and vomiting. Symptoms often improve when movement stops, but repeated vomiting can cause dehydration and exhaustion. Similar symptoms away from travel may have another cause and should not automatically be labelled motion sickness.

Choose a position with the least movement: look at the horizon, keep your head still and get fresh air when possible. Avoid reading or looking at a screen during travel, and take light meals rather than travelling after a heavy meal or alcohol. Ask a pharmacist or clinician about preventive medicine before departure; some options cause drowsiness and may not suit children, pregnancy, glaucoma or other conditions. Carry water and plan breaks.

Get medical advice if vomiting continues after travel, you cannot keep fluids down, you pass very little urine, feel faint, or develop severe headache, weakness, chest pain or confusion. Urgent assessment is needed for blood or green material in vomit, severe abdominal pain, breathing difficulty or symptoms that began without motion. Dehydration can become serious when vomiting is frequent.

Ask which preventive option fits your age, medicines and health conditions, when to take it, and whether drowsiness could affect driving or work. Discuss what to do if vomiting prevents medicine from staying down and whether a travel health consultation would help with a difficult itinerary.