Ski Sickness

A snowHead

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski_sickness
Last week I was skiing in heavy snow/ low cloud above the treeline when I started to feel really dizzy then after a while nauseous just like travel sickness ( something I suffered from really badly as a child) This continued to get worse to the point that I began to retch. I therefore called it a day and returned to apartment where symptoms gradually subsided after a few hours.
I have experienced this before in similar weather conditions although never quite as bad.
According to the above Wiki this condition might effect up to 10% of skiers.
Does anybody else suffer from this and has anybody found a solution that works?

A snowHead

kevinrhead, yes, there have been a number of threads about this on snowheads. I don't tend to feel sick, but I do feel a bit woozy and disoriented, but in my own case I find my response is much better now that I can ski better - so in my case the symptoms were partly a result of anxiety at being unable to see what was underfoot. But it was clear from the previous threads that some really expert skiers suffer badly from this in very poor visibility - and for the same kind of reasons as travel sickness, I guess. Some people will tell you to ski in the trees and that's all very well when it's just poor visibility - the trees help a lot. But in a genuine whiteout when you can't even see you own skis some of the time I'd rather be well away from trees, thanks, as they can cause nasty injuries when you ski into them. Twisted Evil

It's possible that travel sickness remedies could help, I suppose, in calming down that ear/brain thing which causes the problems. But heading for the nearest bar and sitting by a nice fire with a coffee is preferable.

In some resorts some areas are affected by poor visibility worse than others - local advice might help you avoid the worst.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

My friend suffers similarly. She had previously assumed she was suffering the effects of altitude as it had only happened at high resorts - then it happened where it wasn't so high and she realised the common factor was the weather conditions. She went to her doctor who advised taking the kind of travel sick pills that don't cause drowsiness. I think Stugeron was mentioned but I am not sure. Maybe one of our resident medics or pharmacists have experience of people in this situation?

You need to Login to know who's really who.

I have felt like this in a complete white out and put it down to something similar to motion sickness. My wife, on the other hand, preferred the white out as she couldn't see any of the bits which normally would have made her scared, like the edge of the mountain/piste.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Had this once... up above Les Contamines. Zero visibility, driving snow and awful winds.
Felt sick, dizzy, truly awful. Kept falling over as I thought i was moving when i was stopped, and thought i was stopped when i was actually still moving.

Just wanted to sit down and wait til i felt OK, but knew that i had to get down the mountain.

The only thing i found that helped was looking at the tips of my skis in the snow. At times my skis weren't visible because of the snow depth, so had to stare at my boots instead! Proper focussing hard and staring at them got me safely down the mountain.

You'll need to Register first of course.

the trouble with things like stugeron is that to be effective they need to be taken some time in advance - the best way is to take a small dose every 8 hours from 24 hours ahead of exposure - that way you can take less, and they do have disadvantages (e.g. very dry mouth with Stugeron). So you'd need to keep your eye on the weather forecast - no good taking them once you start feeling bad. But if faced with what looks like a bad vis week (like the one ahead.....) you could do worse than take a low dosage permanently.

There may be something better only available on prescription - Stugeron is OTC.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Is this just altitude sickness or something different?

After all it is free

narc, Narc it is motion sikness.

I don't tend to get sickness on the mountain but do get a little disorientated and dizzy in white out (lots of practice of that last week!). In good weather after I get back in from a full day's cruising the slopes I tend to get a feeling similar to what you get when you step off a boat - the solid world starts to feel just a little bit swishy.... it is actually quite a nice feeling and it tells me I've had a great day out!

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

If it's related to motion sickness, then try keeping some candied ginger on you - won't help the dizziness much other than equalising the pressure in your inner-ear, but does help control the nausea till you can get to a point where you can get your orientation again plus you can take it when you need it. Going green

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

I have a friend who I ski with who suffers badly with this. She carries liquid glucose with her because she wondered whether it was due to low blood sugar. She also takes travel sickness remedies and I think she also has stem ginger and dried bananas (not the chip ones but the scrivelled black ones) again to keep sugar levels up. She follows somebody closely in difficult conditions. It is a real pain for her.

snow reports

I've experienced the sensation when riding in white-out conditions, particularly in very soft snow, but never enough to really effect my day. Best thing to do on days like that is stay in the tree-line in my book. Ginger has worked for me in other situations (reading maps and pace notes in a rally car will bring back many a lunch) and for friends who suffer travel sickness. Prefer candied ginger myself as you can chew on it for a while and i have a sweet tooth, though ginger root and even ginger biscuits work. Word of warning is don't eat too much or you'll just feel sick from too many sweets

My theory is that all of you are pregnant.

You know it makes sense.

Strange suggestion perhaps, but I've been told that hayfever tablets can help with seasickness/motion sickness. Something to do with them opening up the ear, nose and sinus canals or some strange science. Might be worth looking into, there's not many downsides to taking hayfever tablets.

Sounds a lot like vertigo caused by a lack of visual reference - your body knows which way up it is, but your eyes see or imagine something different. Means you get disorientated and can cause vomiting and nausea.

Unfortunately motion sickness is basically your body's response to being poisoned, and is hard wired into people (some get it much worse than others) - if you eat something poisoned or bad then a result is often that your eyes see something different to what your body feels. This is your body trying to protect itself by emptying your stomach of whatever it is that has poisoned you. Clearly this sometimes has its downsides.

Make sure you have eaten properly, low blood sugar certainly doesn't help with motion sickness, ginger has helped some friends who have problems on boats, though how much of this is placebo effect I don't know.

There are also wrist bands that claim to help with motion sickness. Might be worth trying these, or having them in the bag in case it kicks in. Again don't know to what extent placebo effect is helping with these, but they seem to work for some.

It may also be that being at higher altitudes doesn't help - being out of breath and having to work hard to get enough oxygen may also cause headaches and sickness, so the combination of factors may be causing this to be worse than it is.

Focusing on the horizon helps with seasickness, however when skiing in low viz this isn't possible. If there is enough viz this is why skiing in trees helps - they are a fixed object you can focus on which corrects the eye/body imbalance. Otherwise looking at something which isn't moving or which can at least tell you which way is up/down will help you - the natural response is to put your head down and feel sick, counter-intuitive because you should try and look up at fixed objects if you can. Stop regularly and get close to objects you can use for reference, if that's your buddies or trees, lifts, whatever then use it. Spike Milligan had it right - the best cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

As an ex Marine driving boats sea sicknes or motion sickness was sometimes a problem, the best cure then was to sit under a tree.
White out sickness (motion sickness) also has the added bonus of disorientation as not providing a reference point ie can see bug ger all.
Had to take a party down once in a whiteout with drizzle in the air which intantly froze onto goggles, such had to take gloves off every 30 secs to scrape ice off with nails.
Got very nervous party (some of whom were complaining of dizzyness and nausia) down by leading slowly (following piste markers) telling each one to only follow person in front (had best skiier at back with frequent 200 yd stops and head counts) but to imagine they were partially sighted and could only see the shape of person in front (which was the case through frozen goggles) this tricks the brain into realising that this is the only sighted information it is going to get. Also to focus on the feet by feeling what they were doing and to feel the skiis, its amazing how much you can feel when the brain losses 95% of its information ie sight.
All party was happy upon getting down even those feeling ill said that they ended up enjoying the run

So if poss follow another skiier (who you trust) to give a reference point
Or if alone ski slowly with eyes closed using a long blink ie only open eyes every 1 or 2 turns, this allows the brain to use its internal reference and balance mechanism

A snowHead

Missed the tree reference of previous post as was not previous whilst typing

A snowHead

The inability to tell where is up, and whether you are going forwards or are stationary (or starting to fall over) can, I find, be partially overcome by keeping doing strong, short turns at all times, so that self-created centrifugal forces dominate. I don't know why this seems to work and I don't know if it would help your problem.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Really interesting thread.

We had a lot of bad visibility in Tignes over Christmas and both of us were feeling dizzy at times.

It doesn't seem to be just skiing related though, as I'm still getting a bit a week later?

Any thoughts.

Will try some fresh ginger with lemon and honey.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

If all else fails then you can always throw-up - then your white-out won't be so white...

Sorry

*gets coat, leaves*

You'll need to Register first of course.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

gryfon, Strange, I was ok for the next couple of days skiing and driving home but once home I began to have dizzy spells which continued for 3/4 days.

After all it is free

The continued feeling of motion sickness sounds similar again to motion sickness caused on boats / change between boats and dry land. Essentially, a form of vertigo (imbalance).

I don't get motion sickness (thankfully!) but having done a liveaboard diving trip for a week, I had horrible 'landsickness' when back on dry land - my body had become adapted to being on a boat and constantly moving, and took several days to catch up with being back on land - basically it was over-compensating.

Assuming it's the same kind of thing, your body should re-adjust in a few days' time, but it'll affect different people to different degrees - I think it took me nearly a week to be back to normal, but others either weren't affected or were affected much less.

It would make sense that you're not affected whilst driving or skiing either - your body is in motion, which is what it's accustomed itself to. The vertigo reaction kicks in when the motion stops and your body / mind overcompensates. Bloody clever really, just a tad annoying Wink

snowball, Yeah, I suffer from the nausea, etc. thing in completely flat light (or indeed) whiteouts. It's better when I'm rapidly trying to get to the bar/restaurant...gets worse when I stop...

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

I has some lessons in a white out last year. We were told to lower our center of gravity which seemed to work a treat.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

I had no idea this was a problem for people and suffer badly from motion sickness, if I read in a car for 5mins I will feel instantly sick and any length of time flying in light aircraft no matter how calm makes me feel ill. I've had some horrible experiences on rough ferry crossings but strangely I'm pretty OK on yachts, the feeling of being on a boat for a long while and then dry land it pretty weird!

I guess it is quite complex how it works to affect different people so differently.

Help!!

Ski Sickness

snowHeads Forum Index >>> The Piste