What medicines for travel sickness?
If someone in your family or you yourself quickly suffer from travel sickness, proven medication can help. Here you can find out everything you need to know about motion sickness and which medication reliably helps.
Why take medication for motion sickness?
Travel sickness can hit you quickly and unexpectedly. There is turbulence on the plane, on the train you sit against the direction of travel, on the car or on the bus you go through valleys and mountains. The stomach already reacts sensitively and the so-called travel sickness sets in. If you know that you or your child tends to get sick quickly, you should prepare accordingly before each trip. Fortunately, there are effective over-the-counter and prescription medications that will calm the stomach.
What active ingredients are in the medication?
The medication for travel sickness usually contains one of these five active ingredients:
- dimenhydrinate
- scopolamine
- cinnarizine
- meclozine
- metoclopramide
Which active ingredient is suitable for you depends on how severe your travel sickness is and how much you want to get from the travel time, because some active ingredients make you very tired.
As an alternative to the chemical substances, there are herbal medicines that can help with motion sickness. These include ginger or the homeopathic remedy Cocculus D4. Before departure, a piece of raw ginger can be chewed or made into tea. Finished preparations, such as tablets, are also available in pharmacies.
How does travel sickness medication work?
Most over-the-counter motion sickness medications contain the active ingredient dimenhydrinate. It dampens your body’s own messenger histamine. As a result, you no longer feel the need to throw up. Dimenhydrinate is available at the pharmacy without a prescription. All medications that contain this active ingredient make you tired and you should therefore no longer drive a car yourself. In order for them to work well, you should swallow them an hour before the start of your journey or departure. The effect usually lasts up to four hours. The medication is now also available in the form of chewing gum. These usually work about 30 minutes faster than tablets because they release the active ingredient directly in the mouth and deliver it to the body.
Prescription medicines for motion sickness
In addition to dimenhydrinate, there are four other active ingredients that are contained in medicines for travel sickness. All four are stronger and therefore last longer. However, they require a prescription:
- Scopolamine: It has the fastest response rate and the best effect. However, it makes you tired and has other side effects. It is usually stuck behind the ear as a patch five hours before departure and works for three days.
- Cinnarizine: This active ingredient is ideal if you just want to sleep, as it makes you very tired.
- Meclozin: Meclozin is actually not a direct active ingredient against travel sickness, but against irritation of the inner ear, as occurs with seasickness. This active ingredient has the advantage that it only makes you tired at the beginning.
If your travel sickness is already far advanced and you have already thrown up, no more pills will help. In this case, suppositories with the active ingredient metoclopramide or the fast-acting chewing gum variant are ideal.
No matter which medication you choose for motion sickness, you should make sure that you do not take it in combination with alcohol. In addition, you should avoid these chemical drugs during pregnancy or breastfeeding. Always be aware of the side effects so you are not surprised by them.