September 03, 2011

Best Medication for Dizziness

So how would one go about figuring out the best medication for dizziness due to motion-sickness leading to nausea and even vomiting?

Well, step 1... Put a bunch of people in a machine and figure out the necessary motions that will cause dizziness.

Step 2... Do the same thing, but this time, put people on different medications and figure out what works the best.

Sound crazy?

Well it has been done by the friendly folks at NASA. Why would they perform such unpleasant experiments? It's for the fighter pilots and astronauts who may encounter motion sickness where dizziness may mean the difference between life and death and have no alternative other than medications.

So what medication did they find works the best?

Through trial and error, they have found that a combination of oral scopolamine (not the patch), to suppress vomiting, and dextroamphetamine, to counteract scopolamine's potential to induce drowsiness, reduced the incidence of motion sickness from 70 percent to about 12 percent among passengers in the "Vomit Comet"—a DC-9 aircraft used to achieve brief periods of zero gravity as part of NASA's Reduced Gravity Program.

They have also found that conditioning (repeating movements that induce dizziness) over and over again does result in the development of tolerance to a motion environment in 95% of individuals.

Read more about this here.

Fauquier blog
Fauquier ENT

Dr. Christopher Chang is a private practice otolaryngology, head & neck surgeon specializing in the treatment of problems related to the ear, nose, and throat. Located in Warrenton, VA about 45 minutes west of Washington DC, he also provides inhalant allergy testing/treatment, hearing tests, and dispenses hearing aids.

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