Travel Sickness

Travel sickness treatments

There are two widely used travel sickness medications, hyoscine is generally consider to be a little more effective than promethazine. Promethazine is less sedative and therefore may suit some people better.

Hyoscine

• Scopoderm TTS

  Self-adhesive patches active for 3 days.

• Kwells tablets

  1-2 tablets 30 minutes before journey, repeated 6 hourly as needed.

Promethazine

• Avomine

  1 tablet at bedtime on night before travel or 1-2 hours before travel, then one 6 hourly as needed.

How tablets work

Travel sickness tablets work by damping down the confusion in the brain that occurs when motion tells the brain one thing and vision tells it another.

Anti-sickness tablets work best when taken before the nausea starts, although they can be taken after the onset, when they will still help to reduce nausea.

Driving caution

In some people anti-sickness tablets have the side effect of tiredness. You should not drive or operate machinery whilst taking anti-sickness tablets unless you have experience of them and know they do not affect your alertness.