> > Years ago, I read an article about a NASA researcher who came up with a
> > technique for inoculating you against all manner of motion sickness. The
> > trouble was that it required about a dozen hours of non-stop nausea.
> >
> > I've wondered whether if it were commercially available, I would go through
> > it, in order to gain a lifetime of being able to read on long car rides,
> > etc. And just who volunteers for studies like this....
>
> Well, as a kid I used to purposely go on the worst carnival rides
> repeatedly in order to build up my resistance to motion sickness. I used
> to get quite nauseous while reading in a moving car, but no longer. The
> 'Turkish Twist' was one of my favorites.
I've been through what amounts to the same thing--Meniere's Disease. I no
longer have attacks, but I can still experience motion sickness (I could
always read in a car, though). The vestibular system is a complex thing,
and it's hard to predict how it will respond to overstimulation or
infection. It is also hard to predict how people's brains respond to
changes in sensory input. In severe cases, patients have their vestibular
systems destroyed to stop the attacks; some recover well after a bit of
therapy, readjusting to using vision and proprioception to perform the
common tasks of life, like walking and standing, that they used to use
their balance organs for. Some don't recover well at all, and are barely
able to stand even with their eyes open.
In short, tinkering with sense organs can be pretty risky. There are
cetainly great things possible to gain from it, like laser eye surgery or
cochlear implants, but I wouldn't try something like that until it had
been well tested and provided clear benefits.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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