Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board sea bands?

Friends:

My wife recently bought "sea bands" (those little wristbands with the pressure point beads) to help combat car sickness.

These things are working so well for her that I'm wondering if they might provide some relief of minor altitude sickness symptoms up high.

I wore a pair on a recent hike of Alta Peak, and didn't experience any headache or nausea. Of course, Alta only tops out around 11,000.

Any idea if these things help combat icky feelings up around 14,000?

This is my third attempt at writing this response due to the fact that I'm laughing so hard...This must be one or those bogus postings I've heard about. SEA BANDS? Why not sea monkeys? Go ahead ...put your safety in the worthy hands of.... "SEA BANDS". Sorry I can't help myself.WS

"Sea Bands" because they were originally invented to combat seasickness. You align them on your wrists so that the beads hit key pressure points that alleviate motion sickness.

My wife's doctor recommended them for long car trips, and they work beautifully.

I'm just wondering if they might help up high. I'm going to try them out on Whitney in a couple weeks, but I thought somebody on this board might already know.

But, if everybody's too busy hurling insults, arguing about weed, and chasing their tails over innocuous juvenile "cyber-terrorism", I guess I'll try my legitimate mountaineering question somewhere else.

If they work, I'll let you guys know.

ericb,

I've heard of sea bands.My mother used them for car sickness and swears by them.I'm not sure about altitude sickness but for that I started using Ginkho a few months before my trip,took ibu when I left the Portal,a few more up higher and drank alot of water.I didn't have any problems with altitude sickness.Sorry about your bs experience here.Some people just don't know how to act.Good luck on your climb.

Sea-bands...Acupuncture......Transcendental Meditation....Holistic medicine. There sure are a lot of areas that I know little or nothing about but that others swear by, and there may be some merit to their use. Some,like this pressure point methodology, date back centuries and keep popping up on a regular basis; a test of time? Golfers have a copper bracelet with pressure bulbs on the ends that touts being a cure for a variety of ailments. Let's cut back on the negative for a while and see where this thread leads.

WindSapien,

Don't knock it until you try it. Sometimes bogus solutions seem to work for reasons that are unexplainable or simply defy logic. Several years ago, my mother quit smoking. She swears that her accupuncturist had something to do with it. My homeland of Peru has mountains way higher than Whitney. One of the ways that the indians that live there deal with the altitude, is by chewing coca leaves. How you like them apples?

ericb, I'll see you on the mountain soon.

sincerely, rafael

Well, I guess I've been put in my place....I wandered a little of coarse in my posting on Sea Bands....What I was thinking at the time and failed to articulate was there is no quick and easy fix when it comes to altitude. I might say that about attitude as well. My wife ,Daughter and I just recently summited Whitney again and this year we made some changes in diet,fitness and equipment that greatly enhanced the expierience. None of us had any significant affects from the altitude this year. This was a direct result of our training and overall approach to hiking and climbing . No drugs. no sea bands,nothing but good old fashion hard work, and some luck.Sorry for the crack. Lighten up a little....... WS

How about pyramid-shaped hats? Perhaps Doug could procure a few.

I'm an obstetrician and generally a disbeliever in the scientific merits of acupuncture and acupressure, but decent studies have shown benefit to acupressure over the inner wrist in patients with excessive vomiting in early pregnancy. I did a literature search in Pubmed, a medical literature search engine, and found no hits for acupressure/altitude sickness. I would be interested in hearing people's individual results if they try it, and someone might be able to set up a randomized prospective study in the future (where are those altitude sickness survey takers when you need them?).

Joeski

hey wind! glad you had a great time with the family but training and conditioning has nothing to do with altitude sickness. diamox does work if you want to hassle the prescription process. happy hiking all!