Scopaderm

Ubergeekian

Ubergeekian

Well-Known Member
Joined
23 Jun 2004
Messages
9,904
Location
Me: Castle Douglas, SW Scotland. Boats: Kirkcudbri
www.drmegaphone.com
Sorry if this is old news, but those who, like me, love these little patches might like to know that they seem to be available again. Not over the counter, yet, but I was able to get four packets (two patches in each) on prescription last week with no problem. At four quid that's a bargain - although I would actually prefer to buy them, as I am not quite easy about getting the NHS to pay for a self-inflicted problem like sea-sickness.
 
LONG_KEELER said:
Thanks for the tip !

How do you rate them against Stugeron ?
Click to expand...

Stugeron/cinnarizine doesn't do much for me - only the hyoscine drugs like Kwells, Boots TravelEase and Scopaderm work. Of these the patches are far and away the best. I think that's largely because they can give a bigger dose: pills take you to a safe limit and then decay over the six hours till your next hit, while the patches release continuously and can keep you near the limit for ages.

It's a very personal thing, though, and what suits me might not suit others. I'm lucky, for example, in that I have no side-effect reactions to Scopaderm at all, save a slightly dry mouth which reassures me it's working. Other people just get knocked out.

The big problem with Scopaderm was availability. The makers always seem to be short of production capacity, and when stocks get low it is first reduced to prescription and then kept - quite rightly - as an anti-nauseant for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. It was completely unavailable (save for chemo) for a year or more: I understand that a new production line has started, as I was told it should start appearing again in November.

If you can use it (there are conditions which mean you can't take hyoscine) and if other hyoscine preparations work, the patches are very, very worth trying.
 
Agree with all the above. I'm as prone to sickness as anyone, but on an extended (ocean) passage I reckon I could have sat in the bilge in a gale and happily read a book.

I wonder how much they cost on a private prescription - i.e. the full price.
 
NorthUp said:
Its what happens when you go out in small boats in big waves.
Either your boat isn't small enough, or you havn't been in big enough waves yet!
Click to expand...

Har har har Brilliant answer.

To many its what happens when you go out in the biggest of boats.

Fortunately it is something I have never suffered from, and having seen much of it, I have great sympathy for those that do suffer. I do remember feeling a bit queezie once in Icelandic waters in an F10 back in the mid 70's, but I put that down to to many greasy bacon sarnies during the middle watch.
 
Sandyman said:
Could someone lease explain what ''sea-sickness'' is ?
Click to expand...

It's something which I cheerfully assumed Happened To Other People for the first fifteen years of my sailing career. Then on a roughish trip from Portsmouth to Falmouth I got hellishly sick. Dry retching isn't fun, and neither is hypothermia from fluid loss. I don't know what changed, but without drugs now I simply cannot sail - I certainly cannot safely take inexperienced people sailing.

If you don't get it then congratulations. If you ever get it ... have my sympathies, a wry grin of fellowship, and a patch.
 
I suffer a lot from sea sickness, it was in the main the reason I wasted so many years not sailing :o

I found if I was suffering, laying down on the cabin sole close to the keel and sticking something over my eyes (towel/cap) to shut out the light brought almost instant relief. You may feel going below will make you worse. The trick is to go through the hatch horizontally with your eyes already shut, don't hang around get on the floor. Not much use for active sailing though.

Over the counter Stugeron in the UK is 15mg cinnarizine. I weigh 95kg and I'm not 12 years old. One might also note that the manufacturer makes cinnarizine tablets with doses up to 75mg and that 25mg tablets are widely available for motion sickness outside the UK. If you were really stupid, like I am, you might discover that taking 2 stugeron tablets (30 mg) every eight hours instead of one works an absolute treat and is about half the maximum daily dosage of 225mg advised in South Africa for example.

However, I am an idiot and if you copied me you'd be doing something really silly so don't. A whole world of nannies will descend on you and you're liver will fall off. ;)

Chris
 
Scopoderm

orbister said:
Sorry if this is old news, but those who, like me, love these little patches might like to know that they seem to be available again. Not over the counter, yet, but I was able to get four packets (two patches in each) on prescription last week with no problem. At four quid that's a bargain - although I would actually prefer to buy them, as I am not quite easy about getting the NHS to pay for a self-inflicted problem like sea-sickness.
Click to expand...

Hi orbister.... SWMBO has been prone to travel sickness since a toddler and is now in her late fifties.
It was no surprise to her that when she began sailing she felt unwell.
On one occassion we only got to the 2nd red bouy outside Portsmouth harbour entrance and had to turn about and get back into flat waters quickly.
Another time when conditions were very fair with a good breeze we tried to circumnavigate the Isle of Wight. Luckily I had one other crew who managed to take over as I laid my wife out below and cleared up the mess.
She really, really tried to overcome the sickness by doing short trips on consecutive days to endeavor to build up some immunity, trying every advertised sickness remedy and some that arn't. After many Solent day sails, we eventually really wanted to put her new found confidence to the test
This was possible on a long trip from Portsmouth to Falmouth 3 years ago.
We had 5 days of near flat calm, blue skies and 75% of the trip down was on the motor. She had very little trouble as long as she spent most of her time up in the cockpit or sunning herself on deck. She proved to herself on the return trip that she could enjoy rough weather with no adverse effects as things got worse and worse and we were in a good F6+ wind against tide at one point just passed St Albans Head, just before the tide changed for us to slip through the Needles channel. A great success.
However, a few weeks later when we thought it was just mind over matter and she was winning the battle, we had a weekend in the Solent and again, she was as sick as a parrot in no time.

On a routine visit to sign up to a new doctor in our village she mentioned the problem to the doc'.
Scopoderm TTS ....Scopolamine(hyoscine)INN each patch 1.5MG was his solution to her problem.
Never a sign of sickness since and she is usually in very good spirits, an obvious side effect from the patches. I have never seen such a transformation in someone who was desperate to have fun afloat although she is far from being a committed sailor.
 
Last edited:
Scotty_Twister said:
On a routine visit to sign up to a new doctor in our village she mentioned the problem to the doc'.
Scopoderm TTS ....Scopolamine(hyoscine)INN each patch 1.5MG was his solution to her problem.
Never a sign of sickness since and she is usually in very good spirits, an obvious side effect from the patches. I have never seen such a transformation in someone who was desperate to have fun afloat although she is far from being a committed sailor.
Click to expand...

That's the boys. Brilliant, aren't they?

A few years after I discovered the I ran out on a trip to Ireland. I went to a doctor in Bangor and discovered, to my horror, that they were no longer available. I asked him if there was anything he could prescribe which would help. He was a fellow sailor, so happily gave me a scrip for something powerful. When I had the pills I read the patient information sheet. Side affects, apparently, could include nausea, dizziness and vomiting..

Great.

They worked, mind you.
 
Could not agree more than with Scotty Twister. SWMBO has gone from sick on a boating lake to an Ellen MacArthur clone.
 
My lady friend has started using them and has not had a problem since. She tried many other things first but what is important now is that she believes in them. However at €48 euros for 5 it adds to the costs...!

This said I cant say that we have been out in any really testing conditions.

John
 
I haven't used the patches for years now, the last time was in 2001 on the Fastnet, when I woke to find it stuck to my cheek. Reapplied and stuck a plaster over the top.

I don't recommend them if you are going to be deprived of sleep...When that happens hallucinations can occur, and have in my case, not bad horrible hallucinations, but hallucinations non the less.

Now I just stick to Kwells for the 6 hours I'm a sea, or 2 for 12 hours ;)

That way I can have a good sail, drink water/squash like it's going out of fashion (which isn't a bad thing, but they do give you a dry mouth) then go for a beer, have a glass of wine, finish the day off with a whisky whatever...Which you can't do with the patches that last 3 days
 
This little gem from Wikipedia:

reactions to ordinary doses of scopolamine have occurred including confusion, agitation, rambling speech, hallucinations, paranoid behaviors, and delusions.

Clearly a few here and more in the Lounge have a source... :)
 
snooks said:
That way I can have a good sail, drink water/squash like it's going out of fashion (which isn't a bad thing, but they do give you a dry mouth) then go for a beer, have a glass of wine, finish the day off with a whisky whatever...Which you can't do with the patches that last 3 days
Click to expand...

You have that the wrong way round. You don;t have to leave the patch on for three days, and If you take it off the effects start to diminish almost at once. If you've taken oral hyoscine you have to wait the full twelve hours for it to wear off - unless you're willing to stick your fingers down your throat and hork it up with the rest of your stomach contents.

I took the ferry to Shetland for work in September: a rough crossing so I used oral hyoscine. It worked fine for twelve hours (just like it says on the packet) but alas the crossing via Orkney is fourteen hours, so the last two hours were a bit unpleasant. I didn't want to take another pill as I had three meetings and a reception to attend and not snore through. If patches had been available I'd have stuck one on two hours before leaving and whipped it off again an hour before arrival.

Your point about hallucinations is an interesting one, and demonstrates that with powerful drugs like this it's important to know what the effects on you are.
 
Electronic jangly things

I'm one of those irritating people that have never had sea-sickness, but my wife & kids can get sea sick in the bath. Assuming that all they needed was a placebo I bought Kwells, patches - I even got some pure scopolamine from a CIA contact - its the so-called "truth" drug. Nothing worked.
Bought one of these fancy "watches" that buzz. Perfection - 100% result. Kids went from retching to reading in 5 mins.
Experiment - took the battery out. Kids started to look green; given "watch", happy again.
Placebo?????????
 
Last edited:
orbister said:
You have that the wrong way round. You don;t have to leave the patch on for three days,
Click to expand...

You don't have to, but they can be expensive if you're sailing for a week using a new patch every day! or you could buy 12 kwells for £2.99

And 1 Kwell last 6 hours, not 12, hence the instructions "Take 1 tablet every 6 hours as required" Just enough for your average day sail :)

Never had a problem with drowsiness, just a constant dry mouth, when I have a dry mouth I know they are working, when it starts to wear off I know to either take another tablet or sit on the helm till we get there :) then once we're there I can crack open a beer :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top