As I reflect on my first season of triathlon, I realize there are three certainties in my life:
Death;
Taxes;
Throwing up during open water swims
It turns out that while I am (mostly) fine swimming in pools, I progress to full on seasickness and dizziness during open water swims. You name the body of water and I’ve probably thrown up in it this season! It’s funny, embarrassing, and a bit overwhelming to float and vomit at the same time, but I’m a pro at that this point. And, the fish love me! But it has to stop.
I figure that I cannot be the only one who struggles with seasickness/motion sickness and dizziness during open water swims. If you’ve struggled with this before, what has worked for you? I’m willing to try anything (I have prescription a prescription for an antiemetic, but it puts me to sleep so I’m looking for something else to try as the swim/sleep duo seems a bit challenging). If you have advice (or even assvice such as HTFU), I’ll take it. My goal is to have this seasickness/dizziness mess figured out by the start of next season. Thanks in advance!
Could be simply cold, could be an inner ear imbalance (though less likely as it doesn’t happen in pools). I have heard of people doing quite well combating “sea sickness” using swimmers ear plugs. They aren’t expensive and might be worth a try.
Last Years IM St. George turned in a wave pool during the swim. I’d never gotten sick before, but the waves from the wind kept taking me up and dropping me. The swim was pretty rough and I threw up, which continued on the bike, until I decided no more sugary nutrition.
Anyways, I’ve put a little baggy of oyster crackers on my bike. Just to settle my stomach, I eat very early on the bike…it also helps me drink more. This was my solution, for what it’s worth.
Maybe don’t eat as much before the race? It’s not a bad option to start a little hungry and eat on the bike.
Usually from cold water in one ear and not the other. Causes inner ear imbalance and makes you sea sick. Breathing to one side where the ear gets warm air while the other side stays in cold water most of the time is typical culprit. Also amplified by swim cap covering one ear hole but not the other. One ear warms up, but the other gets constant flushing of cold water. Boom - seasick.
Many, many years ago, during my second tri, I almost fell over trying to put on my shoes because I was so dizzy. Ear plugs solved that problem.
I’ve felt seasick during some long swims and have found that limiting fluid intake immediately prior to swimming helps reduce the feeling. Good ear plugs also help here.
Also, I tend to “swallow” some air while breathing and that also gives me that seasick feeling once in awhile. A gas x prior to long swims does the trick.
Then there is always the lung full of water that occasionally happens (usually when I’m having a great swim) and that’s where I end up chumming. Just need to keep working on my technique here…HTFU
I’m very susceptible to motion sickness. While I haven’t swam in super choppy waters this year, I followed the “ear plugs” advice and have not felt sick on any swim thus far.
Have you tried a motion sickness pill prior to the race, like Dramamine?
You might also want to try acupressure wrist bands. My wife gets easily car sick, especially during drives in the mountains. Since she started wearing the wristbands (they have a little bump that you put on the inside of the wrist to keep pressure on a nerve bundle), she has not had any problems with car sickness.
Thanks for the feedback, all. I will try ear plugs. My motion sickness carries over to other aspects of my life - I get sick sitting in a parked car - so I have tried medication, but it puts me to sleep (even the non-drowsy kind) and tackling a swim/sleep duo seems like too much of a challenge.
I will also recommend sealing your ears to water if you have not already tried it. When I started trying to open water swim, I would get so dizzy and disoriented I would literally start swimming in 20 meter circles and get lost 100 meters from the dock. I never got all the way to vomiting, but my dizziness and disorientation was severe. Earplugs were suggested, and they helped. But when I took the step of good earplugs, combined with sealing them in with some of that moldable wax, combined with a silicone swim cap pulled over my ears, combined with a tight fighting neoprene hood with a chinstrap that I can velcro down tight to hold it all in place so that not one drop of water can get in my ears = miracle. All dizziness went away and I can swim (slowly) in a nice straight line with no problems.
I had this problem, even in the pool. When I first started swimming, I’d get nauseated every time I swam.(after swimming, I’d sit on the floor of the locker room all curled up, wishing the nausea away and thinking about becoming a duathlete.) Tried Dramamine/bonine, which actually made me feel more sick. I found that the things that helped me though it were-
Consistent swimming. If I swam 2-3 times a week, eventually it would go away. But it was painful getting there.
Bilateral breathing - I think this was the real answer. I had gone in to see an audiologist, who tested me out (I was physically fine). She explained in layman’s terms that our ears essentially have tiny gyrometers in them. If I was consistently breathing to one side, the gyrometers were spinning hard one way, but not the other. Breathing to both sides equalized this out.
I’m not sure which one worked better, but I eventually didn’t have any problems either in the pool or in open water.
as everybody already said, earplugs are the answer: if you ever had a vestibular test, it is exactly the mechanism used to check your inner ear: the ENT squirts warm water and cool water in each of your ears and checks which way your dizziness goes (do you feel like you are spinning left or right) and how strong it is.
Open water temperature is plenty low enough to cause issues as your ears will likely never be at the exact same temperature, and your inner ear is REALLY sensitive so this causes the dizziness problem.
On the other hand, since you are saying you are only ‘mostly’ fine swimming in pools and you have some car sickness issues, it might as well be just that your inner ears are more sensitive than average and so can give you more issues.
if teh earplugs don’t work for you try a little ginger drink before the start, lots of long distance open water swimmers use ginger as a way to calm the stomach if it’s not from motion sickness.