Motion sickness wrist band

The MorningWell CD for morning sickness CD reminded me of this gadget from Sharper Image that I recently wore to combat morning sickness. It was given to me by a mom who used it during her pregnancy and wanted to pass it on. I probably wouldn't have spent the 80 bucks on it on my own, as desperate as I was, so I happily accepted the freebie. Seabands only did so much for me even though I did wear them all the time, probably for the psychological comfort of thinking that maybe they were doing something. And I knew I wanted something stronger that wasn't meds.

So how does it work? You wear it on your wrist and "gentle" intermittent electric pulses are believed to interfere with nausea messages between the brain and the stomach. Now, I write "gentle" in quotes, because even at the lowest settings (there are 5), the electric shocks are, well, quite shocking. A buzz shocks your hand every 3 seconds, strong enough that my fingers would jerk involuntarily. So does it work? Honestly, I couldn't say for sure. My morning sickness was really, really bad though, so I wonder if it would have been worse if I didn't wear it. I wore the band everyday for weeks and oddly enough, the shocks (gentle pulses, ha!) became strangely comforting...so in a way I guess it did work in that I was distracted.

Sharper Image doesn't specifically mention it's usefulness for morning sickness so I wondered if it was safe to use everyday for a prolonged period of time. I did ask my OB who said she had several patients use the wrist band and that it was safe as far as studies showed, but one day my hand still felt "buzzy" after I took it off and it freaked me out enough to not want to wear it again (but my m/s had started to subside a bit anyway so it wasn't a big sacrifice). But putting that aside, if you have severe m/s and especially need to travel (drive to work, ride a train, etc), it might provide some relief...after you get over the initial shock of the first buzz!

At Shaper Image.