Two things that I am not happy about

[andrewducker]

1) Julie gets travel sick and used her last travel-sickness pill on the way to Belfast. The only pharmacy in Belfast City Airport is a shelf in the WH Smiths. The only travel sickness medication they had was _homeopathic_. What the fuck, WH Smith - do you actively enjoy the thought of people throwing up?

2) Arrived home from three days away to find the temperature in the flat was 12 degrees*. The heating has been on for an hour, which has raised the temperature to 14 degrees. I am currently wearing half my clothes in bed, and I'm not taking any more off until stretching out my toes doesn't cause them to randomly stray into a pocket of arctic weather.

*centigrade - 54 farenheit - 285 Kelvin - 132 Delisle

Comments

[adrian_turtle]

I can't begin to explain the Belfast airport or WH Smith, but I'm sorry that happened to Julie and you. For Julie's future reference, the anti-motionsickness meds (Dramamine, Gravol, etc) are actually antihistamines, and stuff sold as antihistamines can be pretty effective. I've found Benadryl (otherwise known as diphenhydramine) to be more effective against nausea than the new "non-drowsy" things.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Delisle? I have never heard of Delisle!

... that is so weird.

[zz]

me neither. i like the scale comparison. also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_temperature_scales

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Indeed! That is a handy comparison. :)

(I'd also never heard of Rankine, Réaumur, Rømer, or Newton.)

[andrewducker]

I'd never heard of most of them either, until I went looking last night!

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

They do, however, make me think "Bombur, Bifur, Bofur.."

[lebeautemps.livejournal.com]

My friend, you need the toasty goodness of a "fan heater". Going to bed like that will make you darkly miserable.

[call-waiting.livejournal.com]

I don't understand how anything homeopathic can be sold in the shop. Surely they would all fall foul of the Trade Descriptions Act?

[pigwotflies.livejournal.com]

Maybe as they're not a pharmacy they're not allowed to sell any real medicines?

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I suspect this is the case. There are things like paracetamol and basic cold and flu remedies that places can sell without being a pharmacy but I think travel sickness pills are generally pharmacy-only.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

If Andy had bought the homeopathic bollocks and given it to Julie without telling her that it was a scam product, it might have worked!

[andrewducker]

Sadly, giving her real, actual, medical stuff has failed to work in the past (it took her a while to find an anti-nausea drug that worked well for her).

The reduced stress levels would probably have helped a bit though!

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Homeopathic medicines and often actually-dangerous fad diet/detoxes being pushed on people as something more than placebos in the case of the former and as real things in the case of the latter really piss me off.

[dreema.livejournal.com]

i've got coal powered central heating, great if you're in, no so good if you go away for any length of time (eg christmas). As a back up i've got a pair of oil heaters with timers on, they do a great job of keeping the place 'not quite arctic' when the fire's not lit. During the really cold spell last winter i just left them on 24/7, figuring the electric bill would be cheaper than sorting out burst pipes. The two did a marvellous job of heating the entire house to a comfortable temperature.

[andrewducker]

The heating system is set to come on if the temperature drops below 5 degrees, which is handy.

But with thick walls it still takes an age to warm up.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

We've got thick walls too, and have honestly found that it is better to keep the heating on very low pretty much all the time than to have it on high for short periods. If we go away we keep it on on the lowest setting- for the cats if nothing else. Although as we have 1 1/2 norwegian forest cats, I do wonder why we bother when they have such thick coats!

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

We used homeopathic travel sickness pills consistently with the children and they were amazingly, completely effective. With no side effects. Obviously small sugar pills would have worked just as well, but they wouldn't have come in neat blister packs with dire warnings about not exceeding the stated dose etc.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

And there's a chance that they would work on you or me (or Andrew or Julie) - it seems placebos can be effective even when you know that's what they are - but I'd feel like a total idiot buying them and taking them, and I'd resent propping up the industry.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

That's how I felt when I tried acupuncture for my pregnancy nausea that wouldn't stop. It did help me feel better but I felt like an idiot paying to have needles put in me and in the end stopped going.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

They did travel sickness remedies on Mythbusters the other day and the placebos worked a treat, (as did ginger). The actual medicine also worked but left them too groggy to function.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

We were often sick in the car as children; the medicine we were given absolutely prevented vomiting, but it left us sick as dogs. I was very glad to find a system that worked with my own kids.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Congrats to Julie on finding a travel sickness pill that works for her in the first place. I never have. I get partial relief using Sea-Bands, which may well be placebo; but I've never found a pill that helps at all.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

I get sick on boats in moderately rough weather or if I try to read in a car (but ok elsewhere). Ginger is as good as anything. Stugeron (cinarizine) MAKES me feel sick (works for many though), nothing else works either.

I have my own theories based on stuff about head movements noted in the motion sick just before they get sick and that children, women and the elderly are worse for it, and that motor sequences for something like balance vary so much between people. I think that the head(eye)-leveling mechanism is differently executed in different people, and that in some of us, due to stiffness, personal anatomy* or just unfortunate motor sequencing, then we are (over)using neck muscles to keep us straight - which are small and tire quickly and once you do that you lose head(eye) stabilisation with respect to the environment .... and sickness results.

Stress reactions also do not help - as well as making you nauseous on its own account, this would make you tense up muscles and they tire even quicker - tranquilisers are frequently effective and that's part of it I think....

Just my 2ps worth in a fascinatingly frustrating topic...

* which, I understand can vary rather a lot in the particularly here in the case of the scalene muscles in your neck and what they connect to....

[andrewducker]

Yeah, stress definitely makes it worse. Kwells work for Julie - and there as something she was prescribed which helped, but lots of them do bugger all for her.

Seems to be something to do with deceleration as well - landing is much worse for her than taking off, and buses braking has a similar effect.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

We have no heat except a crappy electric fire, so we spend a lot of time huddled under the duvet.

Well, I didn't say it wasn't enjoyable. ;)

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

the average temperature in my bedroom is zero from roughly November to roughly March.

memory foam helps, more than I believed possible.

i frequently awake to find my iPhone wet with condensation.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

yep, 12 is far too cold, my house is between 10 and 12 in the evenings (I keep the fire going in the living room after work and spend as little time as possible anywhere else in the house) but I just can't seem to get the living room warmed up these past few nights, bah

hope Julie wasn't too travel sick, it's really awful. I hate travel sick tablets too, for the sleep inducing side effects.