Rarely severe symptoms such as the inability to walk, ongoing vomiting, or social isolation may occur while rare complications may include dehydration, electrolyte problems, or a lower esophageal tear from severe vomiting. Cause
Motion sickness can be divided into three categories:
Motion sickness caused by motion that is felt but not seen, as in terrestrial motion sickness;
Motion sickness caused by motion that is seen but not felt, as in space motion sickness;
Motion sickness caused when both systems detect motion but they do not correspond, as in either terrestrial or space motion sickness. Motion felt but not seen
In these cases, motion is sensed by the vestibular system and hence the motion is felt, but no motion or little motion is detected by the visual system, as in terrestrial motion sickness. Carsickness
A specific form of terrestrial motion sickness, being carsick is quite common and evidenced by disorientation while reading a map, a book, or a small screen during travel. Carsickness results from the sensory conflict arising in the brain from differing sensory inputs. Motion sickness is caused by a conflict between signals arriving in the brain from the inner ear, which forms the base of the vestibular system, the sensory apparatus that deals with movement and balance, and which detects motion mechanically. If someone is looking at a stationary object within a vehicle, such as a magazine, their eyes will inform their brain that what they are viewing is not moving. Their inner ears, however, will contradict this by sensing the motion of the vehicle.Varying theories exist as to cause.
Thus, with the exception of voluntary eye movements, the vestibular and oculomotor systems are thoroughly linked. Second is the operation of Sherringtons Law describing reciprocal inhibition between agonist-antagonist muscle pairs, and by implication the stretching of extraocular muscle that must occur whenever Sherringtons Law is made to fail, thereby causing an unrelaxed (contracted) muscle to be stretched. Finally, there is the critical presence of afferent output to the Vagus nerves as a direct result of eye muscle stretch or traction. Thus, tenth nerve stimulation resulting from eye muscle stretch is proposed as the cause of motion sickness. The theory explains why labyrinthine-defective individuals are immune to motion sickness; why symptoms emerge when undergoing various body-head accelerations; why combinations of voluntary and reflexive eye movements may challenge the proper operation of Sherringtons Law, and why many drugs that suppress eye movements also serve to suppress motion sickness symptoms.A recent theory  argues that the main reason motion sickness occurs is due to an imbalance in vestibular outputs favoring the semicircular canals (nauseogenic) vs. otolith organs (anti-nauseogenic). This theory attempts to integrate previous theories of motion sickness. For example, there are many sensory conflicts that are associated with motion sickness and many that are not, but those in which canal stimulation occurs in the absence of normal otolith function (e.g., in free fall) are the most provocative. The vestibular imbalance theory is also tied to the different roles of the otoliths and canals in autonomic arousal (otolith output more sympathetic). Diagnosis
The diagnosis is based on symptoms.