I had completely never heard of caloric testing before, but I’m hoping it will reveal something about my (potentially?) damaged vestibular nerve. If you’re like me and had never heard of caloric testing, here’s Wikipedia’s definition of it:

In medicine, the caloric reflex test is a test of the vestibulo-ocular reflex. It is used by audiologists and other trained professionals to validate a diagnosis of asymmetric function in the peripheral vestibular system. Calorics are usually a subtest of the electronystagmography (ENG) test battery.

So basically, what they do is squirt warm and cold water into your ear. In a normal person, the eye will move in a particular way — but for someone with vestibular dysfunction, the eye will move less (or perhaps not at all?).

Funny enough, the medical literature uses the acronym ‘COWS‘: Cold water causes fast nystagmus (eye movement) to the Opposite side, wheras Warm water causes nystagmus to the Same side.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m not a doctor — so if you’re curious about learning more about this, I would highly suggest speaking to someone who is a licensed physician.

I’m a little nervous that this test is going to make me even more dizzy, but I’m also kind of happy that they can finally test for what’s potentially wrong with me. I guess I’m also a little freaked out that the results will be totally normal, and then I’ll be back at square one.

Anyway, I’ll write again about this after I get the tests… how bad can it be, right?