Cold Calorics

A little background on the 'Cold Calorics Reflex Test.' It is a simple neurological test that is done on the comatose patient to test brain stem activity. I stress that it is to be done on a comatose patient, and NOT on the awake and alert patient.

The test consists of irrigating the patients ear canal with cold water (sometimes ice water... but I think this to be a bit extreme). In the patient with an intact brain stem (a good thing), the patients eyes will turn toward the ear that you put the water into and then you will see horizontal nystagmus (rapid horizontal shaking) towards the opposite ear.

If the patient is awake and alert, as I'm sure you can see, they would be quite uncomfortable (ummm... you think), and most likely they will become dizzy and nauseous. I would probably even bet heavily on the fact that you will be cleaning vomit off your shoes shortly after you assault an awake patient with this test.

So here is the best part... I had an ear ache one afternoon and thought it would be wise to rinse/ irrigate my ear canal out. What the heck... we do this in the hospital all the time. Of course, in the hospital we bring the water up to body temperature prior to the irrigation. Well THAT lovely little piece of information escaped my memory while I prepared to irrigate my own ear. So the water I used was not 'cold' but it was NOT body temperature.

My brain stem is intact, my eyes moved the way that they were supposed to, I got dizzy... good news I suppose, although I was already pretty sure my brain stem was fine (I'm thinking my IQ is questionable at this point). Bad news? I had to clean vomit off my shoes, but after I laid down to avoid passing out.

Oh special... guess I'll go back to sticking Q-tips in my ears!