RE: [Paddlewise] Vertigo-cold water-ear canal

Injecting cold water (or warm water) into the ear canal of a comatose
person is done by docs to determine if their brain still has some basal
level internal connections intact.  If they get "dizzy" in response to
the water bathing their eardrums, that suggests there is still some
degree of intact nerve function within the brain.  In med school we were
required to memorize the mnemonic, "COWS" which stood for Cold-Opposite,
Warm-Same referring to the direction toward which their eyes were
expected to repeatedly jerk when water was squirted. 
It remains (for me) a curious bit of medical trivia because in the ER,
we don't play that.
It is interesting, when folks have vertigo, to watch their eyes and see
the "nystagmus" -that is, the rapid seizure-like eye movements that go
on until the dizziness ends. That helps figure out if someone's
complaint of "dizziness" is cause by vertigo or one of the many other
things that folks describe as "dizzy".
Larry Koenig

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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net
[mailto:owner-paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net] On Behalf Of skimmer_at_enter.net
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 8:18 AM
To: PaddleWise_at_paddlewise.net
Subject: [Paddlewise] Vertigo-cold water-ear canal

This conversation is not going in the direction I anticipated from 
the topic title.

I was listening to NPR one day when they interviewed one of the early 
female candidates for the NASA astronaut program. She told about the 
many tests they had to endure. One involved having cold water 
injected into the ear canal, which caused them to experience extreme 
vertigo. The "test" involved evaluation of the length of time it took 
for the victim/candidate to recover her balance.

I know of many cases of paddlers, skilled at rolling, capsizing to 
test their roll in cold water. They found, either on the first 
attempt or a later attempt, that for some strange reason, once 
capsized, they could no longer tell which way was up. They were 
forced to bail out. This was caused by the cold water in the ear 
canal.

Message: wear a hood for rolling in cold water!

In one of the stories by E. Arima (?) in the Canadian monographs, the 
phenomenon of horizon confusion/loss of balance/fear of capsizing is 
described among Inuit hunters paddling on still water devoid of 
reference points. If pressed, I could dig out the reference.

Chuck Sutherland
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