Blog 6. Balancing Act

THE BALANCE TEST

I thought I might miss this one because I lead a pretty active life and have no problems with balance at all.  However about nine years ago I was walking along a narrow country road in Brittany when a small house to my left appeared to move.  It was sudden and shocking and had me clinging to the ground for stability. I could hardy walk because of the dizziness and felt constantly nauseous. My doctor diagnosed labrynthitis and after treatment I made a full recovery.  I mentioned this to the Consultant and as a consequence he wanted to find out whether the labrynthitis had affected permanently my inner ear.  The initial tests were simple.  I was asked to hold my arms out in front and to walk on the spot with my eyes closed.  Apparently some people begin to turn as they do this and end up facing a completely different direction when they stop. I was still pointing ahead.

I was then asked to sit on to the doctor’s examination bed.  He asked me to sit up then as he held and turned my head as I moved to a lying down position. Apparently my eyes were the clue to a balance problem but once again all seemed well. Some  goggles were placed over my eyes and I was asked to keep my head pointing ahead but to make my eyes follow a moving red light.  Not really difficult and I assume some sensor in the goggles was monitoring my eye movements. Still with the goggles on but this time with a shutter closed, putting me in complete darkness, warm water was poured in my right ear for about a minute.  I then sat in darkness for about five minutes before the same procedure was carried out on my left ear.  The whole procedure was then repeated but with much cooler water.  Apparently the warm water warms the fluid in the inner ear and it’s this fluid which helps control balance. Then it was over but I’d been there for an hour and a half! OK I’m a bit vague about this but that’s because I didn’t catch all of the explanations given to me by the doctor doing the tests. He didn’t seem to be unduly concerned and I didn’t ask for a verdict because I’d been told that the outcome of the test would not stop the CI going ahead.