Hi Cheryl,
I had the caloric test twice. They blew cool and then warm air into my ears alternately but in both cases it did not hurt at all, it was just strange, but no hurt at all.
As far as a waste of time and money goes, accuracy and integrity are the keys to a methodical approach to diagnosing a problem. I would say your time is worth something of course, but regardless of who is actually paying for it, each individual doctor that you see should want to do each test over again, that is a good thing. I will tell you why. It's called a "double check" for a reason.
I have been a do-it-yourselfer all of my life and I know one thing for sure about diagnosing problems and that is if you take another person's word for something you are leaving yourself open to the mistakes the other person may have made. Hence the term "double check". Not everyone does their job exactly right, and sometimes they do things that defeat the purpose of a test and it alters the output data and they don't even know.
This is painfully obvious where I work ( worked befor I came down with this "vertigo" thing). In an effort to get the desired results sometimes people will make an adjustment to a piece of equipment , or interpret an outcome wrong and thereby alter the data output which gives a false interpretation. This is why in my case I asked for a "2nd opinion".
For sure I don't know as much as those with the degrees, but sometimes things just don't seem to add up right, and in my case they said I had Meniere's disease the first time but after a lot of research and evaluation I decided it couldn't be. The second battery of tests ( some repeated, some new, but all new people) gave the diagnosis of Vestibular neuritis.
It may not seem like much of a difference, but it is. With Meniere's I was cut off salt, caffeine, and sugar. I was given a drug called Lipoflavonoid and then with a couple weeks of therapy I was expected to be as good as new. After I used up two bottles of the drug and their entire repertoire of exercises, I was still lost in the fog, so I suspected something else. The Vestibular neuritis diagnosis required a different approach. Although I have read about injections into the inner ear ( something I won't do unless it is the last resort) I was not offered injections. The new group gave me a different set of exercises to do and monitored my progress. They felt that I was making progress, and to a small extent I agree, and although I am still looking for a different possibility, I am going with the neuritis diagnosis, and things do seem to be getting better, albeit a tiny little bit better, which leads me to wonder if time isn't just healing what ever it actually is.
So, Please try to relax about the caloric test, and stay the course of the professionals-but watch them for integrity and accuracy, ask a million questions and make sure the answers make sense.
That's my opinion. Good luck to you.
ben