Were you disoriented at all or did you feel any strange sensations? (I did, when getting an MRI for a suspected brain tumor, which, fortunately, I did not have.)
289 pictures of the inside of my head. The disc has a special viewer on it with a number of tools. The pictures are overlayed with lots of medical jargon. Mostly about the position of the particular ‘slice’ I think.
You can set the screen to show both the ‘top’ and side views at the same time. And there are 14 different series. Heh. Just scroll through them. And I thought what I did was high tech.
And it does seem like I see a white mass near where my cochlea (sp) of my left ear. Which is the one under suspicion. And no reason to worry. I actually kind of hope I do have a tumor there. I was told that these are benign, and could cause hearing problems. And that for a younger person they would take it out, if I was in my 60’s they would not necessarily worry about it.
Maybe, it I do have a small (talking bb size) mass there, by removing it from my middle ear, my hearing could improve.
Heh. Not counting my chickens. And it is probably just an anomaly. And I know I REALLY don’t know what I’m looking at other than ‘That appears to be my left ear’.
No. But they did ask lot’s of questions about me having any problems with claustrophobia, am I steady on my feet, have I fallen recently and such. Had to sign a release of course.
If there are no worries about crushing injuries, or escape, I have no problems with small spaces. And, I’m a scuba diver. That will often bring on feelings of claustrophobia because of limited vision and listening to yourself breath.
I will say that after laying perfectly still for a half hour, that I had to stretch a little to get the 46 year old blood moving again.
And I felt no odd sensations. I was given a special sort of open plastic cover that supported a mirror so that I could see the tech working behind glass in the next room. So for the most part, I was looking out over my feet at the tech. Not just staring at the machine a few inches away. Good idea.
And they let me pick out the music I wanted to listen too. And, the tech would talk to me between ‘scans’.
My biggest difficulty was trying not to swallow too much. That tends to move your head a little bit.
I had a CT scan about two weeks ago and a PET scan last thursday. Had to cross my arms above my head for half an hour and I was pretty stiff trying to get them working again. In the CT scan they injected something that gave me a warm sensation that moved down through my body, wasn’t bad though.
I had an MRI of my right knee this last Monday. It was seriously unexciting. Maybe half an hour or a bit more, and I was incredibly bored. But better that than screamingly claustrophobic – whoever came up with open MRIs is one of my personal heroes!
I have pretty pictures of my knee but damned if I know what I’m looking at. I’ll find out Tuesday afternoon, though.
A lot of those CDs will include the doctor’s report - i.e., the diagnosis. Although if they handed it to you as you left, s/he probably hadn’t seen the pictures yet, so no report.
Out of curiosity, what brand is the CD software? My company is in that biz.
Are MRIs as loud as they used to be? Back in the day(1989-1990), getting an MRI consisted of lying still in a big long cold tube, for an hour and a half or so, with about 80% of it silence, and 20% being various bangs and other really loud and startling sounds, especially if you’d fallen asleep or almost fallen asleep.
Not sure how they used to be. But yes, for such a high tech piece of equipment (looks like it belongs on a space ship) it sure did make all kinds of strange and loud noises.
Mine was in an open MRI – it was rather like the tube, except that the sides were 90% open. Sort of like two saucer-shaped sections that were connected in the middle, which I was slid partway into. I could see around me, and I knew that I could get out if I had to so I’d be fine. The top was still uncomfortably close to me, but I could handle it. My knee was way farther in than my head was, obviously.
I too remember the 80’s MRI to be very very loud, but this wasn’t anything like that. There were various banging and buzzing and whatnot noises, but none of it was very loud.
I had weird feelings in my leg during most of it but nothing even slightly unpleasant, just weird. Those are some strong magnets!
On my last MRI I asked why they still used the closed machines instead of all being the open MRIs. The tech said the open machines take almost twice as long to get the same image. Since I was already going to be in the machine for 40 minutes and I don’t suffer from claustrophobia, I am just as glad to stick with the regular machines.
And bump, yes, they are just as loud. I wish the local hospital would set it up so listening to music was possible. 40 minutes of that noise, with my head held in place can be tiring.
