I had one due to weird neurological symptoms I was having. The tech slid me in to the machine and I freaked. I got him to pull me straight out. He informed me that if I needed medication I could wait a few weeks and do it under drugs. I didn’t want to wait and said I would try again. I managed to shut my eyes for a while and with the strong fan I could imagine I was outdoors. Once I was calm I became really fascinated by the sounds the machine made whipping around my head. They sounded like really great hyper-modern industrial sounds and I was trying to think of ways of using the different effects in music. This proved to be distraction enough to make it tolerable.
Great, I’m going to be thinking about this next time I have one and it’s going to screw up the images because I’ll be giggling to much!
After never having had them before, I had three in the past year, and fell asleep all three times. Only had to go in up to my waist, though, so no real cause for anxiety. Sorry.
Apologies for the bump, but I couldn’t help think that if they’re able to make an MRI with enough space for this:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/319/7225/1596
then there should be something less claustrophobic available for the rest of us?
Hmm… still pretty snug.
MRIs don’t bother me and indeed, I have actually fallen asleep in them. But your experience is not uncommon, I have an uncle who has had the same experience.
I also flunked my first MRI. I was in the tube for about 20 seconds before I threw in the towel. I don’t recall ever being claustrophobic prior to that experience but now sometimes even being on an airplane triggers it. The technician assured me that it is not at all unusual. I’ve had several MRIs since then and always get a prescription for Valium and it works for me. The first tube I was in didn’t even have a mirror in the ceiling which seems to open up the space a little bit.
Yup, until they found an available doc to give me IV sedation. While it lasted, they could have sealed me in a coffin and buried me for all I cared. The doc started backing off on the dose before the MRI was done though, (so I’d be alert enough to stand up and walk out of the room) and I barely made it through the last five or six minutes.
The doctor who ordered the MRI told me that I could get Valium if I needed it but neglected to tell me that he would have to give me a prescription and I’d have to get it filled so I could take it before the test. I thought he meant I could get it at the hospital if I had a problem. I’d never had claustrophobia before so how could I have known in advance that I’d need drugs? Grrrrr.
I had my first and only MRI last year, to ascertain if the “mild” spina bifida I was born with was the cause of progressive and varied problems I had been suffering with over the last 10 years (I’m 43 and was relatively healthy until then).
A scan of my spine was required. One of my symptoms was that, upon lying flat on my back my whole body would gradually go into some kind of spasm, starting at the lower abdomen and working its way up to my chest, and making it virtually impossible to breathe unless I sit up.
So guess what position they put me in for the scan, all the way into the machine? :eek:
I stuck it out for around 20 minutes and then just had to squeeze the little bulb they gave me for emergency withdrawal. I came outta that thing gasping for breath. On top of my mild claustrophobia, it was an experience I wouldn’t want to repeat.
But apparently they had seen enough of my lower spine to determine that indeed my problems are caused by “unusually aggressive” spina bifida, and were able to treat me accordingly to make life a little easier. 
I had one a couple of years ago, to check for abnormal neurological functions (I was experiencing strange fainting spells; the world would go black and I would go limp).
My biggest problem was that it was boring. Nothing to see or do and this noise in my ear was annoying. And they put this thing over my legs that was very heavy and my foot went to sleep. Other than that, no problem. And after all that, they didn’t find anything strange in my brain.
The last time I went for MRI, it was for my knee and I didn’t have to insert my head. They offered me radio headphones and I requested National Public Radio. I listened to some professors debating U.S. foreign policy or something like that.
I had a brain MRI once after I had bumped my head. Ow. I guess I didn’t notice the claustrophobia, sorry, OP. But that horrible loud racket in my ears was very irritating.
A week later, they called me with the results to say it was normal.
They said: “Good news. You have a brain.”
Ha ha.
I almost got an MRI, but not in the freak-out way. It turned out that a more inconvenient scan was available.
When I was like 8 I had an MRI on my head. I guess that since I was so young and it was on my head, they were allowed to give me some medicine to knock me out. All I remeber though was going in, hearing it whine, then having a second of panic before I fell asleep. If I hadn’t taken that sleeping medicine though, I would have started screaming and flailing as much as that tiny tube would have allowed me to.