I'm going for an MRI tomorrow!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have a bad back… have had it for years. I’m used to it by now, and just take it for granted that about once a year I’ll “throw out” my back and end up in bed for a day or two on a heating pad. Such is life.

However, over the past month my bad back has gone from being merely ‘bad’ to being ‘VERY bad’. This started innocently enough: one Sunday morning I stood up from my desk chair to go for more coffee, and I felt something tighten up in the small of my back. Over the course of the next few hours my back became so painful that I couldn’t stand, and I spent the next couple of days in bed… finally, however, my back got better and I continued about my daily business. For a week or so, that is. Gradually, my back has become more and more painful, until I finally consented to go to the hospital today with Astrogirl (who is worried about me… gotta love her!).

Getting to the hospital was interesting, to say the least, as I’m having a bit of a hard time walking at all, but we got there finally.

I was poked and prodded by a very nice doctor, and sent to the X-ray department. The X-rays revealed something very interesting: I have an abnormal lumbar vertebra! See each of the vertebrae has a spur of bone sticking out on either side… and one of MY vertebrae has sort of a double spur sticking out! The doctor explained this in great and horrific detail (I was picturing the gruesome and bloody surgery that would be required to take care of this!) before revealing that this double spur of bone was NOT the problem. Whew!

So what IS the problem that is turning the 10 foot walk from my bed to the bathroom into an adventure in torment?

Dunno…

Back I go tomorrow for an MRI.:eek:

This has me worried. This is NOT a good time for a potentially major health issue… my contract with the university runs out at the end of February, and running out WITH the contract is my health insurance!:smack: Also, sometime in the next few weeks I have to pack up all my stuff for shipping back to the states. THAT’s gonna be fun!

OK, I’m whining… sorry!

The bright spot in my day took place after the hospital visit, when Astrogirl and I stopped at a restaurant for lunch. After we finished eating, she leaned back and said “I’m full! These days I always eat too much! (Keep in mind she’s been saying that after virtually every meal since I met her…) Is there a word in English for some person who is very greedy for food?”

I thought for a minute, and said, “Yeah! Glutton.” (She is not, of course, a glutton at all… she just likes to think that she is.)

She frowned and said, “Grudden?”

“No, no.” I said, “Glutton. G-L-U-T-T-O-N.”

She tried again, “Gruttone?”

I chuckled, which annoyed her.

“Isn’t there an easier word for that?” she demanded.

Again I thought for a second, and it came to me: “Yes: Pig!”

She blinked once, and said, “OK… Glutton!”
Best laugh I had today! :smiley:

2

Astrodude!

Methinks you are exaggerating the distance from your bed to the bathroom. I used to live in an identical apartment, and the whole damn thing was only 10 by 14. If your bed is two feet wide, the walk would be, at the most, eight feet.

Anyway, I hope all went well. I had an MRI or two at our university hospital, and aside from the noise, it was pretty painless. I hope your experience was as good. While the insurance lasts, it’s pretty cheap. National health care will be only a memory when you return to the US. Another reason to stay in Korea!

Are you still in the Land of the Morning Calm? I’ve just returned a couple of days ago. It’s great to be back. Those Hawaiian beaches were torture–80 degrees, gentle breezes, surf to lull me to sleep at night, and bikini-clad women everywhere. What a relief to be wearing a parka again, slipping and sliding on the ice.

3

Hey, Astroboy! I have to have an MRI on Saturday morning. Mine will be on my knee, though, because I’ve screwed it up one too many times. I have a Pit rant about it. That’s how bad it is.

Well, I hope things go smoothly for you, and they figure out exactly what’s wrong with you. I’ll cross my fingers for you!

4

Astroboy, I hope all goes well. I went through something very similar a few years ago - it turned out to be a herniated disk.

5

I think tomorrow has come and gone. What’s the verdict? I hope all is well, just a simple adjustment and everything’s good as new.

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Hey, if they offer you drugs, take em. I never knew I had claustrophobia until I had a lumbar MRI.

Hope everything is ok.

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It may be a bit noisy in there, but otherwise okay. Is it an open MRI or the regular one?

8

Whoa!

OK, sorry… it’s been a few days since I started this thread, and I haven’t replied to it… sorry! I’ve been flat on my back for the past few days, literally unable to stand up or walk (much less sit at my computer and surf the Dope!).

The doctor who recommended that I have an MRI initially said that since the X-rays didn’t show anything, he’d like to see an MRI… but that it PROBABLY wasn’t necessary, as a serious disk problem would likely include pain or numbness to the legs (I have none), and the back injury getting worse and worse (it has, and hasn’t… depending on the day…). The fact that I was able to WALK into the hospital on my own, several days after the problem started, indicated to him that it wasn’t a serious problem… but he’d like to see an MRI anyways.

Well, me too! Especially in light of the fact that I HAVE health insurance now, and will not have it in several weeks… I’d like to get to the bottom of this now, and fix it so that I can look for a job when I get to the US!

So, I went in for an MRI.

The MRI tube is 65 cm. in diameter. I weigh about 300 lbs., making my body pretty close to 65 cm. in diameter.

I am claustrophobic.

The MRI didn’t happen.

They started to put me in head first… and the tube cleared my nose by about 8 cm. or so… I panicked. I took a death-grip on the edge of the MRI casing and screamed: OUT! OUT!! OUT!!! The MRI guy got the idea and extracted my nose from the MRI tube… I leaped from the table and curled up in the corner of the room while my breathing and heart beat stabilized (surprising, considering that I cannot walk at a normal pace at the moment…) while the MRI tech-guys conferred and snickered at the funny foreign guy. Once a had a frim grip on myself, I ran away…

Since that time, Astrogirl has called the hospital several times to see if there is an alternative, or a larger MRI machine available… there has been talk of putting me to sleep to get the MRI (this scares me to death! I can picture waking up inside that tube and, half-conscious, breaking my foot and/or arm while thrashing about in a total panic… keep in mind that this is a Korean hospital, where they are used to anesthetizing people who weigh about 100 lbs. at most… I do NOT trust that they will use a proper dosage. No insult to Korea intended here…).

Anyways, I decided that I would take the doctor at his word, and spend the next few days in bed with the meds that he gave me (dunno what they were… I just took them!).

So, the past 3 days I have spent lying in bed, occasionally forcing myself to eat something so that I could eat pills “30 minutes after eating”.

Today, my back feels better… but is way sore! The last time I tried to stand up, a few days ago, I had muscle spasms all across my lower back (imagine charlie horses all across your lower back, and you will have an idea). The soreness is understandable, I think, in light of the spasms…

Anyways… the back is sore, but feels a LOT better now! If it is not much better after the weekend, I’m going for the MRI… I’ll try having them insert me feet first, and if I can’t take that, I may consider having them knock me out first… though that is something that I have had several nightmares about in the past few days… claustrophobia sucks!

PS: MrO: Yeah, I’m still here… no plans yet as to when we’re going. Just sometime in the next month or so… gimme a call!

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I had an MRI some years ago due to spinal problems.

Sorry to hear that it freaked you out.
I’m not claustrophobic, but I was not looking forward to being in the nasty metal tunnel.
I went in head first, and although I didn’t panic, I was certainly not a happy bunny! I felt trapped and like I was suffocating, my heart rate must have shot up to about 150. So I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing, and imagined the heat from the lights was the sun and I was actually laying on a beach somewhere.
When I opened my eyes again after the bench had stopped moving I was fine. Still not happy about the whole thing, but able to deal with it. Then I was completely distracted by all these weird little clicking and whiring noises and I began to imagine that I was actually inside a big robot, and I could control it. It became fun to imagine what each little noise meant, like “oh, thats me turning the head to look at something”. I got so involved in my little game I was really quite disappointed when they pulled me out again. :cool:

All in all, appart from the first 30 seconds or so, the most traumatic part of the whole experience was having to take out the two dozen or so bits of metal I had shoved through various body parts.

Good luck if you try it again!