My 16 year old daughter (who has cerebral palsy) has been having some pain in her hips the last few months and is scheduled to go in for an MRI tomorrow to see if they can determine the cause. She is somewhat apprehensive because she has heard that the MRI machine is noisy. Like many people with cerebral palsy, Doe never lost her infantile startle reflex and sudden, loud noises make her tense up involuntarily and painfully. If the machine makes a sort of sustained loud noise – like an engine or something – that wouldn’t be so bad. But sharp booms, bangs, or pops she’ll really have a problem with. I’ve never had an MRI, myself, nor has my husband. What should I tell her to expect?
I had a hip MRI last year. The technologist gave me a headset that was tuned into a radio station. It helped to mask the noise somewhat, but didn’t completely eliminate it.
The noise an MRI makes is almost constant when it’s in use. The only problem she might have is when the machine starts.
Robin
You have to lie on a narrow, movable table that will gradually slide you through the circular bore of a large, doughnut-shaped magnet which will record the images and it can take from 30 to 60 minutes for the testing to complete.
The machine unfortunatly can make loud noises and the tray will move about during the testing.
I have a brother with Cerebral Palsy who also lost his infantile startle reflex, and having had a lower spine MRI last year I have to say that the noise would probably be too much for Doe without headphones to mask it off.
Better still, I have heard that people can be sedated for this when necessary, so maybe it’s worth asking about that?
Check with the doctor and MRI people - The MRI techs should be quite familiar with how to handle jittery subjects. Some mild sedation is probably in order - eg: give her a valium before the scan.
I’ve had a few MRIs, and while most of the scans began gently with what I’m guessing to be calibration or locating pulses, some started at full-strength noise. Hopefully she’s not claustrophobic either. For a hip scan, she’s going to be very deep in the machine.
I had an MRI about a month ago, and the machine is pretty noisy when operating, which might be in bursts from about 10 seconds to a minute or so. I did have a headphone with a nurse talking to me, and actually counting down to when the machine started and stopped, so I knew exactly what was going on.
When I scheduled this, I was repeatedly asked whether I had any problems with claustrophobia. 4 or 5 times, with every succeeding nurse or technician repeating it. I suspect this may arise fairly often as an issue, because they’re taking such care to screen people about it.
I went into the machine feet-first for mine. If this is the case, she won’t be right on top of the noise, but it’ll still be audible.
Robin
I don’t think she’s claustrophic – frankly, it hasn’t that really come up that I can remember. Anyway – thanks everyone for the info. I’ll let her know what to expect. That helps quite a bit, actually – Doe is cognitively completely normal and can, to a certain extent, overcome the startle freak-outs if she has a bit of warning and they aren’t too bad. We’ll definately ask for headphones and some mild sedation, if possible.
Shrinking Violet – we haven’t “met” before, I don’t think. How old is your brother? And how involved is he, if you don’t mind my asking? Oh, and did you get your screename from the Legion of SuperHeroes character?
I just showed this thread to Doe – she feels much better and thanks you all very much!
Hi Jess! My brother is now 28, and, to my mind, hasn’t fulfilled his potential intellectually - he’s very bright, but my parents took the decision to concentrate on “living skills” rather than academic ones when they had to choose between two very different schools for him.
This has been an on-going bone of contention between us (I was 16 when he was born). 
I always felt he should have had a chance to develop his mind, and that he could have picked up those living skills as he went along … for all that, he is still very dependent on them (because my mother “needs” him to be :rolleyes: ), and keeps himself occupied at a local project for physically challenged people, making pottery etc. Breaks my heart.
As for my name - nope, it’s because I’m quite reserved … and at the time of registering I was losing weight and my favourite colour was violet. If I were registering today I’d probably be Exploding Teal. 
Thanks, Shrinking Violet – interesting about your parents choosing a school for your brother that focused on ‘life-skills’ vice academics. He’s only 12 years older than my daughter and yet we never had to make those choices. She’s always been fully mainstreamed in regular public school. And, although her diagnosis is “mild to moderate” – mostly because she cannot walk or stand – we’ve always been able to manage teaching her the self-help stuff at home, leaving her to concentrate on school. She attends a charter school with a focus on literary arts and has an A-B average. I often wonder where she’s be now if it weren’t for full mainstreaming. And it sounds as if your brother may be more involved – as I said, other than the walking (and, when her hip isn’t acting up, she walks darned well on crutches) Doe is pretty self-sufficient. We were lucky.
Thanks again everyone – the MRI went fine. They gave her earplugs and headphones and, while there were some beeps and bumps, she managed fine. Of course, her ortho won’t get the results until next week, so we still don’t know what’s causing the pain. One step at a time, I guess.