I've wanted to have an MRI scan my brain for a year or two now. You should post pictures if you're able.
It's only when I feel fine that my doctors want a new MRI, when I'm not feeling right they just want to give me new drugs. Over the past 15 or so rides 'in the pipe' I've come to feel there's no point in worrying about what could be there until you know what is there. The problem I always have to deal with is the tech not reading the file. All of my tattoos were done after 1980, I was 12 in 1980 so it's not real likely I'd have anything from the seventies that might have metal based pigments. I did get shot in the leg, once, and there are xrays proving there is no metal left in the leg. Still, they almost always want another round. Just on the off shot someone put some back.
Mythbusters busted the MRI tattoo myth. It was the strangest machine. They slide you in the tube as you say, and you do feel terribly confined. Then it makes a tremendous sound akin to a jackhammer, it vibrates and shakes in various patterns over 2 and 3 minute intervals each. I didn't know about the noise or the vibrating. I always thought it would just quietly hum.
oh no, they make a fucking racket. Did you at least get to choose your own music? They'll usually plug your phone into the sound system so that's not all you're hearing. That would have driven my fucking crazy. For everyone else, this is what an MRI sounds like: You can skip around a bit just to get a feel for it. But if you're looking to really get a feel for it, turn on the sounds and then lie as still as you can underneath your desk until all the noises stop.
Yep, that's what it sounded like. They gave me headphones, no music. And you look into a little periscope arrangement so you can see the technicians through the window in the next room.
"periscope arrangement?" My last MRI there was a tiny little mirror, that shown out the tube and into the lab. But my first MRI happened in a little trailer parked outside the hospital. I got a tube to speak into in case I freaked out, some classical music and that was it.
The kind of sleep where you lay on your back, arms at your sides, inside a medical robe, under rapidly cooling blankets?
No, I understand the concept. I'm saying I just had a mirror above my head at the 45° angle. Everyone looked like they were wandering around upside down, but I got used to it.
how many people did you interact with? Because you're probably going to get a bill from about half of them. On my last MRI, I even got a bill from the woman who administered the contrast material.
My insurance covers 80% and it's an HMO so everyone including the doctors are employees. There may be separate costs for the physician and tech services but I'm not too worried.
I must have had a CT scan when I had meningitis. It resembled that machine but did not make that noise. ETA: Also, I remember being given a contrast dye that made my mouth taste like oxidized metal and made me feel like I had maybe peed myself, but no, I hadn't.
Yep, that would be a CT Scan. CTs are also a lot quicker. My MRI was about as long as @Jack Asher's video.
