Hi all, just wanted to let you know I had my mri today and went well. I read over all the suggestions you gave me last night and found this really helpful, so thanks so much.

The mri center staff were great. Even though I felt there was no way I could undergo the scan without sedation due to my claustrophobia, they asked me to give it a shot and i agreed to. I had moments of extreme anxiety today leading up to the mri but I didn't supress it and this really helped me not to 'let it out' at the last moment! so thanks to everyone who stressed the importance of not pretending to be braver then you feel, and being honest about your feelings.

I was nervous but quite calm when my name was called, and the nurse had said i was allowed to take my partner into the scan with me! This is such a fantastic thing for them to allow, and it is what allowed me to remain calm during the scan, so much so that I didn't have to be sedated! A big surprise there.

The mri seemed to be quite wide and short as it is the one used for claustrophobic patients. By no means was it an open machine but it didn't look that scary, and the room was lit in a really good way too. Little things like the surrounding enviroment really help I think. The biggest terror I felt was as I was being prepared to go into the machine, so as I started to slide in I stopped it to ask the attendent to please tell me when I was halfway through the scan and she said she would. This helped so much with the overwhelming fear I was feeling.

The biggest help though was as I said before, having my partner sit just outside the machine and massage my feet and legs. (from my knees down was out of the machine). It stopped me freaking out that i had been left alone (what happened in the CAT scan) and just helped...SO MUCH. The nurse told me this wasn't something they usually did, but they offered it to me pretty much right away. It's something they should offer, to everyone.

I wore earplugs as this was a really loud machine, and I decided not to listen to my cd as I had the feeling it would be too much confusion with all the different sounds. Some of the noises were scary, but luckily I study contemporary dance and we use a lot of 'industrial' sounding noises in the music scores for our pieces, so by the end of it I was choreographing a dance in my head to the sounds! My partner is a musician and he also enjoyed the sounds! I didn't expect that! it actually distracted me from my claustrophobia.

At other times I just distracted myself by thinking about the current life situations of my friends, and things that are happening in my life at the moment. This helped keep my mind off what was happening. The few times I did feel a panic I made sure i was breathing deeply and brought up another topic to think about, or focussed on the fact my partner was right there.

I closed my eyes before i went in and left them closed the whole time. I didn't feel closed in like I did with the CAT scan, strangely enough. I was aware I was in the tube, but if I started to get scared the touch of my partner's hand brought me out of it. The tube didn't look scary before I went in, as it was well lit and I could see it was relatively short, and I just didn't feel my normal fear. (As my eyes were closed I also didn't know how far in I was which was a plus.)

The attendent telling me I was halfway there was fantastic, and how many lots of sounds to expect. Having the buzzer and knowing I could get out at anytime was great too. My scan was only 15mins, it might sound ridiculous that I was so scared of a 15 minute scan when people endure ones so much longer. It was probably one of the longest 15mins of my life though!

This had turned into an enormous ramble but I hope it might be useful to someone else down the line. Thankyou all so very much!

If were to repeat any of the advice you gave me and what I have learnt is 1)Don't be afraid to feel what you are feeling, and to ask the attendent for what you need to feel safe. 2)Ask if you can have someone in there with you. Even if they just have a hand on your foot, it makes such an incredible difference.