Have you ever watched Tom and Jerry cartoons?
Jerry...hits the cat in the head with the hammer, and then he torches his head...
well, my concussion was the hit in the head, and the MRI was putting fire to my head.
Not quite ...but..., let me explain.
After suffering from post concussion syndrome for six weeks, I went and saw a different neurologist. she ordered an MRI.
On the seventh week , I started feeling better.
I called the neurologist to ask if this test was necessary, since I was feeling better. Her response was that ,"MRI was not going to hurt you, it is up to you whether you take it or not,"
After doing some research on the internet I decided to sign up for an open MRI since it has lower radio frequency.

On the day of the scan, the facility was a bit behind schedule.
I went to the MRI room and the tech had me lie down on the bed. My first reaction was this is not an open MRI. The technician said,"yes, it is look, it is open on the sides," This MRI was like the regular tube with only the sides being open.

The scan started, and within a few seconds I felt excessive heat to the top of my head.( FYI, no I did not have any metals, or dye , or anything else)
The heat sensation became unbearable, it was as if there was an open flame on top of my head. I pressed the distress call, the little ball that you push...anyhow the technician told me to wait till the scan was over because he did not want to loose any data.
So here I am stuck in this machine feeling very uncomfortable.

Finally the technician stopped the machine, he asked me what had happened...I told him, he reacted by being angry...saying that he was not going to argue with what I felt and had not felt.The scan resumed again and I did not have any more problems.

When the scan was over I sat up and felt dazed. I figured it was from the stress of being stuck in the machine.

In the hallway, I met another patient. I was surprised that his scan was finished. He said, he never had his as their machine was broken and were sending patients across the street.

The next day, I called the facility to complain. I told them that their so called "open MRI", was not a "true open MRI", and complained about the excessive heat. They thought I was the patient from the night before...I had the scan done first thing in the morning.

Here are some of the things that I have learned from my MRI

1) you can complain to the facility...but that does not do any good. They will respond by saying it never happened/they did not have malfunction with their machine/you the patient had an anxiety attack

2. You can report it to your doctor. Mine was very nervous. She claimed she had not heard of this problems before. She did not want to get involve, but she would encourage me to make a complain against the facility.

3. The health department would like to help you...however this place is not part of hospital so it is out of their jurisdiction.

4. call board of medicine, you can make a complain against the physician in charge, but not against the facility.

5. finally I talk to an engineer who does research with MRI machines. I ask him was this a contact burn? His answer was, " what you experienced was not a contact burn. It was due to too much radio frequency. This is caused by either machine malfunction(hardware / software), or human error," I hope you are going to be o.k.

6. you can file a voluntary report with FDA medwatch. This can only be done on line. You will not be able to talk to a live person calling the numbers listed on the site.

7. so I go back to my very supportive doctor and say lets suppose I received too much radio frequency to my head...what are my long term health effect of this MRI? She responds by saying that that she did not know, the only way to know is to have another MRI.

This had been very frustrating to me, when things go wrong there is no one to give answers, or to be held accountable.This is part of the reason why I have been short with the people around me.