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Originally Posted by lady_express_44
I've run into a number of people who felt that they may not have gotten accurate results because gad wasn't used, and to be honest, I wondered for a long time if my original MRI showed everything that was going on at the time. I haven't had a MRI since then, and there were only 2 - 3 brain lesions (he pointed them out on the image, and the radiologist's report endorsed that), but I am having another MRI (with gad this time) some time in the near future.
Most of my damage is in the spinal cord anyway, but I also had lots of bulging discs. I think the reason she is going for a MRI with gad this time (in the spine), is to try to differentiate between that damage and the MS lesions.
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I don't get the impression that you're having new or exacerbated symptoms. If not, then there are only two reasons for prescribing gadolinium:
- The neurologist is ordering it as a routine protocol; or
- He/she doesn't really understand where gadolinium is indicated
Don't laugh - you'd be amazed at how many order gadolinium in cases where it will contribute nothing (e.g., a routine cervical spine in a patient with tingling in the hand and no previous history of surgery, a lumbar spine to r/o a herniated disk, etc.)
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BTW, do you know if spinal lesions might show up bigger if the MRI is done during the flare up? That seems to make sense to me, but I'm wondering how big of difference, i.e. double the size, there might be depending on if someone is in the midst of a flare.
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I don't know the answer to that one.
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As far as my daughter, I don't know what the ped. neuro meant by "piecing together" her MRI results. I envisioned that they got images from many various angles, and between all of them she felt she had enough information to determine if there were lesions present. 
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I'm
too.
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My daughter is still having neurological problems, but much improved from a few months ago. I won't be getting her another MRI unless things change substantially in time, and I do believe that lesions that weren't visible during the first neurological event, can crop up some time down the road. What I've found though is . . . every ADULT that I polled a few months back, who had a clear MRI to begin with, always had MS lesions the next time a MRI was done. The lesions showed up within 12 - 18 months in every case (that a person had another MRI that early on . . .).
Thanks for sharing your expertise.
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NP, and I wish both you and your daughter the best.
